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Koko, we hardly knew ye
By adamg on Thu, 10/19/2017 - 6:40pm
Harry Mattison snapped the gray wall where, only yesterday, an artist painted a mural of Koko the Gorilla, only a day after he painted a mural of a woman petting her pussy. The artist himself blames the city graffiti-buster program for the battleship gray.
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Comments
Way to go, City Hall.
Way to go, City Hall. All six Bos311 cases marked "closed" 6 hours ago, with pictures of the new gray wall. They didn't even bother to read the details of the reports, or pay any attention to the submitted photos. One glance and they would have realized it was already fixed. I've always been a fan of Graffiti Busters, but what a shameful screw up. All that work by all those artists, just gone.
https://311.boston.gov/reports?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=mural
That paint job reminds me of something ...
Something like this.
Hilarious!
I was OK till I got to "you went above the line" then I fell off my chair laughing!
I don't know, there
I think you are assuming a lot. You are assuming that the crew was dispatched with a photograph of the offending graffiti. More likely, they were given a dispatch that said to go to the address and paint over the offending graffiti. They saw the graffiti and painted it over. Job done. Case closed. How the heck would they know that the graffiti they took care of what not the one that sparked numerous complaints? Why would you assume that the crew read this website before heading out to for a day's work?
I'm sure this will all be worked out. The artists did 2+ murals on that one space in a short amount of time. I think they could stop by and paint another.
Will The Mayoral Candidates Have An Opinion On The Murals?
We'll never know
No more debates and our local press doesn't cover the race (except for Adam.)
1 more debate
Next Tuesday, 7 pm, carried on WGBH 2, GBH radio and streamed online.
Thanks Irma
Thought there were 2 and one canceled due to the WBZ strike.
This is how poor the coverage has been. Even those of us that pay attention to these things don't know what's going on!
WBUR has had both candidates
WBUR has had both candidates on for an hour each this week.
In what seemed to be fairly expansive conversations.
http://www.wbur.org/radioboston
WTF
The gorilla looked so much better than the boring, bland battleship gray. Maybe we can get a new mural everyday.
This...
...is some bullshit right here.
311 at work?
It would be interesting to determine of there was a 311 complaint that made that happen. If so it will be just another example of the 311 system out of control and being misused to hurt innocent people and properties by over-zealous, self-appointed, hall monitors.
Indeed if it is a 311 and they can trace it back to someone, I'd want the City to take them to court for the cost of the Graffiti Buster paint, and then the artist, presuming he had permissions, sue in fed court for destruction of his art.
311 is anonymous
No way to trace it back to the original complainer.
Are you sure
The property owner approved of the "artists" doing the work in the first place? If not, your theoretical lawsuit would be very, very difficult.
So, if a property owner wants to put up a sign
on their building, they have to go through a bureaucratic process to get "mother may I permission. But they can allow an "artist" to paint murals with just an "yeah, it's OK."
Am I the only one who considers this to be totally idiotic?
Yes, the property owner
Yes, the property owner engaged the artists to paint the mural.
Tweets from October 10 from City Realty Group:
https://twitter.com/crgboston/status/917822775016017920
https://twitter.com/crgboston/status/917852624883535872
tyranny of the least offensive
Why does Boston have a stick up its ass? This sort of art makes it a nicer, more interesting place to live.
Wait
You saw both versions of the art that prompted the 311s, right?
I mean I enjoyed them, but I probably shouldn't have. Definitely shouldn't have.
sure.
If we can't have edgy street art in Allston, where can we? Some people forget that this is a city, and it's supposed to have some grit, for fuck's sake.
Then buy a building and pay them to paint on it
.
You are missing a key bit of info here
The owners of this building asked the muralists to paint the building.
SO ... somebody DID buy a building and DID ask/pay them to paint the murals.
SharpWave - edgy doesn't have
SharpWave - edgy doesn't have to mean demeaning to women. The first version of the mural was over the top.
Yes
What Allston needs is a mural of a woman petting her pussy (cat) while said cat is performing cunilingus on her.
Way to stay classy, Allston.
Dude
If you think that is what the cat was doing, you either need some sex education or to get a cat or both.
Wow. Such imagination.
Are we really going there?
In the original mural, the cat’s tongue is between the woman’s legs. I give them credit in that with the first edit they cleaned that up. Of course, changing the leg did bring attention to what the cat was originally doing.
That was just one segment
That was just one segment of the mural - there were two other parts, by other artists, which were completely unrelated to the woman and her cat or to Koko. The whole thing was obliterated.
I do hope that the city reimburses Allston Village Main Streets, who reportedly commissioned the work and made arrangements with the building's owner, for any costs related to the artwork that was destroyed.
That'll definitely happen.
That'll definitely happen.
Yeah, I know...
Yeah, I know, but it's what *ought* to happen.
I can't say how sad this whole mess had made me. I really, really, really liked the mural (except for that one part, and even that I think had gotten an acceptable revision.) It made me happy every day it was up, and I damn near cried when I got off the bus last night and saw what had been done.
The Eye of The Beholder
Thanks but I prefer the plain gray, though bare masonry would be better still.
Sorry but mural "art" and tagging is not pleasing to my eyes.
Anyhow, it's mostly all moot as that building is slated to be torn down shortly.
Torn Down?
If correct, I'd say we've all spent way too much time on this.
Douglas Adams
More evidence that we're all living in a Douglas Adams novel.
It's not as if it's a particularly nice mural
Well, I rather happen to like it.
I thought it was going to
I thought it was going to renovated and modernized but not torn down.
http://www.bldup.com/projects/334-cambridge-street
Also, I don't think that Uncle Bill would look kindly on actually tearing it down.
Torn down, eh?
Too bad -- I enjoyed the sight of that ragged old beast.
Let me put in my predictions for what will replace it:
a) Condos...
b) ...using cheap-looking pre-fab panels for facing...
c) ...and none of the windows line up.
Battleship Grey = Vandalism
Shouldn't boring be at least a Class B misdemeanor?
They
didn't even try to match the color of the brick that's there. That's vandalism in and of itself.
Thank you photographers!
Many thanks to photographers preserving the artwork for local history!
Please see also Banksy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
World class, baby!
World class, baby!
This is why we cannot have
This is why we cannot have nice things.
You know what you have been nice
If the first floor of that building was in use rather than being boarded up. I mean, it's in a high traffic area. No reason for it to be boarded up.
It was until like 2 months
It was until like 2 months ago. The building is being sold and redeveloped.
http://www.bldup.com/projects/334-cambridge-street
Warehouse
It was warehouse space for Jack Young, and had been for decades until earlier this year. Warehouses don't generally do display windows, etc.
Except...
The first floor of this building was "boarded up" for decades even when Jack Young was in operation there. So...what's your point?
If it was a warehouse, that
If it was a warehouse, that is why it was boarded up.
Why would you have a warehouse with windows?
Coming Down Anyhow
That building along with 3 other adjacent or nearby properties were bought within the past year by a real estate group. Since none of the properties is likely rescue-able [cheaper to renovate than rebuild] all are likely to get wrecked in favor of new construction.
Timeline
Yeah, the Jack Young Trust sold the entire parcel between Harvard and Linden, which will almost certainly be turned into high-rise condos at some point. But given the glacial pace of redevelopment in the Boston area (see also Lower Allston along Western Ave), why not have something nice to look at during the likely several years that it will take for that to happen?
As Allstonian said, the Allston mural was top-notch work, and I enjoyed looking at it while I waited for my bus. I also liked two of the three murals (Koko and the second version of the original) that were on the Linden Street side over the last week. The people who actually live in this neighborhood and actually pass by this space every day were far from united in opposition to the murals.
(sorry for the duplicate)
(sorry for the duplicate)
(sorry for the duplicate)
(sorry for the duplicate)
As dm2 put it
The building was designed with windows on the first floor, along with a door by the corner. A use of the building that incorporated the entrance and the windows would have been a better use of the space. You know, nice things, instead of storage.
That's my point.
Cool.
You should definitely call up Jack Young Company and tell them they were using that building all wrong for over six decades. They'll appreciate the input.
Read the thread
I'm just saying that using the space for what it appears to intended for would be a "nice thing."
Can Graffiti Busters ride the Red Line
I am really getting tired of "END ZIONISM NOW" and the other works of vandals between Savin Hill and the tunnel at Andrew. The murals on the walls behind the Southie Projects are about twenty feet high which means the vandals would have needed ladders to complete their art works which would have taken several hours to finish. These art crimes leads one to question the ability of the MBTA police to secure the Red Line from vandals.
Art crimes?
.
I feel bad for the people
I feel bad for the people living above. Can you imagine all the paint fumes from spray paint right below their windows?
Is it even legal for the City
Is it even legal for the City to go onto private property and paint a building that is not theirs without first contacting the building owner? That seems like a problem.
Probably a waiver in place
When a graffiti complaint is made about private property, the city contacts the owner and tells them to clean it up. But they also offer a waiver for the Graffiti Busters team to take care of it. This building has been vacant for several months now, and it was being tagged repeatedly. My guess is that the owners signed a waiver so that the Graffiti Busters team could clean up whenever.
This might also explain why they were so prompt to obliterate this, while the burned triple decker further down Linden Street remains a tag-covered eyesore for months on end.
Lol Boston art scene is as
Lol Boston art scene is as bad as it gets thanks for nationally exposing the stick up your butts