1970s SPECIAL REPORT: "NYC GRAFFITI"

Around 1970-71 the center of graffiti culture shifted from Philadelphia to New York City, especially around Washington Heights, where suspects such as TAKI 183 and Tracy 168started to gain notoriety for their frequent vandalism. Using a naming convention in which they would add their street number to their nickname, they "bombed" a train with their work, letting the subway take it throughout the city. Bubble lettering was popular among perpetrators from the Bronx, but was replaced with a new "wildstyle", a term coined by Tracy 168 and a legendary original Graffiti crew with over 500 members including Blade, Cope 2, T Kid 170, Cap, Juice 177, and Dan Plasma. Graffiti tags started to grow in style and size. Notable names from that time include DONDI, Lady Pink, Zephyr, Julio 204, STAY HIGH 149, PHASE 2.

Graffiti was growing competitive and artists desired to see their names across the city. Around 1974 suspects like Tracy 168, CLIFF 159 and BLADE ONE started to create works with more than just their names: they added illustrations, full of scenery and cartooncharacters, to their tags, laying the groundwork for the mural-car. The standards from the early 70s continue to evolve, and the late 1970s and early 1980s saw new styles and ideas. As graffiti spread beyond Washington Heights and the Bronx, a graffiti crime wave was born. Fab 5 Freddy(Friendly Freddie, Fred Brathwaite) was one of the most notorious graffiti figures of that era. He notes how differences in spray technique and letters between Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn began to merge in the late 70s: "out of that came 'Wild Style'."Fab 5 Freddy is often credited with helping to spread the influence of graffiti and rap music beyond its early foundations in the Bronx, and making links in the mostly white downtown art and music scenes. It was around this time that the established art world started becoming receptive to the graffiti culture for the first time since Hugo Martinez's Razor Gallery in the early 1970s.