Long Island Mike
Senior Member
Graffiti: It actually began in Philadelphia along with New York!
Everyone: Graffiti as we know it actually began with a pioneer writer in Philadelphia named "Cornbread" around 1970 or so.
It quickly spread 90 miles north to New York City taking hold in the NYC Subways in 1972. Even today there is a "Philly" style of graffiti-which I can not describe easily but I can almost instantly recognize.
Philadelphia had graffiti on their transit system in the 70s as much as or in cases even more then NYC-writers actually then would go into subway tunnels to tag-usually with visible white paint-much of which is still visible today. I recall back in the 70s there were certain station hallways and areas there was literally covered with graffiti-a prime example was the 11th Street Station on the Market Street Subway before it was renovated in the early 80s. I also remember a group called Klub City Decorators-one of the first graffiti groups that I recall.
In the 1980s SEPTA(Philadelphia's transit system)under David Gunn declared all-out war on Graffiti-even starting their own police force with eradication of graffiti a prime target. It amazes me that even 30 years later the "Philly" style of graffiti is still recognizable.
New York has its own style-it seems that artists worldwide copy this style-made famous by movies like "Wild Style" in the 80s and the promotion of urban and rap culture that took hold then. You saw graffiti afterwards in cities and places that never had it before-like in Europe.
This is some info I recall on graffiti from memory-
LI MIKE
Everyone: Graffiti as we know it actually began with a pioneer writer in Philadelphia named "Cornbread" around 1970 or so.
It quickly spread 90 miles north to New York City taking hold in the NYC Subways in 1972. Even today there is a "Philly" style of graffiti-which I can not describe easily but I can almost instantly recognize.
Philadelphia had graffiti on their transit system in the 70s as much as or in cases even more then NYC-writers actually then would go into subway tunnels to tag-usually with visible white paint-much of which is still visible today. I recall back in the 70s there were certain station hallways and areas there was literally covered with graffiti-a prime example was the 11th Street Station on the Market Street Subway before it was renovated in the early 80s. I also remember a group called Klub City Decorators-one of the first graffiti groups that I recall.
In the 1980s SEPTA(Philadelphia's transit system)under David Gunn declared all-out war on Graffiti-even starting their own police force with eradication of graffiti a prime target. It amazes me that even 30 years later the "Philly" style of graffiti is still recognizable.
New York has its own style-it seems that artists worldwide copy this style-made famous by movies like "Wild Style" in the 80s and the promotion of urban and rap culture that took hold then. You saw graffiti afterwards in cities and places that never had it before-like in Europe.
This is some info I recall on graffiti from memory-
LI MIKE
