Thursday, July 24, 2008
News Witness: Cops target Cabbagetown muralists
Posted by Mara Shalhoup on Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 10:15 PM
The week after two taggers and the man who attacked them reached a peaceful resolution over the highly charged issue of how much graffiti is too much in Cabbagetown, tensions in the neighborhood flared again.
This time, it was Atlanta police who cracked down.
At around 2:30 a.m. this morning, muralists with an out-of-state art collective called Trust Your Struggle were putting up a mural in the Krog Street tunnel when four patrol cars responded. Police put an abrupt end to their painting, according to witness Dawn Smith.
About an hour earlier, the artists, who had come to Atlanta to do a free commissioned mural at West End's Omenala-Griot Afrocentric Museum, arrived with Smith at the Cabbgetown bar 97 Estoria. At the bar, Smith and several other patrons mentioned that the muralists should paint something in the tunnel, which is widely perceived by graffiti artists and Cabbagetown residents as a "free space" for graffiti-styled murals.
"Neighbors, people from Estoria all gathered around" to watch them paint, Smith says.
Within 15 minutes, Smith says, the cops arrived. "They proceeded to harass and threaten to arrest people," she says. "It was really this tense standoff."
One of the onlookers, Angel Poventud, says everyone was taken aback by the police response. Typically, the city has been tolerant of graffiti in the tunnel.
"It was kind of overkill, and silly," Poventud says. "We were trying to explain to the officers that that’s a free paint zone."
Though both Smith and Poventud say no one was arrested, the incident illuminates the challenges that Cabbagetown faces while trying to decide whether to encourage or crack down on graffiti artists who've used the railroad wall flanking Krog Street as their canvas.
Earlier this month, the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association painted over some of the graffiti art, angering some residents of the funky, artists enclave. The neighborhood group then decided to form a steering committee to get community feedback on how to best encourage artistic expression along the wall.
like
dislike
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Time and Place: Get off my head ASAP
I found the reaction of the kid getting surfed on to be absolutely hilarious.
-
Developers considering apartments next to Atlanta Waterworks reservoir on the Westside? 6
Firm asks city to rezone five-acre former steel supply company along Huff Road
-
First Slice 2/16/12: Facebook to the rescue
- More »
Author Archives
-
A goodbye, without regrets 8
Ironically, CL's able staff makes it easier to leave without worries
-
Warren Ullom: Death, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Part I 57
A talented musician. A beautiful woman. A fatal cocktail of heroin and cocaine.
-
Death, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Part II 78
Warren Ullom: A talented musician's recovery, incarceration and swan song
- More »
