Here’s a snippet of an email we received the other day from Mary Ann Pastene,
Co-Chair of the Northwest District Association Safety and Livability Committee. She wanted to inform us that a couple of our newspaper boxes in her neck of the woods (NW 23rd Ave) had some graffiti on them.

The Northwest District Association is monitoring the condition of publication boxes located in the public right of way within the district’s boundaries. Your boxes currently in need of cleaning and/or repair are located at:
SW Corner Lovejoy and 22nd
Between 1305 and 1301 on SW 23rd
We request that you clean and repair these boxes. Graffiti is illegal (Portland City Code Chapter 14B.80), and degrading. Maintaining the proper box condition to insure they remain graffiti and damage-free is important to our neighborhood and to the success of your publication.
Thank you for your compliance with this important issue. With your cooperation, we can keep Portland a clean and livable city.

So first of all, we don’t mind getting notices like these at all. Our circ manager Jay is one fastidious motherfucker, and thrives on keeping our newspaper boxes as tidy as possible. (That being said, we think Mary Ann’s info is old—that box on 22nd and Lovejoy SW 23rd was overhauled in February, and remains clean as a whistle.) Anyway, it’s nice when someone lets us know when some tweaky squirrel with a paint can has tagged them.

On the other hand, graffiti is “degrading”? And according to this story Mary Ann wrote for the Northwest District Association, it’s also “humiliating”? Those aren’t quite the words I’d use. Most of the graffiti tagging I’ve seen is of pretty crappy quality, without much artistic merit—but I’m certainly not “humiliated” or “degraded” by it (however, I am degraded by my behavior at Fantasy Unlimited last Friday night). And what about the graffiti that does have some artistic merit? Though few and far between, it is out there, and occasionally even lands on our boxes—and there’s no way we’re gonna scrub those off. BUT… what do I know, right? Since the denizens of Blogtown are my only true moral compass, LET’S GO TO THE POLLS!

Bang bang, choo-choo train, let me see you shake that thang. Wm. Steven Humphrey is the editor-in-chief of the Portland Mercury and has held the job since 2000. (So don’t get any funny ideas.)

12 replies on “Graffiti: Are You Feeling “Degraded” Yet?”

  1. I wish there was a way to legally distinguish between folks like Banksy and this other crap all over the place – and tagging.
    The egos of young men….
    Banksy is about the best public art I’ve seen, and it didn’t cost me anything to put up either.

  2. The NDA’s logic is faulty. A Portland Mercury newspaper box is already an infinitely degrading object, therefore there is no way that graffiti or damage could make it any more degrading.

  5. Is any of this by Banksy? Someone let me know so I can go grab it and take it to Sotheby’s (this comment thread printed as authentication).

  9. Mary Ann Pastene must not move too fast if they are degrading her by tagging her.

    We’ll send Amanda Fritz right over to clean up that newspaper box.

  10. The Mercury is not the big offender in NWDA. First prize goes to Home Source which have over 13 boxes covered with tags many of which are used as trash cans. I’d like more trash cans but these don’t cut it since there is no pick-up service. Mary Ann supported a mural by Jeremy Eaton just last month so I think she gets the idea of tags v. art. I think I’d love to have someone lift and dump a few unused publication boxes into the dumpster sadly they are a bit too heavy for Amanda. Come tour the boxes and check out the cement base remains of old metal publication box on NW 23rd outside of Restoration Hardware I’m sure it is trash to busted to use as a trash container — or the other at the street car stop on Lovejoy by Good Sam I can’t even be sure where Mary Ann should send those letters. Glad to see that the letter did not just get filed away.

  11. Hey, Steven, you’re out of touch with the community. Your boxes are covered in graffiti, at least in NW. And, discussing the artistic merits of graffiti is like discussing the artistic merits of dog crap. Please just do your part to clean it up.

    Rico, barf away. If you want dirty neighborhoods, and if you’re going to dis’ Mary Ann for looking out for us, go back to LA or Seattle or wherever you came from. I hear the Sounders are looking for people to piss on Portland. Get lost. Portland cares!

  12. Hey anoidbirichards!
    Re: “Your boxes are covered in graffiti, at least in NW.”

    BULLSHIT. Photographic proof, please. (In other words, go cover a box with graffiti, so you can take a picture of it, thus “proving” you bullshit point.)

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