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Graffiti proving troublesome around Durango
Herald Staff Writer
Photo by JERRY McBride/Herald
Graffiti almost 10 feet tall recently appeared on a retaining wall on Colorado Highway 3 near the intersection with Sawmill Road.
Tags reading "R2" have shown up on a retaining wall above the sloping of the Animas River, behind Nature's Oasis, visible to northbound drivers on Camino del Rio. The text that accompanies the logo reads: "Hello to the player. Hell no the game."
"Nice," said a sarcastic Durango Police Department Officer Nicki Rudnicki, standing above the Animas.
Other tags have popped up on the city's water tower behind Miller Middle School, the wooden sign above Colorado Highway 3 and Santa Rita Boulevard that was formerly used by Fort Lewis College as a welcome sign and a retaining wall on Camino del Rio closer to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad station.
At the Best Western Rio Grande, behind the train station at the isolated south end of Main Avenue, director of facilities Kevin Relaford said tagging comes with the territory.
He said his building's exposed back wall gets hit because it sits in a dark, empty part of town, and taggers can squat between cars and avoid detection.
"Oh yeah, we get tagged pretty frequently," he said. "So far, there hasn't been anything offensive or gang-related."
The hotel hired a security guard to catch the taggers, and the guard even engaged them one night.
"He came back to me in the morning and said, 'They're a hell of a lot younger than me,'" said Relaford.
Relaford, whose son works at Denier Youth Services and says many of the students housed there are "very talented but misdirected," said he'd love a young artist to work with him on a legitimate mural project on his back wall, if for no other reason than to cover up prime tagging real estate.
"But you just got to live with it," he said.
gandrews@durangoherald.com'>gandrews@durangoherald.com
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Durango Herald Calendar of Events
Thursday, November 26, 2009
at 8:36:29 PM
Suggest removal
RTWO (R2) says...
HELLO!
Art is my life. all i am doing is making a plain wall just a little more exciting.. no one really cared about these walls until i painted something on em. Building walls around town so the city can profile us is not a very good idea(haha!).. The wall formerly used by Fort Lewis College as a welcome sign on Camino del Rio was just a rotting piece of trash wall on that hill, i doubt anyone cared about it! There are plenty of spots in this town already and the city will just keep on building cause to them its all about expanding.. building things we dont necessary need. That's where we come in!! But check out my work behind the north city market recycling wall.. that one is awesome! Anyways.. i am not alone.. there's a lot of us. and we dont buy supplies from this town.. we're just a bunch of quiet kids running around. Seeing our work on the paper doesn't encourage me, my Family and friends do. We mean no harm to anyone. This is just one way to share our love for art. The art of graffiti is how we speak.
....and Durango's finally starting to hear us.
Much love to my Family and Friends!
-RTWO
"..A coward gets scared and quits, A hero gets scared.. but goes on!"
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
at 11:31:53 PM
Suggest removal
Julie says...
The town in which I used to live was able to tackle the graffiti problem very effectively. Their goal was to paint over the graffiti as soon as it popped up (within 24 hours). They had a special phone number that citizens could call to report graffiti, and then they sent someone out to paint over it immediately with a neutral colored paint. (I am sure people would volunteer for this). The city in which I lived had a budget for this so that business owners that got hit with graffiti did not have to pay for the removal. It made a huge difference. The amount of graffiti diminished significantly because the people doing it realized that it just wasn't going to stay there long enough for people to see it. The city also worked with graffiti artists to create murals around town. Also, when I was in Philadelphia, the city had numerous murals and I was told that that was the solution that Philadelphia used. It definitely made the city much nicer than it used to be. I would also recommend that the newspaper not print any more pictures of the graffiti because it just encourages them. I am sure they are even more inspired now that their grafitti has been photographed and put in the newspaper.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
at 6:42:32 PM
Suggest removal
Terry says...
... said he'd love a young artist to work with him on a legitimate mural project on his back wall...
What a great suggestion! There are many locations in city that could benefit from the local art talent. What if a number of local businesses stepped up to support murals in open areas that contribute to the artistic beauty and sense of place in our community working in partnership with the artists like Pongas recently did? What if we helped fund and construct a couple of grafitti walls (maybe near the skate park) and encouraged the youth to keep it fresh and show us their best work?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
at 11:18:24 AM
Suggest removal
Sarah says...
If you have a cell phone with camera- use it to prove who the kid is and make him /her clean it up. Are kids allowed to buy these spray paints? If you are really wanting to catch these folks, call your local paint stores and I am sure someone knows.
I came across several taggers in summer afternoon and I immediately called the cops but they were late. So the taggers usually have a backpack and a look out person. They are as afraid of getting caught than anything.