American-Journal Magazine

Once a rumbling collage of bubbly letters and fading paint, New York’s City’s subway cars are now uniform – each a clean, shiny metallic silver. It’s a change that came in the late 1980s when city officials promised that no graffiti-covered car would leave the train yards.

With their moving galleries gone, New York City’s “graffiti writers” sought out dark corners in the boroughs and claimed walls as their own with a few stylishly painted letters. They climbed to out-of-the way places, painted in the dark and always looked over their shoulders.

Now 20 years later, as the seven train rises from a Manhattan tunnel in Long Island City, giant letters and bold strokes of spray paint welcome passengers to Queens.

Vibrant images cover a five-story building, known as 5 Pointz, thousands of square feet of brick, block and steel where graffiti is encouraged, not forbidden.