As one of the oldest forms of communication, writing or drawing on walls was key to transferring of information before language was firmly established (Bates, 2014). Cave drawings are assumed to have been functional in a sense of communication and sharing of information of survival relating to items such as hunting, and food storage. One of the earliest examples of graffiti in its current application of “leaving one’s mark” dates back to 78 BC. with writing on a wall in Pompeii stating “Gaius Pumidius Diphilus was here.” This was possibly the first example of graffiti for the purpose of identifying oneself for the purpose of recognition from the community. Perhaps the most famous graffiti to date began in World War II, where the writing of “Kilroy was Here” began appearing throughout Europe in and around the towns in which the allied troops were fighting (Bates, 2014).
The moniker was taken on by servicemen who would scrawl the text and iconic character throughout Europe. The motif was appearing so frequently that the German forces suspected it to be an encrypted message and the work of an allied spy when in actuality it was simply benign graffiti with no real intention behind it. The Kilroy insignia gained comedic notoriety through the UK and North America, recreated by others through the decades randomly popping up in cities all over the world. Although this was not typical graffiti as we know it today, it was a segue to the cultural phenomenon that graffiti would take on in the years to come (Bates, 2014).
6.0 New York
Many people believe that graffiti’s origins stem from New York. Few would argue that this is where it took hold and evolved, but the street graffiti in the cultural sense that we refer to it today reportedly started in Philadelphia. Ashanti White (2014) reports that in 1967 a young man named Darryl McCray, nicknamed “Cornbread”, began writing “Cornbread loves Cynthia” to win the affection of his high school crush. His adoration for young Cynthia was of such magnitude that his relentless tagging became so legendary in volume and audacity with claims that he once tagged an elephant at the Philadelphia zoo, as well as the Jackson 5’s private airplane as the band visited the city (White, 2014).
In the early 1970s graffiti for the most part was being created in localized areas of cities, with “writers” sporadically tagging walls and structures mostly in their own neighbourhoods as a form of expression (Bates, 2014). It was not until a graffiti writer, working as a parcel courier in New York, began scribbling “Taki 183” on his delivery routes all across the city that culture of graffiti changed forever. The New York Times took notice of the 17 year old writer, printing a story titled “Taki 183 Spawns Pen Pals” (New York Times, 1971) that documented the graffiti writer’s prolific tagging and his popularity in the graffiti subculture. From the moment the article hit the newsstands a massive interest in graffiti was ignited. New graffiti writers and those already painting instantly aspired to gain the recognition that Taki 183 achieved, and began tagging rampantly in their own neighbourhoods and in other communities, spreading their work across city boundaries and increasing the amount of graffiti on the streets exponentially. The state of New York was impacted by this more than anywhere else, with seasoned taggers, gangs, and new writers scribbling their tags all over the city. This explosion of graffiti erupted on the streets adding one more component of distress to the already declining social and economic condition of New York (Kelling, 2009).
In 1975 the state of New York teetered on the verge of bankruptcy with unemployment at unprecedented levels, crime rampant, and housing conditions deteriorating rapidly. Reinforced by President Gerald Ford dismissing the pleas for a financial bailout, many New Yorkers concluded that America had turned its back on the destitute state, essentially leaving them to deal with their own problem (Roberts, 2006). As a result, the boroughs of Queens, The Bronx, and Brooklyn fell into such decrepitude that the Broken Window effect was spiralling out of control. For the most part, the government and police forces who could not control this magnitude of social and economic situation surrendered to the overwhelming visual decline. With no one cleaning, repairing, or policing the communities, the streets became covered with trash and visual disarray. Businesses closed, and financially able residents moved out of their long time neighborhoods that rapidly became infested with drugs, mass unemployment, that with the growing numbers of vacant lots, and burned out buildings literally resembled war zones.
Through this period graffiti was ever present, becoming synonymous with the deterioration of New York with walls, dumpsters, vehicles, schools, and transportations system covered in layers of spray paint. The subways and train systems were perhaps the hardest hit, becoming world renowned for graffiti, litter, and crime (Spicer, 2005). Windows, seats, floors, ceilings, inside, outside and even on top were all covered with spray tags, marker pen, and glass etching as these writers traveled to different areas and boroughs solely for the purpose of tagging.