Volunteers from Seattle Country Day School will be repairing the tagged mural under the Aurora Bridge this Saturday, May 15, according to Head of School Michael G. Murphy. The mural, which has been tagged and repaired countless times, was repainted just last fall. Unfortunately the site seems to be a frequent target for vandals.
“Let’s hope it remains in good shape and not hit again by graffiti!” Murphy wrote. Murphy also emphasized Seattle Country Day School’s commitment to contributing to the Queen Anne community. He wrote:
Besides the mural and Adopt-a-Street clean-up, SCDS has hopefully been a positive influence in the neighborhood in other ways. Several of our students have made multiple visits to the nearby Queen Anne Care Center bringing Valentine’s Day gifts, sharing music, and interviewing some residents as part of their history classes. Also, for several years, our students have regularly been sprucing –up designated areas in Rogers and Mayfair Park under the guidance of the city’s Parks Department.
Vandalism around the neighborhood is nothing new. Read up on the most recent occurrences here.
Graffiti vandalism on both public and private property has been a large and ongoing discussion in Queen Anne and citywide, especially recently. Though not everyone can agree on how vandalism should be handled, most do agree that the issue is an important one that affects many residents, business owners and local organizations on a daily basis. The City of Seattle joined in on the discussion this week, asking community members to let them know how they’re doing in terms of graffiti response. Photo of graffiti watch group on Queen Anne Ave N. in April 2010.
City Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Tom Rasmussen have asked the Office of City Auditor to review and evaluate the current response to graffiti and then make recommendations to the Mayor and the City Council. As part of the review process, the City Auditor has come up with a ten-question survey asking community members if graffiti (both public and private) is an issue for them, how often their property has been marked with graffiti and what improvements can be made in the city’s graffiti response.
Residents interested in participating may follow this link to the questionnaire, which will be open until Monday, May 10.
Need a review of the graffiti issues citywide? Check out the collaborative project between the Seattle Times and many neighborhood blogs around town.
Speakers and panelists at the forum included representatives from the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Council, as well as community and organizational leaders. Topics covered included public safety, Block Watch programs, graffiti reporting–a particularly hot issue in Queen Anne right now–and more.
For those who prefer to watch Seattle Channel on the good old fashioned TV, they will be airing repeats of the cablecast at 2 p.m. today, Thursday, April 29 and 2 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, April 30 on Channel 21.
[Editor’s note: For the sake of reporting on graffiti in Queen Anne we have included some photos of vandalism in the neighborhood. However, in an effort to not endorse or encourage vandalism, we have chosen photos that are blurred or show only part of a tag).
Two months ago Queen Anne residents woke up to find graffiti 15 feet tall sprawled across both walls of Counterbalance Park, at the corner of Queen Anne Ave N and Roy St. The next day Alex Braun, the manager of both buildings adjacent to the park’s walls–The Willis condominiums and the Barclay Court retail building–set to work to wash the paint away.
The first eleven feet of the wall had been sealed, and so the paint easily lifted off the concrete. However, the concrete above the 11-foot mark was unprotected, causing the paint to soak in. It took several weeks before the clean-up was complete and the tag entirely removed.
Although graffiti in any urban environment is not uncommon, the size and nature of this particular incident sparked discussion in the Queen Anne community. Some residents claimed vandalism had increased in recent years, while others said graffiti always had been and always would be part of the neighborhood landscape.
Braun has personally cleaned graffiti off the walls and buildings near Counterbalance Park “countless times” in the 11 years he’s been living and working next to this Lower Queen Anne corner. “It’s always been the same at my building,” he said.
“Last week alone I had–and you have to understand that I also clean up the traffic signs and parking signs that are right outside my building–so those included, last Tuesday I had two big graffities on the building–big like three feet long and a foot wide–and two on signs. So that’s a total of four on Tuesday. And then on Friday morning I had three more, so that’s seven just last week,” he said.
According to Braun, this incident was the second largest he’d ever encountered. The first was back in the early 2000s, and resembled a similar pattern, however this time the lettering was eight feet high and spanned across the entirety of just one of the walls. And though tags of this kind are infrequent, he says in his experience graffiti around the neighborhood has always been prevalent.
“Over the years, quite frankly I’ve lost track of it,” he said. “I only keep track of the really big ones.”
We called Seattle Public Utilities, the department responsible for cleaning up vandalism on public property, to find out if the number of reported incidences had in fact gone up in recent years. After weeks of back and forth, we discovered that SPU does not keep records of the numbers of incidences reported at a given address, in a specific neighborhood or citywide.
“We can give you the last date a report was called in at a specific address,” a SPU representative said. “But that’s it.”
The frequency of incidents citywide means SPU resources are often spread thin, and it is frequently left to the residents–like Braun–to decide how to handle vandalism on both public and private property. Two weekends ago the Uptown Alliance sponsored a graffiti clean-up at Counterbalance Park. Volunteers spent the day painting the top half of the wall, above the 11-foot mark, with primer and another coat of paint to better protect it against a repeat attack.
“The Parks Department could not spend the money to have the wall repainted. So the Parks Department provided us with paint and primer, and then the Uptown Alliance organized a community effort to have those walls painted from the 11-feet up to the very top,” Braun said.
Still, many in the neighborhood disagree over what the best course of action should be. Some suggest the city should hire artists to paint murals over large public walls to deter tagging.
“Personally I think they should open up those walls and allow people to actually put up awesome art. When some of those graffiti guys get time they can make big intricate pieces that would look more unique and interesting than any other city park, especially at night when they were lit up by those lights,” reader Macrus wrote.
However these projects are often targets for even more vandalism, as was the mural at Dexter underpass last year.
“I would not even dignify that aberration by calling it a tag or it’s creator a tagger. He is a petty vandal, through and through,” Rodstewart wrote of the Counterbalance graffiti. “Let’s not kid ourselves here. Real tagging requires planning, skill, technique, and patience.”
I frequently take my child to the various parks on top of Queen Anne and am a Queen Anne resident. The playground equipment is nearly always covered in graffiti, sometime vulgar. Stop signs, news paperboxes etc… often have graffiti on them as well. Something needs to be done to clean up the streets, remove this graffiti as soon as it appears and arrest those responsible. Seems we are tolerating it and should not be.
Carol E. wrote,
I am from Chicago, and when I moved to lower Queen Anne I was shocked at the amount of graffiti. In my Chicago neighborhood it gets removed ASAP. The Chicago city council outlawed the sale of spray paint within city limits, which I always thought was ridiculous since they could buy it in the suburbs. But maybe it did make a difference.
Amyalayne wrote,
How about increase funding to the Seattle PD so we can have more patrols in the area? I agree with Carol in that when I lived in CA, graffiti was removed right away and the city just doesn’t seem to care here. In a lot of cases the business owners should also be responsible for cleaning up or coordinating w/the city for removal too. The graffiti has been horrible in the three years I’ve been in lower QA. I think there also needs to be more street lights. There are many dark areas of lower QA (and upper for that matter) that just don’t make it that safe to walk around in anymore. Another idea would be to grow some ivy that covers those walls. If it’s happened once it will happen again I am sure.
Although Braun agrees that this will not be the last time graffiti is seen at Counterbalance Park, he still believes the best way to tackle the tags is to continue to clean or cover them as soon as possible.
“If they tag us again, which I know they will, we’ll just paint over it,” Braun said. “The best thing is to paint over it or remove it, and yes they will come back, but you know, they’re only going to come back two or three times and then that’s it. In my case, with my building, I noticed that when I first started there we had a lot of graffiti from a lot of famous taggers. And I was right on top of it and just had it removed the day after, as soon as I was able to,” Braun said.
And as summer approaches, Braun says vandalism will only increase with the warmer weather, when paint sticks more easily. “If you have a rainy cold day, there’s very few taggers out there because they know the paint doesn’t stick very well on a wet surface,” he said.
Still, in the hopes of deterring potential vandals, Braun advises community members continue to remove graffiti as quickly as possible.
“Yes they’re going to come back, but once they see that you’ve removed it, they realize that you’re on top of things and they’re not going to go there anymore because they know that you’ll just erase it–you make their soup sour, which is what they don’t like. It’s been working for me in my building, and I’m going to continue taking them off as soon as they come up,” he said.
A community group called “Neighbors Working Together for a Clean and Safe Queen Anne” has taken a Block Watch approach to deterring vandalism, posting fliers around the neighborhood warning that the area is patrolled by Graffiti Watch Volunteers.
To report vandalism to Seattle Public Utilities, call the graffiti line at 206-684-7587. Get tips on how to prevent and remove graffiti here.
Graffiti – Gauging the impact of a costly public nuisance
The discussion will cover topics on public safety, Block Watch programs, graffiti reporting and more, with speakers and representatives from the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Utilities, City Council, and a number of community organization.
Volunteers got together over the weekend at Counterbalance Park, at the corner of Queen Anne Ave N and Roy St, to work to better protect the park against vandalism.
Counterbalance Park was vandalized overnight back in February, when both concrete walls of the “urban park” were covered with red lettering almost 15 feet high. Alex Braun, the manager of The Willis condos that border the north wall of the park and the Barclay Court business building to the east, was able to remove the majority of the tags the next day.
However, because the park walls were only sealed up to 11 feet, it took another three weeks and a graffiti specialist to remove the final traces.
On Saturday morning a handful of volunteers brought paint, rollers, ladders and snacks to the park, where they painted the top half of both walls with a protective seal and then another coat of matching gray paint on top of that, in the hopes of protecting the park against future acts of vandalism.
Yesterday, Saturday, February 27, Parks and Recreation crews removed the last of the graffiti sprawled over the concrete walls at Counterbalance Park almost three weeks ago.
Reader Cliff Cooper sent in these photos. He wrote,
It looks as though the left side is completely clean, but there clearly having difficulty removing from the corrugated siding.
Through most of the graffiti is gone, there is still a faint indication of the paint on the metal siding. The majority of the tags were removed the day after the vandalism took place, however because the concrete walls were only sealed up to 11 feet high, it has taken this long to remove the remainder.
(Thanks to Cliff Cooper for the pictures and tip!)
City crews will be closing down the eastbound and westbound lanes of Mercer Street under SR 99 one at a time on Saturday, February 27 between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. so that Seattle Public Utility Graffiti Rangers can remove vandalism. Keep this in mind when traveling off the hill this weekend, as added delays are expected.
Although graffiti has not been as big of an issue in Queen Anne in the past as it has in some neighborhoods, the vandalism of Counterbalance Park last week rattled many in the community. It was one of the largest acts of vandalism the hill has seen since the mural at the Dexter Ave underpass was graffitied last year. And since then several other tags have popped up around the neighborhood.
We have started working on a collaborative project with the Seattle Times and its news partners, on how graffiti has impacted different neighborhoods around the city. Although we’re not yet sure what shape this project will take, we thought we’d start by posing some questions to the neighborhood: What are your thoughts on graffiti in Queen Anne? Have you noticed any particular areas where vandalism is often targeted? Have you noticed if incidences of graffiti have increased or decreased in the area? Do you see graffiti as a growing concern? What do you think can or should be done to stop taggers? Post your thoughts in the comments below or email us at tips@queenanneview.com.
Early yesterday morning vandals targeted Counterbalance Park in lower Queen Anne, tagging both concrete park walls with bold, red graffiti. Though half of the vandalism has since been removed and the remainder is expected to be cleaned off today, many readers have also noticed a string of new tags around the neighborhood.
Reader Sarah Monley snapped a picture of this tag, which seems to match the one sprawled over Counterbalance Park yesterday, at 419 Queen Anne Ave N while walking home from work yesterday afternoon.
“Looks like BTM was busy last night,” she wrote.
I came across a series of similar tags this morning on walls and sidewalk halfway up the hill on both Queen Anne Avenue and 1st Ave W between Aloha and Prospect. One also had the letters “BTM” in it.
One reader commented on yesterday’s story, wondering if posting pictures of tags may encourage the behavior. SPG wrote,
Although it’s nice to know what’s going on, do we really need to have the actual tags written up in the article? It would be much better if the story just showed a part of the tag without showing the whole thing. That way the tagger who is looking for attention doesn’t get it and the community is still served with accurate news reporting. The best deterrent to tagging is to remove the tag immediately so that the tagger gets no recognition or credit for their effort. If every tag disappeared within a day there would be little incentive to keep tagging. By running a photo of the full tag the tagger gets even more credit for their vandalism and more incentive to do it again even after the actual tag is scrubbed off.
Though we will not post every picture of graffiti on the hill, we will continue to report on tags around the neighborhood and will be keeping a record of where tags are spotted and what each looks like in order to raise community awareness and help prevent future acts of vandalism. If you notice more vandalism around the neighborhood, please note the location in the comments below or email details and pictures to tips@queenanneview.com.
Update: This story has been updated since it was originally posted. See below for new information.
Counterbalance park, at the corner of Queen Anne Ave and Roy St in Uptown, was graffitied early this morning, covering both the south and west facing walls of the “urban oasis” in red spray paint and the letters “BTM” and “3AK.”
By 10 a.m. Seattle Police Department officers and Parks and Recreation representatives were on the scene. According to officer C.J. Lang, they believe the vandalism happened after 3 a.m. this morning.
Though the actual park is city property, Lang said, the walls belong to the condominium bordering the park. According to a parks department representative, the condominium has agreed to take care of the damage.
As for who is responsible, SPD is still investigating.
Several readers wrote in this morning disturbed by the vandalism.
“I’m so sorry to report that this morning on my walk to work I saw that someone has vandalized the uptown park at the corner of Roy and Queen Anne Avenue,” Sarah wrote. “It is such a shame that someone would ruin this community park with graffiti.”
(Thanks to tipsters Sarah, Cliff, Sean and Josh!)
Update 11:06 a..m.: The manager of The Willis condos bordering the north wall of the park and the Barclay Court business building to the east, Alex Braun, is working to remove the damage today. “I always try to get the tags down as soon as possible because that ruins their game,” he said.
Braun is pressure washing the first 11 feet of the walls, which have been sealed to keep out paint, this morning. Fortunately, he said, the paint is relatively light and hasn’t had a chance to set into the concrete yet due to the cold temperatures. After brushing over a portion of the tag, some of the red paint loosened, a good sign that they will be able to restore the wall quickly. If that doesn’t work, they’ll repaint over it, he said.
As for the unsealed concrete above the 11-foot mark, Braun said he’s called in a graffiti removal specialist who will be coming to the park either late this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning.
“We only sealed it to 11 feet because we thought that was going to be enough,” Braun said. “These taggers usually don’t go around with ladders. They usually repel down over freeways, but that’s hard to do here…concrete is like a sponge–it just sucks it up. If you try to remove it without knowing what you’re doing, you could make it permanent.”
Braun says this is the second largest tag he’s seen in the park since he began managing both bordering buildings 11 years ago – the largest one happened back in 2000. He said the park walls have been targeted before, most recently two months ago, but the tags are usually small and he has been able to remove them before many notice, something he believes discourages repeat offenders.
“They spend a lot of time and effort to make these tags, so if you take them off, they may come back a second time, but they rarely come back a third,” he said.
As for the taggers, Braun said no one in the condos overlooking the park or in the surrounding businesses saw anything. “From 2 until 4 a.m. this is like a dead zone. My condo faces Queen Anne and I can count the cars that go by here between 2 and 4 on one hand.”
Though, Braun said he did remember seeing a similar tag on northbound I-5 just before the convention center just yesterday. “The paint was dripping down…it looked just like this,” he said.
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Volunteers from Seattle Country Day School will be repairing the tagged mural under the Aurora Bridge this Saturday, May 15, according to Head of School Michael G. Murphy. The mural, which has been tagged and repaired countless times, was repainted just last fall. Unfortunately the site seems to be a frequent target for vandals.
Don’t forget, the 
