If 5 Pointz Comes Down, Artists Choose to Paint Illegally

One of the biggest places in the world for legal graffiti may be knocked down in the next few years.

The place is 5 Pointz, an old industrial building, on Jackson Ave in Long Island City, N.Y. covered inside and outside with graffiti. Developers want to build two apartments reaching around 40 stories high. They formally submitted plans to the New York City Department of City Planning around the end of March.

They will need to demolish 5 Pointz.

Graffiti artists from around the world have spray painted every part of 5 Pointz, this means they paint from the ground up to the very top of the building. Even on the rooftops, the aerosol art is visible from the trains on the Line 7 that shrieks by 5 Pointz about every five minutes. Graffiti artists want the place to remain the way it is for two reasons: the place is big and the place is legal.

Without 5 Pointz, the graffiti artists either choose to stop spray painting in New York or they paint illegally. Artists, who have come to 5 Pointz in the past month, say they will not stop.

“There should be a place like this in every city and in every country,” said Jonathan Cohen, 38, the curator of 5 Pointz whom also goes by the graffiti tag-name “Meres.” For almost fifteen years, graffiti has manifested on this industrial building. He said the loss of the building, as a legal outlet for graffiti, would be like silencing art and expression.

“We would definitely go underground. I mean that’s where it started from,” said Stephen Davis, 22, a graffiti artist living in Brooklyn. His tag name is “Epic Skiiwalker.” Without 5 Pointz, graffiti artists like himself would spray paint walls of “condemned-looking” building since he said there are so many around the city.

“You tear this place down and it’s only going to make people hit the streets harder,” said Davis, “you can put graffiti anywhere you want to.” He has only painted at 5 Pointz twice, both tags in the last month.

“Graffiti artists will probably go wherever they feel they can do their work,” said a graffiti artist known as Clone, 29, from Philadelphia, “it might be under a bridge, might be on a train.”

The artists spray-painting around 5 Pointz all agree on the same thing. Graffiti started in New York City and without 5 Pointz, one of the biggest legal outlets, the city would not be the same.

On the property where 5 Pointz stands, developers Jerry Wolkoff and David Wolkoff, father and son, plan to use it on mixed-use basis. What both Jerry and David envision for the new development are two apartments standing about 40 stories high with 900 units, a yoga room, a pool, a gym and retail stores. They are still drawing up designs, but the vision they have now is a definitive outline of the project.

“The area is changing,” said David Wolkoff, 44, a developer with an office in Manhattan and one in Edgewood, N.Y. Between Queen’s Plaza and Hunter’s Point, 5 Pointz stands on Jackson Ave. As Long Island City continues to grow, Wolkoff said Jackson Ave is going to fill in with business and residents.

“New York City rezoned central Long Island City to encourage residential and commercial development following lower mid and downtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn,” said Dan Minor, Senior Vice President of Business Services at the Long Island City Business Development Corporation.

“I am a businesswoman. It would be smart in the business-sense to have more people come in,” said Jana Tieoli, owner of the Manducatis restaurant on Jackson Ave, “but you got to have a little more integrity. You can’t push people out into the street.”

Her great grandfather lived in Long Island City and she has been living in the area for about 40 years. Long Island City is an arts community and Tieoli has seen growing number of young people in the area. She has also seen tourists from around the world, eating at her restaurant, to see the 5 Pointz building.

“It’s time for this building to change,” said Wolkoff, “It’s an old building. We believe it’s time to move forward and progress with the area.”

Within the plans of the new development, Wolkoff has included artists’ lofts in the proposed buildings and also a public area. The public area will be a wall for graffiti artists to paint. It will be near the back of the new development.

Jerry Wolkoff and his son David love the artwork on the building. Graffiti artists spray paint on the building because Jerry and David have allowed it. Without their approval, 5 Pointz was not possible.

“The building goes on forever, the space goes on forever,” said Jerry Wolkoff. He said 30 to 40 artists are able to paint on the building now and on the public wall there will be enough space for 6 or 8.

“A little wall for New York City is bad idea,” said Clone, “this is the Big Apple you need a big wall.”

According to Cohen, the curator of 5 Pointz, a good day at 5 Pointz has about 30 to 40 artists painting on it. The artwork on 5 Pointz closer to the ground lasts between a week to a about a month. Clone’s graffiti lasted a week until another graffiti tag covered it.

“There’ll be tons of European traffic that comes into the U.S. and into New York that has nowhere to go and will either choose to paint illegally or not paint at all,” said Cohen.

“If they tear it down, at least I got to paint here,” said Steven Davis, “I got to meet a lot people, lot of old-school cats.”