NYC Transit Eagle Team helps lower major train graffiti hits across city

[Trainspotter]

NYC Transit Eagle Team helps lower major train graffiti hits across city

The number of major graffiti hits on trains parked in railyards and underground storage tracks is down 45%, transit officials said Monday.

 

There have been 17 spray-paint attacks this year, compared with 31 in the same time period last year, according to NYC Transit data provided to the Daily News.

 

"It's a short amount of time, but we are seeing a significant trend downward," NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said.

 

Some credit goes to NYC Transit's "Eagle Team," a new anti-graffiti surveillance squad launched last fall, Seaton said.

 

Team members, largely former NYPD veterans, stake out railyards and tunnel "layup" areas. They also do daily sweeps for security weak spots like holes cut in barbed-wire fences.

 

A major hit is vandalism that temporarily keeps a train, or individual subway car, out of service. It almost always entails the sweeping style of graffiti that dominated the transit system in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

NYC Transit has a long-standing policy of not sending a train out to pick up passengers until any external paint is removed.

 

There were 204 major hits last year, more than double the tally reached in 2005, NYC Transit said.

 

NYPD Transit Bureau Chief John Hall also credited a new police unit formed last year to focus solely on layup vandals. The unit - Sgt. Kevin Cooper, Detective John Dubroff and Detective Nino Navarra - helped boost the number of layup arrests to 39 last year, more than double the previous year, Hall said.

 

From: - February 12, 2008

[DOB2RTO]

They love taking magic markers and tagging the Kingsbridges artics. Maybe that's why we get the garbage here.......

[Pablo M 201]

Great to hear. and I hear they do well with protecting customers when at danger or those that just need help.

[BklynBob]

I see the ta is hiring more people for the eagle squad,its posted on the mta website.

[East New York]

Illegal it may be, and I feel different about it now that I am older, but you do have to admit that back in the day some of it was really art! Check these out. The second link is buildings off the #7 line in The QB

 

http://www.teako170.com/graffiti2.html

 

 

http://www.fraudwasteabuse.com/2007/03/incredible-graffiti-covered-building-5-pointz-in-new-york-city.html

[BklynBob]

if someone did that to your property or your car,would you still call it art?

[Eastman346]

if someone did that to your property or your car,would you still call it art?

 

If it was mine, I wouldn't call it art. :mad:

[DOB2RTO]

If it was mine, I wouldn't call it art. :mad:

 

I would, since if I catch them, the Ruger Mini-14 would make blood art on my car or property......

[East New York]

if someone did that to your property or your car,would you still call it art?

 

No I guess wouldn't/shouldn't call it art anymore per se, thats why I said I feel different about it now. But when i was in elementery and junior high, I thought it was kind of cool.

[sebbieprops]

No I guess wouldn't/shouldn't call it art anymore per se, thats why I said I feel different about it now. But when i was in elementery and junior high, I thought it was kind of cool.

 

Same. I liked it when I was younger, but now I realize that it's not art, but vandalism.

[BklynBob]

I would, since if I catch them, the Ruger Mini-14 would make blood art on my car or property......

 

you can't use dpf for a property crime................you'll end up upstate...for a very long time!