WHATYOUWRITE.COM

May 22, 2006

There are already cameras in subway stations, but now for the first time, the MTA is considering putting surveillance cameras in subway cars to catch criminals in the act.

It's one of several strategies transit officials are considering to combat a growing graffiti problem reported earlier this month NY1.

The markings are created with etching acid, a chemical that eats into subway car windows, causing permanent damage.

There are already more than 2,000 cameras in subway stations, and a pilot program to put them onboard buses, but they've never been put onboard trains.

Most riders NY1 talked to Monday liked the idea, pointing out the cameras could deter all different kinds of crime.

“Sometime at night people come in from work and people try to rob them in the trains. I think that's a good idea," said one straphanger.

“If it can make the trains cleaner and safer for everyone, that's better," said another.

Cameras are just one strategy. Police have also stepped up their efforts to catch criminals, and the NYPD is on pace to make three times as many graffiti arrests as last year.

Officials are also considering retrofitting the windows on older subway cars with a Mylar coating that's already in use on new car windows. That could cost about $25 million over three years.

"They scratch that, and it doesn't penetrate in most cases through the Mylar onto the glass, so it doesn't make a permanent scratch in the glass,” said NYC Transit Senior V.P. of Subways Michael Lombardi. “We then remove the Mylar and replace the Mylar."

As for the cameras, there isn't any cost estimate or timetable yet.

“There's a lot of technical solutions out there that sound pretty good, but whether they really work is another thing. So we have to see what's out in the world, test it, see the results of other countries and other cities, see how it worked there, then determine what we want ourselves," said Lombardi. "Then we'll determine how much money will that be, and then the total amount of money will determine how many cars we do."

Where exactly the money will come from also remains to be seen.

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Their canvas, the facade of a 200,000-square-foot former factory, has been transformed into a legal "aerosol safe haven" that attracts both local city kids and commercial artists from overseas in their 30s and 40s.

It is supervised by William Green, 41, known by his "tag" or graffiti signature, "Nic One." He is part of a movement in New York — the birthplace of modern graffiti — to distinguish graffiti as an art form rather than vandalism and to fight back against anti-graffiti laws.

As skateboarders gathered near the vibrant, multicolored complex, Green and his partner Jonathan Cohen, 33, alias "Meres", the creator of the space, gives teen-agers tips to improve their craft.

Cohen wants to establish a permanent graffiti school and gallery. Five years ago he received the landlord's permission to transform the factory's facade into graffiti art using techniques requiring a high level of skill, such as murals based on movie or comic book scenes.

"Here you don't have to look over your shoulder or start running from the cops; you have people like Nic looking out for you," said Diego Garces, 16.

When struggling youths in the 1970s began scribbling messages on subway cars in this once crime-ridden city, few might have suspected it would spawn a worldwide commercial street art and fashion phenomenon.

Now commercial artists are seeking to change negative opinions about the movement closely linked to hip-hop culture. Faced with a new city law that banned the possession of broad-tipped markers or spray paint by people under 21, graffiti artists say lawmakers have lumped vandals in with legal artists, violating constitutional rights to free expression.

"At its core it's sloppy legislation and highlights the cultural disconnect between these politicians and a younger generation," said designer Marc Ecko, 33, who is helping seven young artists challenge the anti-graffiti law through a lawsuit.

The kids won the first round when a federal judge imposed a temporary injunction stopping it from being enforced until the case can be heard in court.

Ecko, who owns a graffiti-inspired fashion business, won a separate legal clash with the city last year when a judge allowed him to stage an event that featured artists spray-painting mock subway cars.

The New Jersey-bred entrepreneur, who used graffiti designs to gain credence with the hip-hop world because as a kid he was in his words "too fat to break dance", has taken his battle nationwide, funding a lawsuit against the city of Miami and threatening one against Denver. He plans to write to dozens of mayors seeking talks and graffiti exhibitions.

Others like Green, who prefers the term "aerosol artist" due to graffiti's association with illegality, seek to educate through creating legal spaces.

"Graffiti is a part of New York for good or for bad," said Green, who grew up in the South Bronx selling guns and spray-painting subway cars and basketball court walls. He now travels the world holding exhibitions and doing artwork for movies, animation and video games, including designs for Ecko.

"You can't completely stop it," he said.

But New York City Councilman Peter Vallone aims to do just that. He calls the graffiti art movement a thinly veiled advertising campaign for Ecko that incorporates some of the city's most notorious "taggers".

The city estimates three-quarters of its 2,500 graffiti-related arrests in 2005 were of people under 21.

In addition, the cost of removing graffiti rose from $300,000 in 1993 to $10 million in 2003. Nationally it costs more than $10 billion a year to remove.

"I've seen how graffiti can lead kids down the wrong road," said Vallone, a former prosecutor and sponsor of the New York law being challenged in court. "It starts them out in a life of crime and then they graduate from there."

Vallone says if "some innocent people" are dragged into the net then that may be the price to achieve his ultimate goal "to completely rid this city of graffiti."

"Your right to free expression ends where my property begins," he said.

For now, the battle continues. Vallone vowed he will introduce "even tougher" laws while Ecko, who declined to say how much he was spending on his lawyers, sees himself as a "watchdog for legal graffiti art."

"I don't want the kids to forget about the '80s and what it meant," he said, referring to graffiti's transition from an emblem of urban poor to commercial success. "I am in the private sector; I've got the resources and I've got the time."

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GOOD COVERAGE: Fernando Carlo, in front of his "art" in The Bronx, says security cameras won't deter vandals, who like the additional publicity.
Photo: James Messerschmidt
May 24, 2006 — Graffiti vandals responded to NYC Transit's proposal to put cameras in the subways with one word: "Cheese."

Always clamoring for exposure and a challenge, they'd love nothing more than to have their handiwork videotaped, one longtime "artist and vandal" told the Post.

"The kids will always find a way to get their name out there on the trains," said Fernando Carlo a k a "Cope 2," who after 20 years tagging trains and buildings found success as a commercial artist specializing in grafitti-style creations.

In response to the recent scourge of acid etching on train windows, transit officials say they are considering surveillance cameras as well as the replacement of all glass with protective mylar, already used in the 1,800 newest cars.

Although the cameras would not be watched live, they could help apprehend criminals, officials said.

"But all you'd have to do is wear a hood, and they wouldn't be able to identify you," Carlo said.

"The MTA has finally come around," said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who has crusaded to wipe out graffiti.

Straphangers were divided on the idea.

While Jared Leese, 36, said, "There must be better ways for the MTA to spend their money," Emilita DelaVeta said, "In the middle of the night it would make me feel safer."

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com