POLITRIKS
Vallone Is Upset That He's A Failure
Despite all his vitriol and fierce rhetoric, Peter Vallone Jr. is a "punk" when it comes to stomping out graffiti. He's media-whored more than any NYC public official, used political posturing to sentence graffiti writers, penned all sorts of legislation, and yet there's still been a HUGE increase in graffiti. We're not just talking NYC on a whole either, but Queens especially, the borough that he represents and hopes to run for borough president in 2009: "[A]ccording to figures from the New York City Police Department (NYPD), north Queens had an 84 percent spike, from 904 complaints to 1,662, and arrests went up 11 percent, from 615 to 680. In south Queens, complaints climbed 80 percent, to 864, and arrests were up 17 percent, to 259, according to the figures." But it gets worse for the pol as vandals are hitting his neighborhood extra hard according to the Queens Courier, "Part of his sensitivity on the issue may stem from figures released by his office saying that the 114th Precinct, which covers his district in Astoria, was second in amount of graffiti arrests with 128 in 2006 and 126 in 2007." |Queens Courier|
Peter Vallone, Jr. in Pink Shirt and Tie. |Photo: Azipaybarah|
by ANIMAL on May 5, 2008
Comments (1)
What amazes me is that, of course, police effort is being expended on this while serious crimes are being committed. And while some graf might be gang related (and its almost always those simple, dumb tags), most of it is not. But then again, its clear that the only "Art" that is accepted is the kinds huge corporations pay for to splatter on every sign in and billboard in the city.
Posted by Sean S. | May 5, 2008 7:30 PM