Graffiti school

Streetsy posted their educational rundown of 40 Street Artists You Should Know Besides Banksy last fall, but I've just now gotten around to educating myself.  Some would definitely turn my head on the street.  I also found it interesting how mainstream and commercial some of the artists are (I love public art, period, regardless of legality or sponsorship, so I could care less).

Blu, who operates mainly in Buenos Aires, is known mostly for monumental paintings and animations

Fauxreel, who is based in Toronto, is best-known for large, black-and-white posters

Painters (and twin brothers) Os Gemeos, work out of Sao Paolo

NYC-based Revs is an old-school tagger turned sculputural graffiti artist

Thundercut, also a New York artist, is known for vinyl art on street crossing signals

Go forth and school thyself, or at least look around with greater observation.

Thanks, Urban Prankster.

From top to bottom: "Blu 1" image by Icons for Now, untitled image by shoehorn99, "Os Gemeos - Close up" image by jACK TWO, untitled image by shoehorn99 (who is apparently a big graffiti buff),"Obama Walker" image (taken in my new neighborhood!) by hragvartanian.

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Religion & marriage equality

The Empire State Pride Agenda is trying to anticipate some of the objections it will face from the religious community now that Governor Patterson has introduced a same-sex marriage bill into the New York state legislature. The resulting video is pretty great:

Thanks, Queerty.

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Bringing water to the masses in NYC

I am going to love TapIt Water, a new program that "connects empty-canteen-carrying water seekers with cafes and restaurants who offer good, clean, NYC tap water at no charge and with no dirty you-need-to-buy-something looks," according to PSFK. The organization's website allows local businesses to become partners, listing the details of their water availability in exchange for the presumed increase in business due to the added traffic. The public can then look up sites participating that are near their day's activities from their computer, iPhone, or Smartphone. Genius! Less demand for bottled water is great for the environment, and these kind of partnerships between businesses and nonprofits build stronger communities.

They've also got a suprisingly-often-updated blog (surprising to me--who knew there was so much to say on this topic?).

"water bottle" image by Muffet.

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Pop culture visualized

I love illustrator Dan Meth's Pop-Cultural Charts.  He takes simplistic data about popular films and sitcoms and displays it via charts, maps, and info-graphics, creating a humorous but analytical snapshot of a segment of pop culture.  Check out the first three below.

#4 in the series is the U.S.A. Sitcom Map and #5 is The Trilogy Meter part 2.

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Under Brooklyn

There is a (no-longer) secret tunnel in Brooklyn!  Bob Diamond confirmed the existence of an abandoned subway tunnel under Atlantic Avenue in 1981. 

In the late 1970s, Diamond was an engineering student with a taste for New York transit lore. He first heard about the tunnel’s possible existence on a radio show, which hosted a discussion about a book called The Cosgrove Report by G.J.A. O’ Toole.  The report suggested, among other things, that lost pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary are hidden in a train car buried in a secret tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

This tunnel is unique for reasons other than its forgotten-ness.  In fact,

• The tunnel, consisting of approximately 12 blocks of track, became the world’s first “grade-separated” transportation or “subway” when it was built in 1844.
  
• The tunnel should have been destroyed.  Electus Litchfield was paid $130,000 to fill the tunnel when it was declared a nuisance in 1850, but "instead simply capped its ends, sealed its manhole covers, and forged documents to state that the tunnel had been completely refilled."
• The train supposedly trapped inside the tunnel has yet to be found, but Diamond is confident it, along with another 6 blocks of tunnel, are behind a stone wall.
  

In related, interesting news, the tunnel was built to help solve the problem of trolley-pedestrian collisions.  These accidents were apparently so common that the original name for the Brooklyn Dodgers was the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers (!).

Diamond conducts 1.5-hour tours of the tunnel, and there is a documentary called, "What's Behind the Wall?" about Diamond's quest currently in production.


Thanks, PSFK.

Both the top "Atlantic Ave Tunnel Tour" image and the bottom "Atlantic Ave Tunnel Tour" image by silatix.

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