Just dug this up.  Its rough, and unfinished, for reasons I hope I make clear here.

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Buried Alive Within Your Own Walls – The Lazy Ballad of 151 Wooster

There’s a bit of new york history that almost went by unnoticed.  Last year, I was employed in a journalistic capacity to help cover an odd event, unique to New York, and evocative of the city’s rich history during a time where history seemed to be nothing but a brand, an afterthought…the stuff that the new condo dwellers would struggle to connect and the old denizens would struggle not to forget.

It started with a rich kid tearing down one wall of his apartment in SoHo.  He could do that, his father owned the building.  I’m not even sure he paid rent.  He had heard a few rumours around his building that behind the wall of his kitchen and bathroom, there was a massive graffiti mural that had been simply boarded over when the building went highrise and the rents went new school.

Going on these rumors, Mike started tearing away at the wall above his kitchen cupboards.  Sure enough and true to the rumors, he found writings… graffiti of a style not seen since the sweaty days of Futura, David Byrne, Basquiat and all his Mudd Club friends.  The wall he uncovered was not quite a “mural”, but a massive party piece put together by the drunk beneficiaries of the historic New York downtown scene circa 79-81.  Futura, Rammelzee, Fab Five Freddy, and possibly Basquiat had all scrawled their marks on the wall.  A cultural yearbook to be buried within SoHo’s decaying temple walls.

After tearing down the entire wall to his kitchen and part of his bathroom, even Mike, who had to google “Fab Five Freddy” to figure out who he was, could tell he had stumbled onto something major.

Now, once the news of this discovery reached the world, there was a significant feeding frenzy.  The Guggenheim wanted it, which Mike’s father and his cohorts were happy to oblige, but not until they had marketed it a bit to their own advantage.  151 Wooster was on its way to becoming one of the renovated lofts griped about in the Village Voice and snatched up by transplant professionals for absurd prices per square foot.  The timing was perfect.  With this cultural artifiact living in the very walls they sought to sell, Mike’s father and his team made sure the spectacle was leveraged.

This is the website of the loft itself.  Check the press section for an article about the wall.

I went to said spectacle, or I viewed it, I should say.  There were DJs, and all kinds of lesser art piggybacking on The Wall’s success.  Mike’s young artist friends came out of the woodwork to grab the saddlehorn and ride.  This girl named Miz Metro pitched a documentary on the piece but wouldn’t get out from in front of the camera when they went to film it.  Mike threw on a sport coat, a liquor sponsor was found, and there was a party.  Free scotch and wine for all the sycophants who came to relive the glory days of a city that will not, can not ever exist again.

I was there, when they beat it to death. I was hoping to write something about it.  I don’t know, get my own piece of the action.  I wanted to write a massive article, scoping from the good old days of New York to the decidedly less cool present.  But I was uninspired.  I got some pictures, but because of all the buzzing around and all the hands in the pie, it felt slutty to me.  Used up. Now, I realize, in micro, that this must be the experience New York has been going through ever since it rose from the granite.  Everyone jumping on, claiming they were there when it used to be “fun” in this city.  But they weren’t there.  The only ones who were there signed their name on THAT WALL.  They got fucked up at a party, signed their names in the yearbook and forgot about it.  Futura came by and looked at it, but he didn’t remember much, he was too busy creating something brilliant now to worry about something random he shat out then.  The divide has never been  more clear.  The brilliant and grizzled lifetime artist, and the questionably talented marketing major hogging his camera time. Maybe it would have been better to leave that wall up.  The people who created it certainly wouldn’t have been any worse off, and the only result of its uncovering was another feast over the carrion of an age that, for me, must have been the greatest god damn time and place ever to be alive and creating.  We already had it, lets stop trying to dig it up, lets stop trying to explain it, and lets get our asses ready for the next one.

A big part of the discussion was whether or not Basquiat wrote on this wall.  The above piece may be his contribution.  If it is from him, the value of the wall increases considerably.

This is the wall that was behind the bathroom

The Fab 5 contribution.  Note the Nesto tag, and the places where they marked the walls for the Dishwasher connections in the kitchen.

That’s three different generations of Futura tags right there, including an abbreviated one he did.

Fab 5 Freddy put up this bomber, above it you can see a tag by Koor.

Another shot of the Bathroom Wall, behind plastic.

This is Mike, whose father owned the building, Mike was the one who cracked the wall.

This is MizMetro, who I referenced earlier.  This picture was shot by someone else.