Williamsburg Gets Clean, Street Art Pays the Price

Is it just us, or does there generally seem to be less street art in Williamsbug west of the BQE these days? We've been noticing a tremendous amount of artwork that's been covered up via paint roller. (This goes for tagging too, which we're not going to defend, but which also has its own codes and followers and, for better or worse, has been part of the Williamsburg streetscape for a long time.) Whether it's a function of the shifting nature of this part of the neighborhood or more vigilant clean up efforts, there is far less up on walls and fences than there was one, two or three years ago.

In any case, as we were shooting photos, we found two different clean ups going on within blocks of each other. One was the weird paint rollering pictured in the top photo where some deuceseven artwork was being covered over in a closed cement plant across the street from 184 Kent. We're guessing they're re-locating or selling the tank? Because we can't think of another reason for the work we saw going on. In the other case, someone was at work steam cleaning paint from the site of a building, around the corner from the Splasher-Artist war on N. 6th.