#teamSheen
Author: Control@ltvsquad.com
-
Sex On Fridays Gas
I’m calling this one SOF gas in tribute to the NE Queens writers that ripped the face off this spot.
Abandoned for a few years now, this gas station is prime real estate for viewing graffiti from passing subways, as well as a reat place for an improved game of drunken soccer on a Saturday night.
-
M Fine’s old abandoned warehouse location
This old low rise abandoned warehouse building has an eventual date with the wrecking ball. Its current ownership seems to be a blurry line between the NYC government and a huge waste management company (aptly named ‘Waste Management’) who noted on it’s demo application:
(more…) -
Highest Lowpoint
At the highest point in the system lays this lowest layup track, dipping below all others and dead ending. The logic behind this strange structure has long been lost, and the track here was both little used and recently removed during the current viaduct rehabilitation project.
-
Glenwood power plant graffiti
Here’s a set of photos showing just some of the Glenwood power plant graffiti. Over the decades, this abandoned power plant became a mecca for writers looking to paint without interference from the police.
-
Maksim Gelman’s many Flickr accounts and YouTube appearance.
All week I’ve been getting reports of Maksim Gelman’s various flickr accounts. In the graffiti world, he was slightly known by his tag names: Max, Wes, and WS.
In 2007-2008 he created at least 4 flickr accounts:
“Couch Bombay’ – http://www.flickr.com/photos/24387359@N04/ (Created: March 2008)
‘Maxwell’ – http://www.flickr.com/photos/23025603@N07/ (Created: January 2008)
‘MaxerBlaster’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/24207016@N05/ (Created: February 2008)
‘BentleyBK31’ – http://www.flickr.com/photos/36849363@N07/ (Created: March 2009)
’23allisee’ – http://www.flickr.com/photos/13621034@N06/ (Created: September 2007 )Something to note about all of these accounts: None of them listed any contacts, and most photos seemed to have minimal views (0-20 tops, few comments), so no one was really looking at them much (thought that will likely change in the coming days I’d imagine)
This account may have been one of his as well:
‘thefourthcycle’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/23601238@N03/
(Created: Feb 2008 – same time frame as the others). It features no photos and only seemed to be used to comment on the accounts above. Fake keyboard commando beef? Could be.The scant few comments that were in some of the photos seem to show the same amount of beef with other writers he found on the freight tracks of Brooklyn. Here’s 2 examples:
(Now, I know what you guys out there are thinking – look at that ass – so here it again, zoomed in. Here’s a good a place as any to note that Max seemed to hang out with this girl for a minute. We can only assume whoever she is, she’s counting her blessing today, and could probably make some coin talking to the press at the moment)
He also loved the Beef on everyone’s favorite Tagpage Replacement (who here recalls tagpage?!)
Saster:
http://gallery.saster.net/sgallery/displayimage.php?album=34&pos=48On a more comical side, one of his profile pages states he had it on auto login so he wouldn’t loose the password again. This probably explains why he had so many flickr accounts, though it doesn’t explain at all why he didn’t just use password recovery. I’d imagine he changed email addresses often as well.
Now on to his YouTube appearance:
Max seemed to hang with the Acid crew on occasion – he even makes an appearance in a trailer for their dvd, which is still on youtube as of today (2/18/2011), here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMdQvQmSkHM
Wes/max is from 0:39 – 1:05Just to round things off, in case you missed it, one commenters thinks he’s hot:
Disclaimer: We here at LTV are not accountable for the apparent depravity of some commenters.Reminds me of that chick who married Richard Ramirez, the LA ‘Nightstalker’.
This wraps up todays (and this week’s) Maksim coverage. I hate to say it but we’ll probably hear more about this cat in the future as he goes to trial, etc. Much thanks to T, Julie & Indent for pointing more towards most of this.
-
Maksim Gelman’s Graffiti Life
The story that Maksim Gelman, the man that went on a murderous rampage last weekend, was also a graffiti writer has been played up in the news a little – but what did he write? Many BK writers have pointed toward 3 tags: Wes, WS and Max.
As it turns out, I have many photos of his tags and throwys from the day long hike of the Brooklyn freight tracks I took while shooting hundreds of photos for Brooklyn Queens Freight. Most of the photos showing the Wes, WS and Max tags did not make the cut for the printed book, though at least 2 or 3 crept in there. I’ve placed a set of these photos online here, along with some history about the spot he allegedly laid low after murdering the girl he was obsessed with.
Most writers I’ve talked to in the last day or two tell me wasn’t much of a writer and had plenty of beef. It’s been a long while since any writer has murdered anyone. For anyone that doesn’t know, if writers have beef with each other, it’s generally settled in a fair fist fight.
Breaking:
Sources tell me he had a flickr stream!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23025603@N07/. -
Maksim Gelman’s short lived life in Graffiti
Maksim Gelman made an international name for himself this last weekend by going on a 28 hour murder spree, during which he killed 4 and attempted to kill many others. The story that the NYC press has mostly glossed over though is that this raving lunatic had prior arrests for Graffiti. This is definitely not to say that the graffiti artists of NYC ever embraced him as one of their own. Indeed, Maksim was known mostly as a toy – a wack bottom feeder with no style, little creativity, and an itch to start beef wherever he could. A quick survey of about a dozen writers yielded a universal response: Maksim sucked at life, and if his peers even knew who he was, they hated his wack handywork.When I inquired if anyone had photos of his work, some turned to me and said yo, YOU probably have photos of his crappy throw ups from the freight tracks of Brooklyn. And indeed, unbeknown to me, I did.
In my documentation of the Bay Ridge Branch freight line for Brooklyn Queens Freight, I shot a few hundred photos of the graffiti along the tracks. Some of these photos contain Maksim’s scraw and throwys. The majority of the photos containing this rubbish graffiti never made the cut and were not printed in BQF. A few got in there though, usually with his scrawl going over someone else or pushed against better graffiti in a vain attempt to be seen next to such works of art.
The most common aspect of his graffiti in these photos is that he has applied his tags over other writers, or has been crossed out by other writers. This is fairly unique across all of the photos I took on that day. No one on these tracks was jones for beef as much as Maksim (well, cept maybe another toy, but let’s not talk about him). I did no real editing/selecting of photos for this write up: what you see in these photos is how all of his graffiti seemed to appear on the freight tracks – either over someone else’s in an attempt to start a battle, or crossed out by people who hated him. For someone to go out of their way to try and start beef with other writers shows a lot of things about his personality. He wanted attention, bad or good. Full of hate and looking for a fight is the usual MO of such people.
All of that said, Maksim will not be missed – in society or in the NYC Graffiti world. The tracks are better off without such people around.
Props to BDPH, Vize & Indent for the 411. I wouldn’t have know I was sitting on this without the input…
-
How much does it cost to arrest a graffiti writer?
Many Sunnyside residents were awoken in the early hours of Monday morning by a low-flying police helicopter.
The police tracked them down and arrested them at 41stand Queens Blvd at 2:30 am. The three—Jeffery Sanchez, Jonathan Aramis and Aileen Mahmoodi- were all charged with criminal mischief; making graffiti; and possession of a graffiti instrument, police said.
According to our records, The NYPD has 6 helicopters. 2 – Bell 412EP’s, 3 – Bell 212’s and 1 – Bell 206.
According to Conklin’s the average hourly flying cost is as follows:
412EP – $1668/hour.
212 – $1439/hour
206 – $516/hourThat’s not counting the officer overtime processing these kids, or the fact that the arresting officers were taken off the street probably for the rest of their tour to do the paperwork, etc. Call me crazy but in the grand scheme of things, we’re talking $1000-$5000 cost for these 3 arrests.
Now you can argue like every other idiot on the internet does these days that ‘they did the crime and should pay the time, expense, etc’. But when you factor in the fact that NYC’s now the weed arrest capital of the US, and star tallying up how much it costs to arrest all these petty crooks (even if no ghetto bird is used) and you’re talking about perhaps millions of dollars, spent largely to keep minorities in jail or with criminal records that will hold them back some more in life. Millions blown on people catching tags and smoking weed – habits that people generally grow out of on their own as they get older. Seems like a huge, huge waste of money to me.
Mad Props to GasAxe for the research on this one.
-
Calling Out Cope2
I’m going to preface this by saying I know nothing about Cope2 and basically have zero interest in Graff Drama (other than to watch it unfold – TV ain’t half as entertaining as this shit.
(more…)
