Meeting #15 - Dover Graffiti Roundup

We took to the streets of downtown Dover and identified graffiti around the city to report it to be removed

Welcome back to the Strong Towns Seacoast newsletter and thank you for reading. Last month we met at our Saturday meeting to discuss some ideas for our next community project and after talking with some people we landed on addressing graffiti. This project was the one that was the easiest for us to organize quickly and we were able to get the support of Dover’s graffiti board.

Did you know that Dover still has a leftover pay phone installation that is covered in graffiti?

We walked from the library to Henry Law Park, then back into downtown to check the river path that goes under Chestnut Street. In total we took around 100 photos of graffiti scattered around and are in the process of filling out reports for all of the locations so that the city can take action on it.

We found lots of graffiti around the city and the bridge on Washington Street was particularly tagged

After these are reported to the city, Dover’s graffiti board can use our photos and location descriptions to track them down and remove them. I did speak with a member of the graffiti board about us cleaning them up while we were walking around, but she told me that depending on the type of surface and paint we would need different removal strategies, so we opted to leave it to more experienced people.

Is Graffiti Vandalism or Art?

In my opinion, the bushes, eye, and sun make the walk under this bridge more pleasant, but can you say the same for the text scribbled in the background?

I had a conversation tonight with my wife’s boss about the topic of graffiti and it prompted me to consider the topic of graffiti as community expression. I can see merit in the argument for that and I can also be sympathetic to doing things that you believe would improve a place during the dark of night because getting permission is such a challenging process. I’ve seen this strategy used for things like putting in crosswalks or placing benches at bus stops because a city is too slow at solving these issues.

Just to make a quick point on this, consider a detailed mural done without permission on the side of a building vs that same surface being sold as a place for an ugly advertisement. The mural could become a community staple despite being uninvited and just because the advert is permitted doesn’t make it beautiful. There’s more to consider here.

The public has the right to an opinion on removing unwanted graffiti and an interest in protecting the beauty of its public spaces

This question of vandalism vs art is up for debate and is subjective enough that I don’t feel confident in making a strong argument for what qualifies as what. However, I do think that if you are a graffiti artist using public property as your canvas then the public has the right to an opinion on whether it should be removed. There are also some forms of expression that are widely viewed as ugly or an eye-sore and if artists want the public to support them then they need to contribute to the overall vibrancy and feel of a space.

Mitigating Graffiti by Allowing It

My wife’s boss mentioned a strategy of creating spaces where graffiti is allowed to be done. Designate an area where anyone can come and paint or sticker up a wall in the community and let it serve as an outlet for community expression. I think that this could be an effective solution while at the same time creating places for community engagement.

If graffiti is allowed in certain areas, then the public has made space for artistic expression and artists seeking to leave their mark on the city have been given a venue for that. The thinking is that this will deter people from putting graffiti outside of the approved area because it is likely to be removed whereas on the accepted venue it can have a longer lasting presence, at least until another artist seeks to make their mark.

In the city of L.A. at Venice Beach they have several walls dedicated to be art walls and artists are welcome to tag them. According to the graffiti board in Dover there is an art wall along the community trail, but I have not personally visited it. Maybe we need to make some space in our downtown for another one?

Wrapping Up

There are more ways to mitigate graffiti, but I thought that this was an interesting one that I wanted to share. If I’m being honest, pretty much all of the graffiti that we intend to report is simple signatures or stickers with at least one of them being a vulgar phrase, all of which I would deem ugly and in some locations disruptive as it is on signage around downtown. I was surprised to see how repetitive some of them were. It seems like a few artists might be responsible for many of our finds.