The birthplace of the style writing school of
graffiti is New York City. This is the place where young
writers first began to transform letters from simple
tags on a wall to elaborate masterpieces of colorful and
camoflauged letters embellished with characters that
depicted friends and heroes alike. By the 1980s the
artwork was quickly destroyed by authorities and the
artists seeking to preserve some of their works took
hold of schoolyards around the city to paint grander
works. It was a no-nonsense approach to save their art
form and spread their fame to the local kids. The most
famous of these schoolyards is located in East Harlem on
106th street and Park Avenue and it became known as the
Hall of Fame. At first the Hall of Fame was established
to bring together the best artists in the city and have
them paint in the same schoolyard supplanting the number
5 train as the showcase place for the best graffiti art
in New York. Over the years as the word spread artists
from around the city would sneak in and leave their work
at night in this unsanctioned museum. From Skeme, Dez,
and Daze in the early 1980s to Vulcan, Jon One, and Dome
in the late 1980s to Part, Ezo, and TDS rejuvenating the
schoolyard with style in the 1990s to TC5 (West, Dash,
Psycho, Wane, Cope2, etc.), TDS (Flite, Part, Noc167,
Serve, T-Kid170), TATS (Bio, BG183, Nicer, How, Nosm,
Sen2) crews tight productions in the 2000s to the
writers that travel to New York to paint there today
this book documents the exciting art work that was
created in a small obscure school in Harlem that became
known as the legendary Hall of Fame. Join us on this
artistic retrospective of the famous and important New
York landmark. |
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