This is a series of poster I created celebrating the rise and fall of the subway graffiti movement in New York City during the 1970's. In the early 70's graffiti started appearing on walls. City youths began tagging buildings with their name often followed by the street they lived on. Early pioneers of the movement include the likes of Tracy 168 and Taki 183. It was then discovered that by tagging subway cars, the transit system would take your name all over the city for everyone to see. It was open season. Insides and outsides of the cars were bombed out with tags for years. Some of the more talented individuals practicing the art began pushing the medium to extremes, creating spraypaint masterpieces that would span entire rail cars top to bottom, sometimes even multiple cars. By the late 70's, mayor Ed Koch begain cracking down on graffiti. In comes the "Broken Window Theory" suggesting that the presence of graffiti led to an increase in more serious criminal activities. So began the clean train movement. Subway cars were cleaned of graffiti and would not leave the train yard if they were painted. Artists began to move graffiti to the streets, but many still painted trains even if they wouldn't ride, and some still do to this day. 1970's subway graffiti was the birth of what I will call Modern American Graffiti. It was an interesting time/movement with many meanings in the political, economical and artistic realms. The film "Style Wars" is an awesome view into this subject and anyone with further interest in this artistic movement should check it out!