Yankee Stadium Ticket Booth/Kiosk

[william_9]

Love it or hate it, the graffiti happened and it's part of the history. As a baseball artifact, sure, it would be better without it (or any of its non-original 1923 paint). As piece of New York City, the tags go with the territory. Again, love it hate it, it fits the time and place. I don't know anything about the taggers, but the marks are not very "artistic", which is a shame in a way. I don't think we're too far away from a major art museum adding a subway car, or box truck, or some other non-traditional item/structure to their permanent collection if it had the right graffiti on it. Perhaps it has already happened, I don't know. I for one would definitely attend a curated graffiti show at the MoMA. But I can understand how others would hate it, or even the idea of it. Actually, I think it would be pretty cool if your ticket booth were somehow worked into the (hypothetical) MoMA exhibit as a visual connection between graffiti and everyday life in NYC.

If it were mine, I'd restore it structurally and leave its outward appearance as it was when it was removed. If any of those guys are well known you could potentially be scrubbing major value off the booth. Cambell's Soup is worth .69 cents unless Warhol touched it. Not sure about added graffiti on a ticket booth - and the Warhol value comparison could easily be hyperbole, but you get the idea. Unlike collected art, graffiti was largely cleaned up, painted over, and scrapped. Genuine pieces from the era are greatly outnumbered by photos and memories of graffiti.

[FourStrikes]

reminds me of: http://www.stencilrevolution.com/pro...chel-basquiat/ - and the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115632/ (vastly underrated movie, IMO, by the way) featuring BOWIE, WALKEN, OLDMAN, HOPPER, DEL TORO, etc....

not even remotely implying this kiosk features JMB's stuff, but...while I disagree - particularly in the past quarter century or so with taggers / graffiti artists that trash ANY kind of shit nowadays, early / vintage graffiti has a certain "charm" to it.....

again, wouldn't touch it (the kiosk) in it it's original condition.

I'd of course have to dig it out of my archives to scan / post it, but one item that's buried within my non-sports real photo postcard collection is an image of a few ladies, ca. 1910's-20's with early (some scrawling on a wall) examples of graffiti on a wall in the background, which led me to keep it, as it's otherwise a non-spectacular image, minus the graffiti.

DS

[steve B]

Grafitti may be vandalism, but at some point it also becomes history.

When that happens I suppose depends on the viewer.

When I went to England in 86, we visited Windsor castle. While waiting for the rest of the family to be done in the gift shop I stood in a sort of alcove around the door. Saw some carved stuff, and my first reaction was " such a nice place and some * had to go carving his name into it! " Then it sunk in that most of the carvings were from the late 1400's and 1500's. So probably carved by a bored guard. Which was pretty cool.

Steve B

[Ronnoco]

If I discover something that's been sitting in a crate for 43 years, it's not enough that it really, really, really looks like an old Yankee Stadium ticket booth. It has no other ephemeral trail apart from a few offhand remarks in books and newspapers. Nobody cared about holograms and letters of authenticity at a 1973 Bronx fire sale. Paired with photographic evidence, the graffiti helps make the case for provenance. The location of the booth at the time of its removal can be identified. There is numbering on the kiosk itself, but the graffiti is corroborating evidence backed by historic images. I would have loved to find it in its 1923 condition, but this was the only flavor available.

I think it's both vandalism and history. The attached image is from the bell tower of a cathedral that I worked on a few years back. We were able to trace it to one of the workers who hung the bells in 1861. It eventually led to our ability to correctly recast a cracked bell 155 years later. Romanes eunt domus

[ooo-ribay]

If you can pull off something like this, you're an artist. You also probably got someone's permission.

[ooo-ribay]

P.S. Great research on the graffiti, Kevin!