Eat the Rich

Graffiti Spied En Route to School

I like graffiti; there’s a rawness to good, creative graffiti art that I really admire. Then, of course, there are the random scrawls sprayed across public and private property – many of them infantile and uninspired, like a middle school anatomy lesson some delinquent plastered on the freshly-painted sidewall of  a recently renovated house on Sackett Street.

And somewhere in between, there’s stuff like this scrawling spotted on the Union Street bridge crossing the murky Gowanus Canal, best known these days as a noxious Superfund site in urgent need of a cleanup. I don’t know if the sign is a jab at the much contested Superfund project or just insightful commentary on local property prices, school admissions or the lines outside Blue Marble to get an ice cream  on a warm spring day.

Mostly, it makes we ponder who went to the effort to stop on the bridge, pull out a spray can and leave this note. What was the motivation? It’s too political to be kids – and do kids these days even know what a yuppie is? It seems too self-loathing to be hipsters. So, I’m left wondering.

Either way, it makes me stop, smile and mutter Eat the Rich out of earshot of my children  en route to school and back each day.

3 thoughts on “Eat the Rich”

  1. I think it was one of many who have trouble paying rent. If I could not pay the rent, it would make me write in the middle of bridges as well… Great piece!

  2. I’m just surprised the word “yuppie” is still in circulation. It suggests that the graffiti author is of a certain age.

Leave a Reply to sabina Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *