Street smart art

Tuxedo Man, Soho, June 2011

Street art or dirt?

I walked across this earlier today. It took me a few minutes to try to decode whether it was someones deliberate attempt at art or whether it was just some mess I translated into a portrait.

Today I started reading about the NYC crime rates of the 1980s & 1990s in Gladwell's book The Tipping Point. The interesting part being that (researchers & sociologists etc) first targeted the graffiti problem in their efforts to clean up their streets. And it worked.

Obviously I wasn't around here then. And am scared to imagine what life must have been like. But to think of this city without it's mysterious, camouflaged flowers wouldn't be the same.

This is one of my favorite things about NYC. It doesn't make up for the lack of greenery but sure is interesting scenery.