Alright, let me just say it now, but I love it when people from the MTA read my blog. Alright, alright, I don’t really know if anyone from there or Metro-North read my blog. What I do know, is that a lot of people found my blog the past few days, specifically searching for a phrase. And what phrase is that, do you ask? Goldens Bridge vandalism, and Goldens Bridge graffiti.

The other thing that I know is that today somebody was busy over at Goldens Bridge. Replacing every broken pane of glass, and covering over all of the graffiti. Now that graffiti had been there a few days shy of a month. Though exactly a week after posting embarrasing (for the MTA) photos of the destruction, it is now fixed. What service! Of course it is possible that nobody important read this blog at all, but I prefer to believe my delusions of grandeur.

Unfortunately, I now have no further excuse for putting up crazy posters in the train station. I have nothing ugly to cover up! Maybe some day, the posters will come back. But until then, enjoy a little sound clip. Somebody did in fact call the telephone number on one of the Waldo posters, and left me a message. Perhaps that whole “Operation Cover Up Graffiti & Broken Glass” was not as much of a failure as I thought it to be.

[audio src="http://www.iridetheharlemline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/waldo"]

I personally thought that last week’s Cat Found poster was pretty funny. They were slowly taken down one by one, but at least one of the posters survived the entire week. My goal was to again, cover up the graffiti, and now the broken glass, with something a bit more amusing. The poster I hung last night was somewhat more subtle.

The name Waldo should give it away. Don’t fix that glass Metro North, it looks sexy as-is.

Cover up that graffiti!

Well, let’s just say it was a miserable failure. The signs did not last 24 hours in the station. By morning time, six of the seven were gone, and one was moved in the corner and partially crumpled. If an MTA worker did this, I could understand. But then that means that they employ workers to go into stations and pull down posters. And do only that. Because they sure as hell didn’t clean the station. The same immature penis drawings in the dirt that have been there for months are still there. The graffiti is still there, the broken glass on the floor is still there. I will just assume that I pissed off the graffiti artist. And they certainly didn’t want their handiwork covered up.

As I was leaving Goldens Bridge station today, I noticed that someone had been busy in the station mid morning or early afternoon. In the south-side vestibule there was some new spray-painted graffiti that hadn’t been there in the morning. When I saw it, I made me think that it was about time for a part two to the original train graffiti post I made a few months ago. And so here you go, graffiti part two…

Goldens Bridge is such a small, quiet station. We don’t get much spray paint here. Mostly just penises drawn in the dust of the windows that nobody ever cleans… I’m sure the MTA will send some people to clean the windows. Someday. If the cleaning people’s jobs aren’t cut…

I can’t even begin to decipher that one…

No, I didn’t do this bit of graffiti. Considering my post on my dislike for this ad, I had been pondering something snarky to write on it. Someone else got to it first.

I imagine a bored track worker did this, knowing the third rail was off. That or someone dumb enough to go and write on a live third rail…

A warning for you to watch the gap. Yeah, that gap. The one right on the bottom of her face, under the nose.

A sticker someone left on an M7.

The NY Lottery does like to advertise heavily on public transportation… Trying to make it sound like it easy to win a million dollars in the lottery though, that is bullshit.

Now this certainly seems to me like a racist statement. A poster with a bunch of African kids, attempting to raise money for charity, and someone labels it as a future Obama rally… Classy, real classy.

Perhaps I pay a little bit more attention to the signs and advertisements on the train because I am a graphic designer. Or perhaps it is just because I am observant. Either way, I am often amused looking at the little messages people write on ads, and on the trains. People interacting with their surroundings. Probably stupid people.

Here is my collection to date of delightful bits of train graffiti. Perhaps sometime in the future there will be a part two… and if you happen to have any pictures of anything amusing, be sure to send it to me :D

Advertisements for television shows are quite common on the trains. Apparently this person thinks that TV is shit.

Goldens Bridge tends to frequently get graffiti similar to the one above. My hypothesis is that high school students are the ones making the marks, and Goldens Bridge gets many young people, between the local skater kids and the students that take the train to school. Kennedy High School is right down the street, and a shuttle bus picks up students at the station every morning.

My initial thought in seeing this is that someone forgot to write “For a good time, call…” Assuming that it is in fact a phone number, it is still missing an area code. Trying the various area codes from the New York area, the only promising number is in the area code 914. And that would be Dr. Jim Koo, located in Yorktown. Did someone on the train call information and not have anything to write on? Or maybe Dr. Koo is hoping for you to call him for a good time. He’ll give you a full physical.

Fuck you Conrail? Conrail??? Metro North was formed in 1983, and Conrail was before that. Is someone living in the past, or was this done a long, long time ago?

Apparently I’Am not very good at writing English…