Finally St. Louis residents and officials in south city and near south county have had enough of graffiti. If you've driven through this area you've seen it and you've seen it cover more and more area than ever before. Painted surfaces include overpasses, old buildings, underpass walls and anything else that's flat enough and visible enough to spray.
Graffiti 'art' seems to have increased recently to the point where if you're on 44 near downtown or driving through the south side you can't miss it. Each week there's more. You never see it along the highway 40 corridor for some reason. It has always seemed unusual that authorities or police can't catch these people because they are so brazen and unafraid they paint heavily traveled interstate overpasses. And you'd have to hang over the side to do this, no way they can get a ladder set up on the highway.
Ever seen the old Powell Square building? The building which is now only circular columns holding up the roof? The walls have been gone for years and the entire existing surface is filled with graffiti. This looks terrible, standing as it does at the junction where east bound 1-44 and 164/40 traffic heads to the Poplar.
I say tear that structure down. For all of it's commercial life the Powell Square building was used to store rugs and carpets. It hasn't had walls for as long as I can remember. It's time to get that eyesore out of there and then start catching these guys. Someone hanging over an overpass with spray paint is pretty obvious, how about garnering the help of regular citizens who are driving along and see this going on. Give us a number to call and then send someone out to arrest them.
The city of St. Louis could stop this, if they really wanted to do it. New York City did it under Mayor Guiliani's term.
Posted by: Ron | November 14, 2012 at 08:38 AM