Graffiti Mural Goes Missing

Seattlest is a big fan of graffiti, as long as it's not some silly kid tagging the side of someone's house. We like graffiti as art, we appreciate political statements writ large on sidewalks and the walls of abandoned buildings. We're not advocating anything, we're just saying.

And now, the city is down one more fabulous graffiti mural. A kindly gentleman interested in saving this particular mural (near the Zoo, at 57th and Phinney) made a phone call. According to the Times:

He simply wanted to call attention to a handful of "tagging" done to the mural — those squiggly signatures that kids like to spray-paint. They didn't cover much, he says, maybe 1 percent of the mural, but they were an eyesore.

"I've played it over in my mind a million times," says Zuhl. "Why am I so damn civic-minded? If I hadn't pressed the issue to get this cleaned up, the murals would still be there."

Zuhl says he called the hotline three times, but nothing was done about the tagging. He also called the zoo, which then also twice called the hotline.

In the past, the zoo staff had painted over small tags with colors to match the art, even though the underpass is actually maintained by the city's Department of Transportation.

Of course, after calling on the matter repeatedly, the city misunderstood, thought the whole neighborhood was complaining, and painted over the mural. Art be damned.

Let this be a lesson to you: don't be one of those determined, civic-minded complainers, or else you'll wind up ruining it for everyone. Poor Zuhl. We bet he could make it better by organizing another community effort to graffiti another mural on that underpass.

Not the same graffiti mural, but an equally fabulous one, courtesy of *~Uplifting Arts~*