NOLA Graffiti
From UANotebook
Contents |
Fighting the Aerosol Nation
By Katy Reckdahl February 20, 2000 http://www.bestofneworleans.com/archives/2001/0220/news-feat.html
Radtke pulls his Dodge 600 to the curb. He stops, runs his roller back and forth a few times. It’s a routine he’s performed for the past five years.
Meet Fred Radtke, anti-graffiti crusader. Taggers curse him. Some residents love him. Others aren’t so sure.
One morning a few weeks ago, keen observers walking along Decatur Street might have noted the words "F–k you, Gray Ghost." It was written – plain as day – in black permanent magic marker not far from the French Market.
By the afternoon, the words were gone, painted over with gray paint.
It was, like other gray squares on the walls of the Quarter, probably painted by Fred Radtke, president and chairman of the board of the Louisiana nonprofit organization called Operation: Clean Sweep, Inc. Anti-Graffiti Task Force.
Graffiti writers – both the spray painters and their magic marker cousins, taggers – curse Radtke’s mission in life: obliterating graffiti in New Orleans. Curious residents know him not by face but for the irregular squares of paint he leaves in his path. Critics complain that the gray squares just attract more graffiti. But don’t call City Hall if you have a beef about him. Fred Radtke is not a law enforcement officer. He’s just an ordinary citizen, a freelance event producer by trade, who has, it seems, become an anti-graffiti zealot.
Across the city, hundreds of times each week, Radtke pulls to the curb in his cream-colored Dodge 600 with thin red pinstripes and a mismatched navy-blue driver’s door. He gets out, opens the sagging trunk and pulls out one of the gallon paint cans – usually gray, but sometimes his other option, a putty-colored beige. (He says those two colors are what he gets for free from Helm Paint and Supply.) He stops, takes a quick photo, runs his roller back and forth a few times, and the job is done. It’s a routine he’s performed almost constantly for the past five years. He’s filled 10 photo albums with snapshots of the graffiti he’s conquered.
Yet through the years, graffiti artists haven’t been the only ones criticizing his work. "Suppose you have a million-dollar building in the French Quarter and you come out and see someone painting gray paint on it," says a source at the Vieux Carre Commission, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Would you think ‘who the hell does he think he is?’ You’re using Chevrolet, I only use Cadillac quality paint. I only use mineral spirits, you’re using latex. Painting over graffiti with gray paint is defacing property just as much as the graffiti did in the first place."
The source says Radtke made a commitment with the commission to paint over graffiti in colors that match the building, but he hasn’t kept the promise. Radtke says that he would like to paint original colors, but cannot afford it. "I’m not Mr. Gray Paint, I don’t even like gray," he admits. "I like the 35 shades of paint found in the French Quarter. But you put a Band-Aid on top of a disease that’s happening out there. Once that disease is healed, that gray will go away."
And, although a few store owners have complained that he painted over graffiti without their approval, Radtke asserts that he always gets permission from property owners and that he’s never been anything but mannerly.
Of course, conquerors are not a soft-spoken lot, and Radtke is no exception. He has all sorts of theories about graffiti and how it’s tied to crime. Yet, despite his pride in his work, he typically bars observers from watching Operation: Clean Sweep in action.
"This is not a friendly business," he explains. "I’m out there dealing with gangsters."
Radtke does, begrudgingly, permit an observer to tag along one Wednesday morning at the end of January. The observer will be protected because Radtke is part of a larger effort called the Strategic Information Force (S.I.F.), 60 or so volunteers, police officers, and municipal workers who will, over the course of one day, scour, trim, and scrub a few dozen city blocks. This particular S.I.F. has been planned for a section of the Seventh Ward, roughly north and west of the intersection of Elysian Fields and I-10.
This neighborhood’s streets will rumble and buzz all day with heavy equipment and city personnel: meter maids, tow trucks, housing inspectors, garbage trucks, municipal trucks and vehicles, supervisors with walkie-talkies, and workers raking, sweeping and running weed whips.
Radtke, of course, will spend his time painting out graffiti. He’s dressed in white workmen’s pants well-spotted with paint, and a dark T-shirt covered by a thin white jacket.
There are some parts of town that Radtke works frequently. But, he admits, this is not one of them. "This is only the second time I’ve been through this neighborhood, so we haven’t developed this area yet." Radtke focuses most of his attentions on areas like the zoo, the French Quarter, and the Warehouse District, because that’s where the tourists are and he is "sick of the city getting a bad rap."
This morning, the first stop is at the corner of Annette and North Tonti streets, in front of the heavily graffitoed wall of Saver Food Store. Among other things, the spray-painted letters read "Phat, R.I.P. 11-21-00, We’ll always love you nigga!" The same message, with a few variations, is spray-painted on the street, the sidewalk, and across the front of a nearby house that has a No Limit shirt hanging from the porch and a shrine made of Crown Royal and other bottles leaning against the house. Radtke scans the corner. "Phat is probably the name of the guy and that’s the day he died." He shakes his head. "Whoever did this graffiti owns this block. This is what you call max-out intimidation."
Radtke pulls over the Dodge, gets out, and takes off the jacket, revealing a navy blue T-shirt that reads "Strike Force" on the back and bears a breast insignia on the front that says "City of New Orleans, Marc Morial." He walks resolutely into the store and tells owner Trung Nguyen that he’s working with today’s S.I.F. and that he’d like to paint over the graffiti, no cost. He gives her a red, white and blue flyer that, among other things, contains his motto "Don’t be Seedy; Erase Graffiti," and the 24-hour hotline number for Operation: Clean Sweep (486-9694). Nguyen says okay and thank you, and Radtke walks out and heads to his trunk to get the tools of his trade. The store’s wall is white, so he pours the putty-colored primer into a paint tray and pulls out a long-handled roller.
"Usually these kinds of businesses are owned by Orientals and they’re afraid to do anything," he says. "I must have dealt with about 30 supermarkets owned by Orientals – they run the business inside but what’s outside, they don’t want to deal with because retaliation can come back on them." That’s where Radtke can intervene, he says, using the "we" he typically uses when talking about Operation: Clean Sweep. "If we come in and paint it out, that gives the store owners a little buffer because they can say that ‘the city’ came and did it. I’m not the city, but that’s what they would probably say."
Typically, Radtke says, he would be hassled if he were painting out a message like this one. "But there’s a lot of law around," he explains. Radtke has already finished painting primer on the side wall and goes around to work on the shorter front wall, giving a long sidewise glance to a few people at the house next door. There, Michael Holmes and Melvin Paul sit on the steps and talk to a young woman. The trio says that, yes, the graffiti was part of a memorial for the guy down the street but that they don’t care if it’s painted over. "It was put up for the second-line, but it doesn’t matter now," says Holmes.
"This isn’t California, you feel me?" Holmes adds, in a reference to the territorial gang-graffiti scene in Los Angeles.
The group stands up to watch Radtke, who’s now busy at work waving cars around a wet stretch of putty-colored paint on the intersection. "Why did he paint the street?" one of them asks. "Now he’s painting the sidewalk." Radtke and his roller catch all four corners of the sidewalk and then he heads toward the house with the Crown Royal shrine. Melvin Paul sits back down on the steps. "I’ve lived here in the Seventh Ward for 15 years and I’ve never seen anything like this."
It’s Thursday, the day after the Seventh Ward S.I.F., and Radtke is having a cup of coffee and explaining his tenets of graffiti-fighting.
He takes a moment to emphasize that there are dozens of kinds of graffiti: "occult, hip-hop, artistic, gang-related, No More Prisons, Stop Police Brutality – everyone has their own agenda. Two years ago, all I saw was occult until we caught the two guys that were doing it, making 11,000 marks a year in the French Quarter. The two guys that were caught brought in a New York attorney and were given a choice of six months in jail or a $3,000 fine. They paid the $3,000 and left town. Who stops them? Who catches them? We do."
Radtke is emphatic about the connection between graffiti and crime. "Graffiti on blighted property attracts addicts and drugs dealers. If an owner paints it over, it moves these drug dealers somewhere else."
This issue is so important to Radtke that he worked to create legislation penalizing property owners who don’t take graffiti seriously. "If they don’t take the graffiti off in 30 days, they pay $500," he says. "We did that two years ago." He’s referring to an anti-graffiti ordinance passed by the New Orleans City Council; Radtke was, confirm City Hall insiders, instrumental in making that happen.
"The ordinance was passed through Fred’s urging, giving us better legal means to fight graffiti," says Julie Schwam Harris, who works in the mayor’s office.
But that’s just one of Radtke’s stated accomplishments. "Our graffiti hotline saves the NOPD 1,000 phone calls each year; they’re out there now dealing with priority situations instead of spending time on graffiti. We have already painted over 24 trash cans on Magazine Street; for the Mayors’ Conference here we painted 97 blocks by the St. Thomas project." He reels off such numbers readily, but ask him about budget numbers for Operation: Clean Sweep and he gets less clear. He’s financed through something he calls "adopt-a-block" at $150 a year, but he can’t estimate how many blocks are actually adopted. The only sponsor he can name is a local Popeye’s.
Radtke says that the FBI Gang Task Force considers him an expert on gang graffiti (the FBI says that information is confidential and can’t confirm anything) and that he is supported by the mayor and the chief of police (both say, through spokespeople, that they support Radtke as an individual who is doing good for the community). He also says he applied his graffiti deciphering after last year’s shooting at Carter G. Woodson Middle School. "Colonel Davis called me in on the Woodson School," he says. "I took my camera and took pictures. I determined that the shooting came about because of intimidation through graffiti."
Radtke and Davis did meet, confirms school district spokesperson Linedda McIver. There were, she adds, other factors that led to the school violence in addition to graffiti.
Radtke calls graffiti a "welcome mat" for criminals. But he has hope for the city. "In Los Angeles, you can’t get rid of graffiti," he says. "You have gangs making $50 million a year, spending $85,000 on spray cans. You can’t stop it. In New Orleans, it’s economics. It’s not a major city, and we don’t have the organized gangs that they have in L.A. – it’s a neighborhood setup here."
But, he warns, that doesn’t mean that graffiti here isn’t crime-related: "Fourteen guys on a corner hanging out, they’re wannabes; they wanna be like Crips and Bloods. Like in the rental-car business, they say, ‘We’re second; we try harder.’ These guys want to make a name for themselves."
Radtke turns a final page in an Operation: Clean Sweep photo album and points to some colorful pieces that used to line the 17th Street Canal. The operative phrase here is "used to," because the 17th Street Canal – all one-and-one-half miles of it – is now graffiti-free, says Radtke with pride. "It was called the Graffiti Hall of Fame because the word on the street was ‘Put your stuff down there so you get noticed.’"
Although some graffiti artists – the late Keith Haring being a prime example – went on to show their work in nearly every famous contemporary art gallery in the United States, Radtke resists the idea that any graffiti can be called beautiful. "How can it be beautiful on someone’s property? It’s still a coral snake, one of the most beautiful in the world. But its bite will kill you." And, he adds, "Remember, New Orleans is an economic town. A can of spray paint runs between four and seven dollars. If you go out and buy 50 of them for a piece that’s 50 yards long, 10 colors, it’s almost an addiction. How are you going to get your next fix, your next spray can?"
Included in the album is a photo captioned "I-10" that says "F–k you, Fred Radtke" and another one that requests a vulgar act of Radtke. "I know them all," he says, "and they know me, absolutely. They’re not happy with me taking out graffiti. They shoot guns through their cell phones on the hotline. But they understand that I take out everything. It’s not a personal thing."
He points at another piece of graffiti painted high above ground on the I-10 bridge. The piece, like everything else in his books, now exists only as a square of gray paint. And Radtke feels good about that. "We’re doing something right. Instead of just thinking about graffiti, these guys are thinking about us. I’m glad they’re thinking of us, because we’re going to catch them." .
responses
Ban The Buff
September 11th, 2007 by Loki
retrieved from http://humidcity.com/2007/09/11/bad-fred/
Grey blocks painted on every available surface, including street signs (which we have few of these days), is an unappealing sight. Not only is it grafitti, but it is ugly, Orwellian looking and unwelcome. The idea that rolling grey paint over any grafitti is an improvement is one lacking in taste as well as sense.
Such is the Legacy of Fred Radtke, also known to locals as the Grey Ghost. I don’t care how you try to rationalize it, he is doing exactly what he rails against: tagging. Anyone here seen street signs that have been painted over with a nice block of grey, rendering them unreadable? That is him.
I have been fed up with this nimrod for quite some time, and it seems that lately I am not the only one.
two
retrieved from http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/viewStory.cfm?recID=25644
“Robert Mendoza, director of the New Orleans Public Works Department, said Radtke is breaking the law every time he paints over graffiti on public street signs. But Mendoza will do nothing to prosecute the violations, he said, because his office lacks the resources and time to conduct an investigation.The New Orleans Police Department, however, condones Radtke’s actions. NOPD often calls him directly to cover graffiti and spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said they have no intention of charging Radtke with any crimes. ”
Paint Wars Continue
retrieved from http://humidcity.com/2008/07/24/paint-wars-continue/
July 24th, 2008 by Lord David
So I was just leaving the lumber yard on N. Peters & St. Ferdinand, when I get a text message from Rex Dingler, asking me to go look at a sign Dr. Bob made, welcoming vistors to the Bywater. It sits on private property, owned by NOCCA, a bastion of the arts, next to X/O Gallery, another bastion of the arts. The sign itself was hand painted by local legend, Dr. Bob, who has his work displayed in the Smithsonian Museum, and on Oprah Winfrey’s wall, for crissake.
And there it is. A two by three foot sign, beautifully trimmed in bottle caps, as Bob’s pieces are, usually from Jax beer or Barq’s Root Beer. It’s professionally mounted on posts, up and out of reach, nestled under some shady trees, adding that Mayberry touch to our quirky bohemian neighborhood.
Except for the grey paint. Battleship ugly fucking grey paint, rolled sloppily over the face of the sign, leaving obvious roller patterens and see-through spatter. That Asshole From Hell, Fred Radtke, has been here.
This is not graffitti we’re talking about. This is not a ‘clean sweep’ or neighborhood beautification.
This is a vindictive act by a small and petty man, making an ugly fucking mess in a neighborhood he does not live in, or represent; a neighborhood that doesn’t want him here, and has petitioned the city to keep him away. He has childishly desecrated a sign, I repeat, A SIGN, not graffitti, that welcomes vistors to our funky slice of heaven. And he has marred the work of a local artist renowned enough to have been asked by the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington, DC, to display his work in their Folk Art Exhibit.
I, for one, and call me crazy if you will, would prefer that Dr. Bob’s art work, whether you like it or not, keep the “New Orleans Brand out there” rather than a skyrocketing murder rate and out-of-control thug behavior by our police force. But that’s just me.
Still, the police refuse to arrest him, and Sgt. Joe Narcissi keeps calling him “our friend”. Do you think we could be Sgt. Joe’s friend, too, if we, say, rolled grey paint over every fucking one of those illegal political signs that litters out neighborhoods and intersections? Would Judge Bonin thank Sgt Joe for allowing us to paint over all his re-election signage that spatters the Marigny/Bywater? And how about all those little signs on spindley metal legs that crowd every intersection? Those are illegal, according to city law.
Fred Radtke the artist
Monday, May 12, 2008
retrieved from http://www.ironrail.org/blog/2008/05/fred-radtke-is-new-orleans.html
FRED RADTKE IS NEW ORLEANS
I'm tired of the bitching and whining about Fred Radtke, aka "The Grey Ghost." I'm tired of the cutesy t-shirts, tired of people moaning that he should be arrested, tired of the endless internet threats and letters to the editor. Fred Radtke is fucking amazing. Not only is he the best at what he does, but he represents a number of mind-blowing conceptual breakthroughs, bold steps forward in a long-stagnant "graf" scene.
For those not familiar, Radtke is the artist responsible for the huge variously grey blotches you see all over the city. A good Radtke has a mesmerizing, existentially provocative post-Rothko quality: a quilt of overlapping neutral shades addressing notions of totality and aspiration. It's miles (and yet mere millimeters) above most of the amateur-hour 'art' writers our city has to offer. Beyond his work itself and its awesome omnipresence-- both of which are significant in their own rights-- Fred is notable for his revolutionary methods and approach. He goes out in his old van with a bunch of grey paint and some rollers, and slathers it all over anything that catches his eye. Someone put a bumper sticker on a stop sign? SPLAP: the whole sign's just a big grey octagon now. Someone wrote "RIP Li'l Stinky, 1992-2008" in chalk on the brick wall of an abandoned 19th-century factory building? SPLUP: thick grey paint, eight feet square.
Quik-print plastic signs stapled to a telephone pole, advertising 2 gold teeth for $150? SPLOOP! 'Lost Dog' flyer? SPLUPP! Cringe-inducingly earnest NOLA RISING folk-art? SPLAPP! Radtke is a machine, a marvelous, superhuman grey-paint juggernaut, and if you have any problem with what he does, up to and including his fondness for violently assaulting passers-by and threatening to shoot them, do you know what you are?
Jealous. You're a hater, nothing more. I understand your petty resentment; Radtke is the king of New Orleans, and you're nobody. I sympathize; you're living in his horizon-spanning grey shadow. It must rankle. But please, stop hating. If you're a graffiti artist or sign-maker or DPW employee, take a minute to appreciate just how massively outplayed you are.
Radtke doesn't creep around with a bandanna over his face, furtively scribbling, toting a clanking backpack. No, he's out in the sunshine, getting up right on front street all day err' day. You approach him, he pulls a gun on you, or maybe splits your head open. He's real gangster, and cowboy paints where he wants when he wants. Historic French Quarter facades, traffic signs, private residences, corner stores, churches, Radtke don't give a fuck. SPLOPP! grey paint.
Everyone knows his tag, because he's all-city in a way no-one else is. The cops don't bother him, the City funds him, the paint store welcomes his business. He's taken it to the next level. Authorities turn a blind eye to his work, because he's outsmarted them. He's gotten their blessing to establish his tag on every surface in every neighborhood, and by god, he doesn't half-ass it. He has subverted the 'buff' and made it his personal trademark. How sick is that??
NOLA RISING tried to fuck with him, and NOLA RISING got knocked. Fred Radtke is the face of New Orleans graffiti, and to me, he's much bigger than high-concept clowns like Banksy or whoever else populates coffee-table "street art" books these days. Radtke doesn't need words, doesn't need appropriated 70s underground-comix imagery, doesn't need scene cred or 'authenticity.' His tag is primordial, both pre- and post-verbal. His tag is an entire PALETTE... he is the color grey, bitches, and you all know it. He goes over everything. You can love him or hate him-- he's way beyond you-- but give the man the respect he deserves. He IS graffiti, he IS the king, and he IS New Orleans. Keep talking shit... Radtke's out painting.
--the mighty d-block
NOLA Rising
about NOLA rising
NoLa Rising is a post-Katrina art campaign encouraging people in all faubourgs of Greater New Orleans to publicly display works of art, regardless of how simple or untutored it may seem to be, for the purpose of rebuilding and restoring the human spirit in our city. NOLA is a unique and beautiful city that has historically embraced the spirit of personal freedom that supports the growth of the artist, musician and writer ... the goal of the NoLa Rising Project is to showcase that spirit.
from http://nolarising.blogspot.com/
Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/392811@N24/
Gray Ghost feuds with Nola Rising creator
NOPD citations could soon cost artist $50,000
by Richard A. Webster
retrieved from http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/viewStory.cfm?recID=25644
Fred Radkte covered graffiti on a stop sign with gray paint. (Photo by Michael Dingler)
Michael Dingler knew he was in trouble when the “Gray Ghost” appeared at the Freret Street Art Market in December accompanied by Joseph Joia, a New Orleans Police Department quality of life officer.
Joia cited Dingler for more than 1,100 counts of unlawfully posting signs on telephone poles that could cost him more than $50,000 in fines.
Dingler doesn’t deny the charges. Since Hurricane Katrina he has hung hundreds of hand-painted “messages of hope” throughout the city, signs with slogans such as “Smile” and “Welcome Back.”
Dingler said the charges don’t make sense given that Joia arrived with Fred Radtke, aka the Gray Ghost, who has made a name for himself by slathering gray paint over graffiti on public and private buildings — often without property owner approval.
“When I asked Officer Joia if he was going to file the same charges against Fred under the graffiti statutes, he said he was unaware of what I was talking about,” said Dingler. “Here’s a guy who is destroying city property, who has become what he said he is fighting against. And yet I’m the one facing all these charges? It’s selective enforcement of the law.”
Radtke dismissed Dingler’s accusations, called him a “loser,” a “phony” and the “biggest pain in the ass I ever met.”
He said Dingler’s so-called “messages of hope” are “vertical trash” that promote other forms of vandalism.
“It’s real simple: people either want to abide by the law or not,” Radtke said.
Common purposes
Radtke, 52, founded the nonprofit Operation Clean Sweep in 1997 to fight graffiti.
The former Marine covers graffiti full-time and depends on donations to fund his operation, including several $10,000 grants from the city of New Orleans and a $32,000 grant over a four-year period from Freeport-McMoRan.
Radtke expanded his targets after the storm from simply graffiti to signs illegally posted on telephone poles. He paints over band posters and political and business advertisements.
Dingler, also a former Marine and a New Orleans native, has organized Nola Rising, a post-Katrina campaign to encourage people to display public works of art meant to inspire people during the recovery.
The idea was to hand-paint signs with positive slogans such as “Believe,” and “Everybody radiates sunshine on the soul,” and hang them everywhere from Uptown to the Lower Ninth Ward.
Dingler said his friends warned him against the idea. They said it was pointless because his artwork would fall victim to the unforgiving brush of the Gray Ghost.
“I had no idea who he was,” Dingler said. “I thought it was crazy. Who would paint over messages of hope?”
A few days after Dingler hung his first signs, Radtke covered them with a thick layer of gray paint.
“You have to have a pretty cold heart to do something like that,” Dingler said. “I definitely didn’t think that what I was doing was a crime.”
Dingler is scheduled to appear March 18 in Orleans Parish Civil District Court. He said it is difficult to understand why he faces $50,000-plus in fine for hanging removable pieces of art while Radtke is free to splatter permanent gray paint on whatever surface he wants with impunity.
Radtke is an independent operator whose actions are not officially sanctioned by the city. City officials said they allow him to do his thing because of a lack of manpower and funds.
City support
Robert Mendoza, director of the New Orleans Public Works Department, said Radtke is breaking the law every time he paints over graffiti on public street signs. But Mendoza will do nothing to prosecute the violations, he said, because his office lacks the resources and time to conduct an investigation.
The New Orleans Police Department, however, condones Radtke’s actions. NOPD often calls him directly to cover graffiti and spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said they have no intention of charging Radtke with any crimes.
Dingler said he was charged with violations of the law after Radtke became obsessed with him and embarked on a personal vendetta.
Radtke’s harassment has nothing to do with ridding the city of graffiti, he said
Radtke didn’t deny his war against Dingler is personal and said he will use all of his energy and resources to financially cripple him. He accuses Dingler of being in league with the graffiti artists, saying Dingler intentionally provoked him by hanging signs calling him the “Gray Gangster,” and posted his home address on the Internet.
Permission needed
Tiffiny Wallace, owner of the Lucky You Candy Co. at 4505 Magazine St., is a fan of the Nola Rising project and has several works hanging on telephone poles in front of her store.
“It’s a uniquely New Orleans thing and the kids who come into my store love it,” said Wallace. “I don’t understand why Michael’s being charged with all of these things while Radtke is free to paint gray paint all over my neighbor’s windows without his permission. It’s going to cost $1,000 now to replace them.”
Wallace contemplated pursuing a restraining order against Radtke to prevent him from painting over the Nola Rising signs. She is circulating a petition among Magazine Street business owners demanding Radtke secure their permission before he paints anything on their properties.
Radtke said he has no problem with that. But Dingler’s signs are illegal, he said, just as it is illegal to staple bills, posters or signs of any kind to telephone poles.
And it doesn’t matter if the signs happen to be hand-painted, “pretty pictures” of rainbows with inspirational slogans.
To Radtke it is all vandalism and he is going to “gray” it all out, whether anyone asks him to or not.
Violent past
As a result of the escalating tension, Radtke and Dingler said they fear for their safety.
Radtke said taggers he associates with Dingler have thrown acid at him, threatened him with knives and smashed his truck windows.
Dingler points to an online photograph of a bloodied young graffiti artist he claims Radtke attacked.
Radtke said the beating was self-defense and no charges were ever filed against him.
Diane Lundeen, owner of Petcetera on Magazine Street and a judge with the Louisiana Office of Worker’s Compensation District 8, said the city should oversee volunteers such as Radtke to coordinate his efforts and ensure business owner property rights.
Until then, he continues to operate as a freelancer without direct oversight or accountability, she said.
Dingler is compiling a database of Radtke’s handiwork that should dwarf the 1,100 counts he now faces. He will present his evidence to the police, just as Radtke did, and demand charges be filed.
“This all started with me trying to do something good for the city and now it has turned into a nightmare all because of a guy called the Gray Ghost,” Dingler said. “It’s insane.”
Grey Ghost Teams with the Downtown Development District
excerpts retrieved from http://nolarising.blogspot.com/2008/08/grey-ghost-teams-with-downtown.html
In an effort to show that he is changing his ways at the urging of New Orleanians, the Grey Ghost joined forces with the Downtown Development District in a color matching attempt that we can finally regard as moderately acceptable.
We here at NoLA Rising International Headquarters (located in sunny and tropical New Orleans) have been HARSH critics of Mr. Ghost and will continue that criticism so long as there is no meaningful change in his attitude towards public art and his methodology of grey remains the same. Despite that stance, we would like to applaud his recent efforts attempting to color match at the building on Canal Street. I'm certain, though, that his effort would never have been necessary had the property owners of the building taken proper care of their property.
Blight of this sort is a sign that the people who own the property might not care or the property is being slated for bigger and better designs, making it nearly a moot issue as it were. My concern for the Downtown Development District's interaction with Mr. Ghost is that they will issue funds to him that may go to the furthering of grey in the New Orleans area and that scourge of grey will destroy the downtown area.
We've heard tell that he has a magical cleaning solution that would be better than the grey paint and question why he doesn't use this solution to clean traffic signs and other forms of "graffiti" he finds so offensive. This same solution he has supposedly offered to clean the now infamous Dr. Bob sign with and I'm curious why it isn't available for use on other graffiti. Anyone with suggestions, please let me know in the comments section.
I'd hate not to give due diligence and fairness to the Ghost in his new found efforts to reform his greyed ways, so as a token of our supreme generosity, we've decided to put the link to his website here. Fair and balanced. But, for those of you thinking, "Rex, what the hell are you doing man?" It's simple: Graffiti also includes all of those horrible grey blotches he's painted over property (allegedly without their permission).
Thus, if you have had your property greyed out, please feel free to call him and ask that he remove those unsightly blotches that he may have created. According to the city ordinances on graffiti, those unauthorized blotches qualify as graffiti and he is thereby liable to clean them too. Good luck getting any police action should you attempt that route, as his connections there make him invincible and he knows it. Operation Clean Sweep link HERE. Don't be seedy, erase graffiti...grey and otherwise.
