News
Victory for 5Pointz Artists
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
After about three weeks of delib-erations,
a Brooklyn jury found that
5Pointz developer Jerry Wolkoff acted
illegally when he painted over almost
50 pieces of graffiti at the famed Long
Island City site.
The artists who had covered 5Pointz
in colorful graffiti scored a major victory
in March when a Brooklyn judge ruled
that they could sue the developers for
painting over their work without provid-ing
them advance notice.
Artists had been using the building at
45-46 Davis St. in Long Island City as a
canvas since 1993 and in 2002 artist
Meres One helped turn the space into a
graffiti mecca. In 2013, developer G&M
Realty announced that the space would
become two high-rise apartment buildings.
In 2015, 21 artists filed a lawsuit
against the Wolkoff family, which owns
G&M Realty, claiming that the property’s
owner committed an illegal act by paint-ing
over their work without giving them
enough warning to take it down and
save it. They evoked the Visual Artists
Rights Act of 1990, which states that
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protections against destruction of works
are afforded to authors who create art
of “recognized stature.”
According to the Daily News, all the
artists were awarded damages on Nov.
7 and the final costs will be calculated
today, Nov. 8.
But Judge Frederic Block will take
the jury’s decision as a recommendation
and make a final decision in the com-ing
weeks, according to The New York
Times. He has asked Eric Baum, the
lawyer for the artists, and Wolkoff’s law-yer,
David Ebert, to submit court papers
outlining how valid the decision was.
Artists and the surrounding com-munity
were outraged when Wolkoff
announced that he would tear down
the structure. Rallies were held to try to
preserve the structure but the building
was torn down and the new towers will
be completed at the end of this year.
“At times I stood alone,” artist Meres
One wrote on Instagram. “By the end 20
artists and an entire passionate com-munity
reminded me everyday that this
was a fight worth fighting for!!”
Ebert told QNS it would be “inap-propriate
to comment” since the case
is still pending before the court.
Photo courtesy of Flickr/iamNigelMorris
