The white graffiti still tarnishes the red metal door on the Westcott Community Center on Euclid Avenue.

The graffiti has marked the door since at least three months ago, when the building was last sprayed. And it’s not the first time. The building has been sprayed with graffiti nearly six times in 10 years. 

‘It’s like a billboard for the disrespect some kids have for the public program’s buildings,’ said Steve Susman, executive director of the Westcott Community Center. 

There have been three incidents of graffiti in the past three weeks in and near the Westcott area, said Sgt. Gary Bulinski of the Syracuse Police Department. It’s unknown if the crimes are connected, and police are searching for suspects, he said. The graffiti sprayings this year follow a rash of incidents in June 2009 and September 2009, though overall graffiti numbers on Syracuse University campus are down this year.

Graffiti was sprayed on Westcott, Bassett and South Beech streets in the latest incidents. An 8-ball, similar to the design of that on a pool table, was sprayed in one of the incidents, Bulinski said. One of the buildings sprayed last week was a church, but members did not return several calls from The Daily Orange.

In September 2009, Syracuse police arrested three men for spraying graffiti on two buildings in the Westcott area, one of which included Mom’s Diner on Westcott, according to a Sept. 12, 2009, article in The Post-Standard.

Several months before that, in June 2009, a 19-year-old man, who had been arrested 21 times in the past three years, was sentenced to five years probation for spraying graffiti on several Westcott businesses, according to a June 15, 2009, article on WSYR’s website. 

For workers in the Westcott neighborhood, like Susman, the issue is perennial.

‘It’s always been an on-and-off problem in the neighborhood,’ he said.

The Westcott Community Center is city property, so the city is responsible for cleaning up any graffiti on the building, Susman said. But it usually takes several months for the city to remove the graffiti, and Susman said it would be better if it was taken away sooner, so the graffiti suspects wouldn’t be able to show their friends what they sprayed.

‘I don’t know what their motivation is,’ he said.

The graffiti incidents usually occur in the warmer months, Susman said.

‘Just think about being out here in a typical Syracuse winter,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to stand out there with spray paint.’

Some of the graffiti may be related to some of the rock bands that perform in the area, Susman said. During one band’s concert at the Westcott Community Center, someone sprayed the band’s symbol on a bathroom mirror, so Susman and the center made the promoter of the concert come back and clean it up.

Outside the Westcott area on SU campus, graffiti incidents are down in 2010 from what they were last year, according to statistics from the Department of Public Safety. There were 16 graffiti sprayings last year between January and October, compared to 10 so far this year. The incidents have occurred anywhere from parking lots to Day Hall and Winding Ridge on South Campus.

‘We find more inside than outside, so like in bathroom walls and things like that,’ DPS Chief Tony Callisto said.

Though there aren’t many graffiti sprayings on the outside of buildings, they have occurred before, Callisto said. Nearly three years ago, somebody sprayed the number of deaths in the Iraq War on an outside wall, Callisto said. There was also graffiti behind Flanagan Gymnasium a year and a half ago.

Students typically spray the indoor graffiti, but the outdoor incidents could be caused by anyone ranging from city youths to students, Callisto said.

‘Some of them might look at it as artistry,’ he said. ‘Some of them might look at it as criminal mischief.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on October 13, 2010 at 12:00 pm