Hate graffiti at Sunset Hill Park

Posted by Geeky Swedes on January 4th, 2009

With all the teens out on Christmas break, there’s been a surge in graffiti around the Ballard area. But one tagging is particularly disturbing:

The graffiti on the sidewalk in front of Sunset Hill Park today says, in part, “All n****rs die now!” (We blurred out the N word.) “We recently relocated here from Chicago and were pretty taken aback by this,” writes My Ballard reader Jordan, who saw the graffiti today while visiting the park with his family. In a possibly related post, “mdan” wrote in the forum yesterday:

“Has anyone every noticed the hoodlums that hang out at Sunset Park at night?…. These kids tend to drive up and down 32nd late night and scream/beep horns that kind of thing.”

Separately, My Ballard reader John sent us this photo of fresh graffiti on the old Thai Cafe building (now Uma) along 20th Ave. We drove around the area and saw similar pink tags on Leary and Russell.

And we shot this photo of graffiti along 15th Ave. around 62nd. To report graffiti at a public place (or on private property that hasn’t been cleaned up for some time), you can call the city’s graffiti line at 684-7587 or submit an online complaint here. (Thanks Jordan and John for the tips.)

Adds Mickey in comments: “By the way, the Loyal Heights Community Center was also hit with graffiti over New Year’s. You wouldn’t believe the amount of area they covered. The bathrooms and the brick and conrete walls on either side of the bathrooms.”

Tags: Ballard Facebook

kuhs

i think that the klasp gives decoration to 85th and greenwood, that is a dirty neighborhood and moke should stick to his black book

LESTER123

fuk you graffiti will live for ever, that shit on the side of the grooming place is done by yours truely

lots of love
LESTER
xoxo

ballard is hippys and yuppys

and what I hate more than teenagers is all those 30 and 40 year olds out there riding on their snitch bike fix gears. And remember NOBODY LIKES A TATTLE TALE.

ballard is hippys and yuppys

there aren't any graffiti artists in the ballard area that are in gangs. They write their name in a certain style of graffiti that makes it hard to read. I can read all of them because I know graffiti well. and just remember if you dont like it PAINT IS CHEAP.

gosha03

Wdkoiw hi! http://msn.com my site

SEAMAK

i wuld just like to say that u are all quite possibly the biggest snitches to ever walk the earth. i am one of these so called hoodlums who enjoys breaking u snitches windows, an boardbrown i hope u an some of ur other "badass" dad friends do catch us in the act because that would be very amusing. joey pickles is my dude an hate crimes are wusup

YOUS GOT DA SHERM

ALSO, JOEY PICKLEZ.

YOUS GOT DA SHERM

GIT UP STAY UP! AND SMOKE BOWL OF METH! SHERM IS HELL FILTHY AND SO IS LIVING IN ABANDONED BUILDINGS. BALLARD FUCK YEA!

The

Pull into the back parking lot of Kinkos. One of them is actually along the edge of the parking lot of Ballard Sip and Ship and Kinko's. Huge boarded up eye sore houses with creepy drug addicts milling around the blog. Pretty easy

jm

Are those old buildings the property at 1753 N.W. 56th St? The Ballard News Tribune has a story about the Compass Center developing the location into low income housing. The police should evict transients.

boardbrown

How 'bout a bulldozer?

The

I meant to say attached to the Kinkos parking lot. There are two buildings that are clearly marked no trespassing keep out. Drive by there any night and notice you can see light from inside even though most windows are boarded up. Every punk from Ballard to Capital Hill knows about them, which is why you suddenly see an increase in new trouble makers walking up and down market street. If anyone knows how to gt them out of there we would cut 90% of the crime out of downtown Ballard late at night.

The

The Grafitti is all coming from a group a teenagers that live in the abandoned house adjacent to kinkos on Market Street. The same punks that hang out on the side of 7 - 11 on Market. I have complained, but nothing is done. If anyone knows who owns the huge boarded up house attached to the kinkos, please let them know they have about 20 transients living there. You know, the meth head types...

Miles

Sounds like people want other avenues and tools for dealing with graffiti. I've found that in some communities like Olympia, WA local residents are able to use the SeeClickFix website to take control.

Publicly post photos, videos and comments about graffiti or other issues in the neighborhood. Create a watch area for yourself or others so they get email alerts when new issues are reported. Can be a great way to document and communicate about issues.

Let me know what you think - www.seeclickfix.com.

Miles

Lefty

More out of whack priorities of Seattle. They have no interest in busting those painting the graffiti, but fail to remove it from your property immediately or you face draconian punishment.

jm

Seattle Public Utilities:

http://www.seattle.gov/util/Services/Garbage/Re...

jm

The Ballard News Tribune ran an interesting story about the tagging three years ago, but it isn't on their web site at this time. Maybe they could run it again:
Dark arts: Graffiti and tagging cost city millions
By Dean Wong
Wednesday, April 05, 2006

seattletwig

>>BTW how can YOUNG Urban Professionals >>have teenage sons in Ballard?

dinks can't, but yups can. btw, don't assume this wasn't someone's little princess.

mickey

angrignon -

The Loyal Heights Neighborhood Watch meeting is Thursday, January 22, 7-9 pm at the community center. Fauveress scheduled it and posted a blurb about it in the upcoming events page here on the blog.

From what I could put together after conversations today with community center staff and parks staff, it generally takes about three business days for the Parks Dept. to remove graffiti once a work order has been issued. So, if the work order was issued on a Thursday, it probably won't be taken care of until the following Tuesday. (Parks staff says it's a 48-hour turnaround, but history shows that's often not the case.)

I also reported the graffiti at Sunset Hill Park because, during my phone call with Parks, it sounded like their records did not previously show any report about it.

jm

The City of Seattle is supposed to have a budget and crew to take care of the the clean-up on city property. I am sure they are busy.

Maria

Extra police protection to address the issue and park employees to clean it up will increase your taxes.

angrignon

When are the meetings at the LH?

Also, why is the Parks department so slow? Too much dead weight?

boardbrown

I'm real sick of looking at this stupid shit splattered all over my neighborhood. I'm looking forward to the next neighborhood watch meeting at LH, 'cause I'm hoping to meet some other badass pissed-off dads like me who would like to take action and something about it. I've got alot ideas to discuss...

And in the meantime I'm praying to God that he give me the opportunity to catch some of these shitbags in the act.

50intheclip

MOKE is a biter and a copy cat. His graffitti is whack keep to your blackbook,son.

mickey

Sorry for the typos. The neighborhood punks make me tired.

mickey

lefty - I can commiserate. That's what goes occurs on a weekly (if not nightly) basis at LH Community Center. It's so frustrating to have to keep calling the police all the time, but all I can say is, keep at it. And when it's drug dealing, call 911, rather than the emergency number.

By the way, the LH Comunity Center was also hit with graffiti over New Year's. You wouldn't believe the amount of area they covered. The bathrooms and the brick and conrete walls on either side of the bathrooms. Some of it appears to be gang tags ("BG", etc.) and some appers to be bored teens spray painting profanities around it.

The Parks Department bureaucracy makes things move at a slower pace then we would like. The Commmunity Center workers placed the work order to Parks last week and still, it has not been painted over.

Like I said, it's very frustrating. And I would guess that those of us in the LH part of the neighborhood call the cops at least twice every week...

kim

lefty--

they're not doing 34....more like 43. but i too agree. there is not enough officers to go around. be presistant. once you develop a pattern in your calling, get in touch w/narcotics and present your "case" (ie call log).

Lefty

Sunset Hill Park and the two streets that lead to it, 77th & 75th are havens for drug dealing. I see it on a very regular basis. I've called the police many times when I have observed it but after a dozen times with no response I have given up. The boys set up shop, and cars come and go until they finish business. I have seen white, black, and Hispanic's doing this so it's not focused on one race. I assume that everyone is armed so I have no desire to intervene. Maybe if the police worried less about people doing 34 in a 30 they would have more time to keep the scum at bay. Fat chance however.

jm

Hello CLASP! We took a walk to Fred Meyer yesterday and see it continues to be a problem around the 80th to 85th and Greenwood neighborhood too. The fire hydrants, buildings and especially the dumpsters are tagged. The whole area needs a power spray washing.

leavinglasballard

the alley behind our home is regularly tagged with sloppy graffiti. it is also used regularly by the homeless and drunk as a bathroom. perhaps these "artists" will get hepatitis A and find a new hobby.

Judy

Other communities where we've lived have had service organizations that took responsibility for cleaning up graffiti. Clubs like the Lions Club, Kiwanis and the Rotary, I think. Wouldn't the Chamber of Commerce want to be aggressive about this?

nina

Yeah, only old Ballard has teenagers.

Looney

Yes, no bigots in Old Seattle, the covenants took care of that.

BTW how can YOUNG Urban Professionals have teenage sons in Ballard?

angstadt

This is the new Seattle. Get used to it.

AkGru

Hilarious. The graffiti line is a joke. When south Phinney got tagged hard last summer, police didn't give a f*ck. And they don't give one about all the other stuff you are showing.

Let it go.

Glythel

The same awful words were recently spray painted on the North Beach elementary school. It makes me so sad.

jm

It's just more gibberish.

tortue

All is the graffiti here is beyond crappy quality (lester, for example). In a place where you have many brick walls and lax police, you'd think folks have enough time to put up a good piece. Instead, its just straight up slop and stupid tags.

I have yet to see any gang tags yet. No stars, no pitchforks, no crowns, nothing.

MaryWit

Many, many places around Ballard Ave. were hit by the pink UB taggers in the past day or two.

chud

>>Can we somehow blame the yuppies?

Absolutely, who's kids do you think these are? I also blame Wallingford and will respond appropriately.

kim

unfortunately, this is a low priority w/spd. contact the graffiti rangers. their response in the past has been quick. sign of the times and the offenders know it.

Meetio

Can we somehow blame the yuppies?

JD

They MAY have been other pink graffiti "for months" but there is a LOT of new pink graffiti on 20th and on Leary. They tagged a lot of buildings and walls, and it wasn't there 2 days ago.

There were a lot of "UB"'s--whatever that means.

kj

I've heard from someone recently that some stores around Seattle are no longer selling spray paint to minors (and ask for ID)...they said this had seemed to curb the problem a bit in those areas...

mickey

Yep, the pink graffiti has been around for a few months. The same week last July that seven houses on my block were tagged, my next-door neighbor's car was hit with the pink stuff.

But usually, the tags are incomprehensible to me (which indicates they are actually gang tags). The graffiti at Sunset Hill Park is the work of idiotic neighborhood teens with too much time on their hands, and a boatload of ignorance inside their brains. They are amateurs and yet, their message is one of hate.

Late last night a whole crew of spoiled teens drove up in their new SUVs and partied loudly on the LH playfield. We called the cops. I wonder if the people living along the Sunset Hill bluff are mostly older folks, too afraid to call the cops, or in bed too early to notice?

kurto

I've seen pink colored graffiti in Ballard recently as well.

Also, there is pink graffiti in West Seattle as well.

http://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=13243