Washington Heights Says Goodbye to Graffiti

Washington Heights graffiti will be power washed away this coming week.
Washington Heights Says Goodbye to Graffiti
Worker starts off the graffiti cleanup campaign in Washington Heights. Diana Hubert/The Epoch Times
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<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/picture2_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/picture2_medium.jpg" alt="Worker starts off the graffiti cleanup campaign in Washington Heights. (Diana Hubert/The Epoch Times)" title="Worker starts off the graffiti cleanup campaign in Washington Heights. (Diana Hubert/The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-90406"/></a>
Worker starts off the graffiti cleanup campaign in Washington Heights. (Diana Hubert/The Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—Washington Heights graffiti will be power washed away this coming week in an effort to improve the neighborhood’s quality of life, according to State Senator Eric Schneiderman.

Sen. Schneiderman has allocated enough money in the 2009-2010 state budget to clean up 260 graffitied roll-down security gates, building sides, doors and storefronts between 170th and 185th Street on St. Nicholas Avenue.
Julia De Leon has lived in the neighborhood since 1978. She was thrilled to hear about this initiative. “It’s wonderful,” she said.

De Leon said that graffiti is a problem in the neighborhood and she would like to see kids find other ways to express themselves instead of invading other’s privacy. She emphasized that parents should work with the kids.

The cleanup will be undertaken by CitySolve, a company with twelve years of experience in removing graffiti. They are contracted for a year in which they will conduct an initial cleanup, set to take two weeks. Spot-checks will then follow every thirty days to remove any new graffiti.

“We have a lot of people who have lived there their whole lives. There is a lot of pride and they would like to see their neighborhoods cleaned up,” said Bruce Pienkny, president of CitySolve.

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