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Tats Cru's Subway Car Tribute To Slain Bronx Man
By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 19, 2011
Modified Feb 19, 2011
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By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 19, 2011
Modified Feb 19, 2011
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Last July, Bleu Nazario was fatally shot during a Bronx barbecue when a dispute became violent. His father founded the graffiti mural group Tats Cru, which became famous for creating murals of murder victims during the 1990s and Hector "Nicer" Nazario told the Daily News, "I have seen so much tragedy like that, and I lost my son to a senseless act of violence. I never thought it would happen to him." Now, it's looks like the Tats Cru tagged a subway car in tribute to Bleu.
Subway Art Blog says, "What you see above is an extremely rare sight. Whole-car pieces like this used to be fairly commonplace in the 80s when subway graffiti was reaching its prime. Nowadays, if substantial graffiti is found on a train it will not even be put into service; so if it even happens, it is seldom seen in the wild. This is why this piece is a special one. It is labeled 2011, and is quite possibly the first of its kind made in this year." Tagging subway cars is a very touchy issue for the city, NYPD and MTA, which has made strides to rid the subway system of graffiti by buying subway cars with more graffiti-resistant materials and cleaning cars immediately after being tagged. Even tagging fake subway cars is a hot potato and it's believed most graffiti taggers are from overseas.
The Tats Cru won't be doing a mural of Bleu—member Davide Perre told Pavement Pieces, "I couldn’t paint his face," and Sotero Ortiz said, "Yeah, I think I’d throw up." Perre added, "We don’t need a memorial wall for Bleu. Every wall we do is for him."
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TATS CRU
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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