Graffiti Week, Part VI

Here's the final installment of Graffiti Week. On a recent trip to Manhattan, Chris St. Cyr made some sharp observations about tagged, and often empty, newspaper boxes -- Ed.

The side effects of the declining print publication industry are not only out-of-work writers or editors or art directors. Another tragedy of this once vibrant medium is the neglect of the iconic publication boxes that line the streets and populate bus stops of our great cities.

They’ve become the burnt-out cars and vacant buildings of the print publication world. These empty vessels are the latest blank canvases of the Backside of America’s favorite artists -- taggers.

In the hands of these visionary artists the publication box is reinvented into a kind of box-like Christmas tree that’s been decorated with United States Postal stickers, tags, and images. So the next time you see one of these empty boxes celebrate the Backside of America and tag it!

To see the rest of the posts from Graffiti Week, check out:

Part I, which features shots taken at the snack shack on an old ski hill in Weston, MA

Part II, which features some tagged barns in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Part III, in which contributor lostlosangeles features wonderful images from L.A., New Orleans and Detroit.

Part IV features three shots by Joe Viger from the West Coast, and three by Mick Melvin from the East Coast, all of buildings that seem beyond recovery.

Part V, in which we feature shots of trains and train tracks.