Would You Like To Come Up And See My Etchings?

The Times’ Clyde Haberman (extracted from captivity like a character on 24) tells us something we didn’t know:

We’re not talking about the usual chickenlike scratching in the glass that most riders barely notice anymore because it has been routine for so long. The problem now is large white billows of undecipherable scribbling. In some instances, they cover entire windows, conjuring up memories of darker times when a subway ride sometimes felt like a creepy scene out of “Death Wish.”

In the old days, the imbecility was typically sprayed in black paint, on nearly every surface. (Those who glamorize the vandals often refer to them even today as “graffiti writers,” as if they were all Thomas Pynchons and Toni Morrisons.)

The new outrages, confined for now to windows, are done in what looks like white paint. It isn’t. It is the kind of etching acid used by artists who work with glass. In the hands of the new Visigoths, the acid is liberally sprayed or brushed onto train windows so that it eats into the glass, impossible to erase. [Emph. added]

MTA officials note that removing the window is “prohibitively expensive” — $130 for a larger window.

Bonus Point: Charles Chea’s Graffiti Takeover, Bombing, & Racism.