Graffiti Artist Tags Subpar Pizzerias

Posted by Adam Kuban, January 20, 2005 at 1:45 PM

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Graf On The Gowanus: Some graffiti near the Carroll Street Bridge over Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal. While Slice's editors are sometime fans of graf, the stuff above is none too hot. Why there's a cabin cruiser moored in the nasty yet oddly compelling waterway (click photo for full-size shot) is beyond us.

The pizza was bad and the Chinese takeout overpriced, so a notorious graffiti artist told cops he punished them by spray-painting their stores - along with dozens of others across Queens.

Miguel Camacho was busted Tuesday for allegedly spraying his moniker - "VAMP" - on more than 60 stores and homes in Rego Park and Forest Hills.

Camacho was proud of his work, so when police confronted him with evidence of his crimes - more than 100 photos - he wanted a memento, cops said.

"He said, since he's now out of the graffiti business, maybe he could get some copies," said Lt. Thomas Conforti of the 112th Precinct, in Forest Hills. "We respectfully declined."

Camacho, a 30-year-old former cemetery worker, admitted he hung out with two teenagers, cops said. The trio went by "WRB," which meant "We Represent Beef."

Apt moniker, apparently.

We at Slice have mixed feelings on graffiti. Some of is undeniably amazing, and even the most hackneyed of it serves as a signifier of New York City. And, as word and typography geeks, we love reading the different tags with their creative spellings, cryptic origins, and stylized script. But we can see what a pain in the ass it would be for building owners. And some of it just plain sucks—like a mental patient got a hold of a can; nobody wants to see that kind.

And we have mixed feelings on Mr. Camacho's and his own spray-can antics. On one hand, and on first impression, we sort of like his Robin Hood–like ways, marking bad pizzerias for the public so we need not waste our time or money in them. (Is there enough spraypaint in New York for that job, though?) After that two-second thought had passed, we realized that Mr. Camacho's storefront-published food reviews crossed the line. There are other ways to express your discontent with a restaurant—like choosing to no longer go there.

And besides, we want you to turn to Slice for your pizza commentary.

And on a sidenote, Mr. Camacho can probably get all the graffiti mementos he wants by visiting any of the fine New York–based photoblogs on the Internet, where such shots often turn up.

[Thanks to Jen for alerting us to this story's pizza angle.]

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Tags: Oddities