Fashion company sues New York over graffiti party

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fashion company Ecko Unlimited sued
New York City and Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday after the
city barred the company from holding a street party featuring
artists spray-painting graffiti on replicas of subway cars.

Officials initially approved the event, then yanked the
permit when it drew Bloomberg’s ire and sparked fears that the
mock vandalism might lead to more graffiti on real subway cars.

Designer Mark Ecko, a former graffiti artist and founder of
Ecko Unlimited, an urban design label based in New York, seeks
to block off a Manhattan street for the party and art exhibit
on August 24.

Ecko, which says its total investment could run close to
$190,000, has sued to get the permit reinstated. But the mayor
says the party would send a terrible message.

“When you’re encouraging vandalism by having the canvas be
a subway car, that’s where I think the city should draw the
line,” he said on his weekly radio show on Friday.

At a hearing on Friday, city attorney Paula van Meter told
U.S. District Judge Jed Rankoff that officials were opposed not
to graffiti as an art form but to celebrating a criminal act.

The judge questioned the city’s argument, suggesting that
banning the representation of a criminal act such as graffiti
might be the same as banning a play about gang warfare.

“But you wouldn’t ban ‘West Side Story’?” he asked,
referring to the hit musical about feuding gangs set in the
city in the 1950s.

Another hearing was set for Monday.