We do have a mural in the park, but also:
“Speaking of art in the park, how about the new 3 graffiti tags on the hitting wall, on the river stones on SE corner, and one stone on path outward to 88th? ‘GI’ is the tag. Kind of a bummer,” says Jarvis on our previous post.
On the same post, An Observer says: “I have seen an uptick in tagging along Northgate Way, and Lake City Way close to Nathan Hale. Seems every five years or so a new crop of taggers comes along only to be otherwise engaged (jail, work, or adult responsibilities) soon enough.”
And over at Nextdoor Northgate/Maple Leaf, Grace is leading the charge:
I am so sick of seeing graffiti on everything now. Idiots tagged one of the beautiful rocks at the north entrance of the park that leads to 12th. The more we get used to graffiti the more it will proliferate.
Before I wait around for city officials to clean up graffiti I’m ready to do it myself to get rid of it before more people get ideas. I’m happy to try to clean off that rock if anybody can suggest to me what I can get that will do it.
And she’s getting support, from these and eight other responses:
I would happily offer up some elbow grease, i.e. join in on efforts to clean it up, just name the time this weekend and I should be able to be there. I agree with the comments about being persistent with getting rid of it; if left it looks like no one cares it is there. Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point has a fascinating chapter all about graffiti – best way to combat it is quickly and consistently remove it.
I have a hand held water jet cleaner. Works quite well for cleaning rough surfaces. If you get your hand in front of the pinpoint stream you can draw blood and much language.. Is the approximate address NE 89th and 12th Ave NE ?
Here’s the best way to report graffiti at the park.
It looks like GT to me. Good work on the clean up, cleaning that stuff up fast is the best deterrent. Whining about it and threatening to beat up kids in the park does no one any good, especially when you know those keyboard warriors are all talk and no action. It’s the nice people that care about the neighborhood that clean things up and get involved in solving problems.
Nice job to whoever removed that graffiti. Hard to tell it was ever there.
BTW, it sure looks like QT to me and not GI. Guess I can’t read gang font…
Maple Leaf park sits on a covered drinking water reservoir – water you and your neighbors drink. There are most likely restrictions about chemical use in the park, to preserve the safety of the drinking water.
A neighbor who does landscaping as a sideline suggested a product called “Taginator” and about 5 gallons of water to remove paint from rocks or natural rock walls. She also said oven cleaner sometimes works, but can damage softer rock and is toxic – so you want to carry all wastewater away and properly dispose of it .
Good grief, too many of the comments here, not every one but too many, read like a Seattle Times comment section. The cranky self-righteous Internet tough guys.
People I talk to in the neighborhood are rarely like this, so folks, please show up with your decent neighbor face on here, okay? And keep your fantasizing about beating people up to yourself.
Pathetic.
N. Precinct usually has 1-2 cars on patrol per night. All they need is one incident which ties in a month for 2 to 3 hours and there is only one Patrol on the streets.
I know this because my car was broken into in December and was told they would send a patrol to my office at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I waited till 8 o’clock and nobody ever showed when I called the next morning I was told there’d been a traffic accident and then the cop was tied up for 4 hours at that accident and couldn’t make it to my place that day but I was more than welcome to come in and fill out the report at the office.
It’s not the cops fault their hands are tied it’s the system’s fault
If the police won’t enforce the law, we should fire a bunch of them and get some of our tax money back. It amazes me that people keep giving the City more money when the City gives us such lousy protection in return.
The police coming late isnt all bad. Get a few friends, a few good shovel handles, and clear the park out of the rats again. Only takes once and at least that group gets the picture and moves on.
The “GI” tag was also spray painted directly on one of the houses bordering the access path to NE 88th. It may have been removed by now.
I will add that the vacant property at 15th NE and NE 85th has been occupied for a while now by homeless people. Even though locks were placed on the gates a while ago, there is still easy access to the property a big hole in the fence behind some bushes on NE 85th. This past week someone showed up and cleaned out and removed a large amount of junk and trash from the property. Maybe that will put a damper on things for a while.
One of the persons that was crashing at that property hangs out often in the park and has gone door to door in the neighborhood “looking for yard work” (snooping around appears to be more like it). He sometimes also camps in the bushes on the slope just south of the upper park. If you see a guy wearing a tan canvas jacket, pulling some wheeled luggage, carrying a giant white plastic beverage mug, often playing a radio at high volume, keep an eye out.
I have recently found drug paraphernalia in the street in front of my house across from the park, and have seen people at the picnic table north of the ballfield openly smoking dope (using bongs, so it’s clearly pot, not tobacco).
At least one night a week people show up late at night/early in the morning and blast their music, shout and carry on, relieve themselves in the nearby bushes, etc. It is routine to pick up the trash and broken bottles left over from these impromptu parties. Not surprisingly, the next following morning is often when there is a new crop of tags up in the park. Go figure.
Calls to police have made it clear they are not interested, if not actually annoyed, by attempts to report these activities.
In the meantime, my property tax bill went up $700 this year. Between that and the blatant malfeasance associated with the Pronto bike fiasco, it is clear this city views homeowners as cash machines to whom no accountability is due.
Add to that, our neighborhood “representatives” apparently cannot be bothered to to make the rudimentary responses to inquiries from constituents or media!