This is the biggest copy i could find of the New York Times "TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals" article. Too bad it's ripped in half, would love to read the whole thing.
Interview with TAKI from 1989:
"When TAKI Ruled Magik Kingdom" By Joel Siegel Daily News, April 9, 1989
TAKI 183, the godfather of graffiti, made his mark on New York in a big way. Now, 20 years later, the Transit Authority is about to eliminate his legacy.
On May 12, the TA will yank the last graffiti-covered subway car from service. That's fine with Taki, now 35 and owner of a foreign car repair shop. He says he regrets his role in popularizing the graffiti madness that overtook the subways.
"When you think back, and saw what eventually happened to the trains, you feel bad about it," said Taki, who asked that his last name not be used. "I never thought it would be such a big thing." "But the subways were so lousy anyway...they were pretty filthy. I thought that kind of justified it." There were lots of kids on the graffiti bandwagon in the late 1960's, but Taki seemed the busiest. He certainly got the most notice, especially once he started defacing subway cars and East Side walls with his TAKI 183 "tag."
"I went through a lot of Magik Markers," Taki told the Daily News. Soon writers were calling themselves artists and turning the subways into their own studios, spray-painting car-long "pieces" with balloon-like letters and curvy three-dimensional designs.
The TA repainted all cars twice, put razor-ribbon barbed wire around yards, formed an anti-graffiti squad, threatened parents with lawsuits and had offenders clean cars. But nothing worked, and frustrated TA brass all but threw in the cleaning towel. "We did not have the resources to take it off. There were more of them than there were of us-literally," said Paul Pettit, general superintendent of the TA's 207th St. repair shop.
Soon after he became TA president, David Gunn began a multi-pronged attack in 1984. At that time, all 6,200 cars in the TA fleet were covered with scrawls.
Graffiti-free cars were gradually placed in service through new purchases, car overhauls and repainting.
And Gunn ordered that when any clean car was defaced, the scrawl had to be eliminated immediately to deny writers the ego-boost of seeing their creations roll through the city.
The TA also increased the number of cleaners to 1,600, from 600 in 1984, arming them with super paint removers like Go-Ghost 457. TA managers and transit police improved security.
There are only a few dozen graffiti-smeared cars left, on the C, L and M lines; they'll be gone by May 12.
Now, in an irony that would please city officials, Taki has his own graffiti problem, on his shopfront. "I am a victim," he said, smiling. "I painted it over and two weeks later it was all written up again. But I guess what goes around, comes around. It's justice."
He said he still occasionally has an urge to write his tag but gave up his Magik Markers three years after he started defacing trains.
"As soon as I got into something more productive in my life, I stopped. Eventually I got into business, got married, bought a house, had a kid. Didn't buy a station wagon, but I grew up, you could say that."
