{"id":434179,"date":"2025-12-08T22:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T22:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434179\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T22:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T22:05:14","slug":"smoke-graffitied-on-more-than-20-blocks-of-the-upper-west-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434179\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Smoke&#8217; Graffitied on More Than 20 Blocks of the Upper West Side"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westsiderag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/smoke5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-98798\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/smoke5-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\"  \/><\/a>\u201cSmoke\u201d graffitied in multiple places along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. Photos courtesy of Gale Brewer\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By Gus Saltonstall<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you frequent Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, there is a good chance you have noticed one of the many dozen examples of the word \u201cSmoke\u201d recently graffitied onto storefronts and buildings.<\/p>\n<p>The graffiti was tagged on multiple facades along the avenue at some point at the end of last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny news about the SMOKE graffiti that has come up on Columbus for 8 streets in a row,\u201d Jon Courtney asked West Side Rag in an email.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.westsiderag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_3410-scaled.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-98800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_3410-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\"  \/><\/a>\u201cSmoke\u201d graffitied onto the restaurant Ella on Columbus Avenue, between West 72nd and 71st streets. Photo by Gus Saltonstall.<\/p>\n<p>Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer also took note of the new neighborhood graffiti, and penned a letter Monday to the New York Police Department and New York City Department of Sanitation about the issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI write to bring to your attention to an outbreak of graffiti \u2013 \u201cSMOKE\u201d \u2013 on almost EVERY storefront on the west side of Columbus Avenue and other streets. I saw dozens of SMOKE tags today from 96 Street to 72 Street, but it likely exists elsewhere as well,\u201d Brewer wrote. I am urging NYPD to apprehend the person or persons who are defacing structures with this tag. I also urge DSNY, the MTA, and USPS to remove the SMOKE tags as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Sanitation told Brewer that they would look into the issue on Monday, according to her office.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to the Rag\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>As of Monday, the Rag counted six examples of the word \u2018Smoke\u201d still up on the west side of Columbus Avenue from 70th to 76th streets.<\/p>\n<p>We will update this story, if we learn more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/westsiderag.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=5772ebf2a0a585445f1188785&amp;id=f50755d5f9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westsiderag.com\/support-west-side-rag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSmoke\u201d graffitied in multiple places along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. Photos courtesy of Gale Brewer\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,201257,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-434179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gale-brewer","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115686220473585304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}