Digital Ink'd

Some places hide in plain sight. You could drive Route 9 a thousand times, your eyes fixed on the traffic ahead, and never notice it. Tucked back from the highway, shielded by a dense curtain of trees, a long, low building sits in silence. It’s a flicker of grey through the green, a place the world seems to have forgotten. But to step inside is to walk into another dimension. What was once a series of five long, industrial bays is now a cathedral of concrete and spray paint. The air is still, but the walls scream with color. This is a living gallery, an ever-changing canvas for artists whose names, Taco, Ikay, Jase, Zy, Toco, Cent, Toasty, Soma, Tobe, are layered one on top of the other in a vibrant, silent conversation. For a moment, the function of the space is lost. You’re not trying to read the words; you’re simply absorbing the sheer, explosive artistry of it all, a language of shape and color plastered against a willing canvas. What was this place? The building kept its secrets w...

  If you’ve ever found yourself crawling down Brooklyn’s Bedford Avenue, trying to get to the BQE highway, you know the building. It’s the long, grey brick one that looks like it’s been holding its breath for decades. For years, its walls have been a rotating canvas of graffiti, each layer a new, temporary skin. Most people see an eyesore, a relic of a forgotten time. But that building has stories to tell. It’s hard to imagine now, looking at its sealed-up windows, but this was once a place of gleaming new Chevrolets. Back in 1918, the architect Henry Nurick designed it to be a modern, fireproof automobile showroom. The cost? About $1.2 million in today’s money. For a car dealership. Photo courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archives You can also see where they carved out Bedford Ave heading in both directions, as apartment buildings were once next to the Chevrolet dealership.   That’s because from the 1910s to the 1950s, this stretch of Bedford Avenue was known as “Automo...