海角大神

It has been decades since the underground art of graffiti went mainstream, giving some of its renegade aerosol painters a Picasso-like worldwide fame.

And for the past 20 years, the mecca of the gritty urban art form had been 5 Pointz, a dilapidated, graffiti-covered old factory complex in Queens, world renowned as a work space and urban exhibit in one, and defiantly dubbed

Though 5 Pointz had already been shuttered last year to make way for , last week developers finally brought the wrecking ball to the global graffiti shrine, seen every day by thousands of commuters on the elevated 7 train as it rumbled just yards away every 10 minutes or so.

Yet as the final requiems for 5 Pointz echo in New York this week, the celebration of the more creative aspects of what most consider vandalism or neighborhood blight continues in many of the city鈥檚 more highbrow venues. At the Museum of the City of New York, part of the famous 鈥淢useum Mile鈥� on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the exhibit 鈥淐ity as Canvas鈥� is showing a selection of graffiti art through September.

鈥淕raffiti art is now widely admired, but many questioned its merits during the movement鈥檚 development in the 1970s,鈥� said Susan Henshaw Jones, the museum鈥檚 director, 鈥淯nderstanding the importance of graffiti as an urban statement, the City Museum embraced the opportunity to acquire this collection, which included many works by artists living just blocks away.鈥�

But graffiti鈥檚 wide admiration in some quarters is angrily denounced in others, of course. One reason is that NYC pioneered the notion that the proliferation of graffiti encourages crime.

"I find it outrageous that one of the city's museums is currently celebrating graffiti and what a great impact it had on the city," said New York Police Commissioner , whose hallmark 鈥渂roken windows鈥� theory of policing makes a special effort to scrub graffiti from the urban landscape and arrest the bandana-clad vandals making a name with their spray-paint craft.

The commissioner, who helped put a halt to the city鈥檚 infamous graffiti-covered subway cars of the 1970s and 鈥�80s during his first tenure as NYC鈥檚 top cop, objected to "having New York City school kids at the impressionable age of 12 years old walking through looking at this stuff and having it advertised as, 'Isn't this great?' " , according to The Wall Street Journal.

But 5 Pointz began in 1993 as the 鈥淧hun Phactory,鈥� an effort to discourage graffiti vandalism and create a more mainline showcase for a form created by the urban poor, who rarely get such opportunities. In 2002, Jonathan Cohen, a spray-paint artist known as Meres One from the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, began to curate the work and develop the space into a kind of urban art colony as graffiti began to achieve acceptance from the global art community.

Artists such as Jean Michele Basquiat, who rose to international fame working with a graffiti crew in the Lower East Side in Manhattan in the late 1970s and 鈥�80s, helped bring high-brow attention to the visual representations of the urban poor before his death of heroin overdose in 1988.

The Whitney Museum of American Art, another 鈥淢useum Mile鈥� venue, did a retrospective of his work in 1992, and in 1996, Miramax Films released the biographical movie 鈥淏asquiat,鈥� starring Jeffrey Wright, David Bowie, and Dennis Hopper, among other A-list names. 聽聽

And today the pseudonymous Banksy, based out the United Kingdom, is one of the most well-known current artists in any medium. Last October, the secretive artist, whose identity has never been revealed, did a self-described one-month 鈥渞esidency鈥� in New York, called 鈥淏etter Out than In.鈥� Posting his politically charged exploits on a website, Banksy worked the city with his graffiti art, and thousands of New Yorkers 鈥� including some of the private owners of properties where his work appeared 鈥� anticipated and celebrated each appearance of a new piece.

Banksy鈥檚 2013 鈥渞esidency,鈥� however, did not please then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who donates millions himself to the arts, and the NYPD鈥檚 vandalism unit was on the hunt for the graffiti legend.

鈥淕raffiti does ruin people鈥檚 property and is a sign of decay and a loss of control,鈥� former Mayor Bloomberg . 鈥淎rt is art, and nobody鈥檚 a bigger supporter of the arts than I am. I just think there are some places for art, and there are some places [for] no art. And you running up to someone鈥檚 property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art.鈥�

But going mainstream has its mainstream risks, and the building's owners, father and son team Gerald and David Wolkoff, really had no choice but to develop the valuable site. The 200,000 square-foot structure rested in Long Island City, a fast-developing neighborhood just across the East River, and where other new apartment towers, each with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline, have been rising up the past few years.

The Wolkoffs rankled the New York art community last November when, in the cover of night, they whitewashed 5 Pointz鈥檚 storied walls of graffiti. "I did it like a Band-Aid 鈥� in one shot, right off," .

The new residential towers include plans for 12,000 square feet of art space, and 10,000 square feet of external panels on the site devoted to aerosol art.

鈥淵ou must understand I love what they did,鈥�, after the building鈥檚 whitewash. 鈥淚 didn't like it, I love what they did.... I've got two high-rise rental apartment buildings 鈥� a 47- and a 41-story building. I'll have 60-foot walls for them to come in and express themselves.鈥�