Trolley Gets New Look in Graffiti : Transit Board Is Impressed by Youths’ Painting

Late Tuesday afternoon a police officer spotted a group of youths spraying graffiti along the walls of the Euclid Avenue extension of the San Diego trolley line. He slowed down, admired the graffiti and continued on his patrol.

Normally the youths would have been arrested and cited for committing a misdemeanor.

But not this time, even though the threesome has been painting illegal murals and neighborhood messages along the walls of the San Diego Trolley line and reservoirs for three years.

San Diego authorities caught up with the three notorious graffiti artists a few weeks ago--but instead of punishing them, officials asked them to continue with their work at the city’s expense. The catch is they have to paint the messages the city wants.

In late July, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board voted unanimously to hire the three-member team of artists who call themselves Graffiti Artists Unlimited to paint trolley-related and neighborhood messages along the trolley tracks.

The board hopes to deter others from scrawling offensive or gang messages along the tracks.

“Most of the graffiti along the tracks is just senseless,” said Ray Dobbs, director of the Neighborhood Improvement Council in Southeast San Diego.

“You can’t even understand this stuff,” Dobbs said pointing to an example of the heiroglyphic style of graffiti common to the Southeast area.

But Dobbs said he was impressed by a series of colorful graffiti murals that stood out from the stick figures and gang slogans along the trolley line.

Hoping to “fight fire with fire,” Dobbs worked with San Deigo City Councilman William Jones to find the artists responsible for the colorful graffiti art and commission them to create similar works for the city.

It was a dream come true for three teen-agers nicknamed “Ninety,” “System” and “Wizz,” who once crept along the trolley tracks and worked by flashlight to create their spectacular graffiti art.

Today the three, working in broad daylight, will complete their first city-commissioned work near the Imperial Avenue overpass.

“Man, this is great. I can see what I’m doing,” said 18-year-old Kenny Thompson, who prefers to be called “Ninety.”

The brightly colored Project First Class, named for a City Council program to improve living conditions in Southeast San Diego, can be seen for blocks from its hillside location.

Thompson has been working for three years with his best friend Mark Esquer, 18, known as “Wizz.” Recently a third partner, Carlos (System) Blea, 17, joined the Graffiti Artist Unlimited team. The three former San Diego High School students one day hope to display their work in a gallery. For now, the walls along the trolley tracks will do just fine, Thompson said.

“While people in other parts of the city see this as a nuisance, people here see it as real art,” Esquer said.

The three have earned the respect of neighborhood residents. On Monday night some gang members tried to deface the Project First Class mural scheduled for completion today, but residents along the street at the base of the trolley tracks chased the youths away, threatening to call police.

Under the pilot program, MTDB provides Graffiti Artists Unlimited with $700 and an hourly wage to create and maintain the trolley murals.

If the program is successful in reducing graffiti in Southeast San Diego, the artists could go on to work in other areas, said Rick Thorpe, MTDB’s director of engineering and construction.