Remembering 5Pointz: A Five-Story Building That Told Plenty More
Cochran remembers what attracted him to the space: "It's just this amazing feeling, because of the sounds and the sites — those screeching trains going overhead — that kind of confirms everything that we've learned as outsiders about the hip-hop history of New York City — starting from that whole subway culture. The remnants and history is still alive, you can still feel it."
Corinne Mitchell, a Londoner studying in Manhattan, visited the wall before it was covered over. "I like the technique of it," she says. "I like how the paint seems to be dripping and you can see the drip marks. It looks like it's been done very delicately but with a messy feel as well."
And just around the corner, Ali Moussaddykine, who's from Morocco and in town for an internship, contemplated a 20-foot-tall photorealistic painting of a hand with its index finger pointing toward the sky: "You can stare and think about a lot of things, about yourself, about the city, about people who made this. It means a lot of things," he says.