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work from one end to the other the whole car would be an expanded version of the end to end with artwork from the top to the bottom of the car (excluding the windows). In the mid 1970s two consecutive train cars were the most to have been completed by any one writer most large projects required a group working together. In most cases this meant an experienced writer sketching out the overall design and others painting in the backdrop (Castleman 35). This was certainly true for a whole train, which was roughly 12 feet high and 50 feet long. One of the best-known whole-train projects was the Merry Christmas train in December 1977 featuring Santa Claus and a whole range of holiday-related imagery. The New York Transit Authority responded to the work of graffiti writers by pulling and cleaning trains as quickly as they could in addi- tion to instituting chain link fences and dog patrols near subway cars. In the mid 1970s, though, it was a particularly difficult task to change popular attitudes or discourage teenagers from taking the risks to paint cars given the rise in interest and popularity of graffiti. The vis- ibility of the tag gave the tagger legitimacy that the act of defacing public property otherwise denied them: “getting up,” as it became known, was just as important as the quality of the work itself. The risk of getting caught by authorities only added to the daring and prestige of the larger murals. In New York at the time, when people were gen- erally turned inward to their own situations or problems, subway art caused them to look outward at the world around them. Often the graffiti artists would hang around to watch the reactions of passengers as the cars they had painted were passing by (Castleman 20). Those who were able to establish a design and easily manipulate a spray can were often the most admired. Graffiti writing is still in practice today, as one modern-day tagger, EAX (aka Angel Loayza) comments: “Graffiti nowadays has become the cool thing for marketing, commercials. ... I used to always think about starting a graffiti marketing company, but now it’s all over the place, for example TV, billboards, train ads” (Loayza). EAX has experi- enced the trajectory of graffiti in the popular culture, first as a semi- crime accomplished by vandals: I become involved in graff back when I was in 7th grade ... at that point it was really hard to get spray cans because there were no Home Depots. We only had small hardware stores where you needed to have Introduction xxiii