7 ms·

N.Y. landlord ordered to pay $6.7M for destroying graffiti

22 points by shaki-dora 9y ago

socalnate1 9y ago
This is a scenario where the headline sounds outrageous, but then you read the details in the actual article and it actually makes sense.
- anonyx69 9y ago
  Graffiti typically means "illegal", so that's why the headline sounds outrageous. 5 Pointz was more of a "graffiti museum", with substantial cultural significance. It was a nice piece of news to see for a change. I was heartbroken when they whitewashed that building.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    So I guess the owner doesn't really "own" the building if enough people come and draw pictures on the side of it then...
    - victorNicollet 9y ago
      If you give people the reasonable expectation that pictures drawn on your property will not be erased in the near future, I don't think it's unusual for you to be held to that expectation. Not all liabilities are written on paper with a signature at the bottom.
    - socalnate1 9y ago
      Again, you should read the article. That isn't the scenario here at all.
    - shaki-dora 9y ago
      In this case, the owner rented out studios to artists for years, and permitted/encouraged them to paint on the walls. He also designated different walls as "permanent" and "temporary" spaces. All that points to a contractual relationship between the owner and the artists. Remember: contracts don't need to be writing. It's also not entirely clear if the property owner was ever the owner of the art itself. There's a difference between posession and ownership, and while the former is 90% of the latter, that leaves 10% up for grabs. From this pov, the case is maybe comparable to someone finding a Picasso that someone forgot on their front yard, and immediately destroying it. But, in general: yes, if your property somehow becomes valuable for society in some way or another, that may entail new restrictions on your use. Landmark and similar designations for historically valuable buildings come to mind. When some endangered species starts breeding on your property, you may no longer be able to turn it into a parking lot. Property rights just aren't as absolute as people like to think, nor are they not subject to change. It's obviously in society's interest to provide for robust protections of private property because it creates incentives to own stuff, and to be productive in order to do so. But these rights are just a tool that has proven extremely useful to organise our economic activity. There are always competing interests, and societies have to find a balance that maximises total value while remaining fair to each individual.
      - victorNicollet 9y ago
        Yes. The same principles would be at play if you were letting a friend store their bike in your garage on weekdays. One tuesday in April you call them to say "I need to paint the garage in June, come and get your bike". But they're out of the country for the week, so the next day you throw away the bike. You would have the legal right to clear out your garage, you had no signed contract to rent out a space for your friend's bike, but the way in which you did it caused your friend to lose their bike after you had given them a reasonable expectation that they wouldn't, and you had no good reason not to wait until the end of the week.
        pkaye 9y ago
        What if the friend was out of the country for a week.. or a month... maybe longer... how long before it would be right to throw away the bike?
markpapadakis 9y ago
Looks like the owner didn’t do this gracefully and didn’t care much about the significance of the Art to its creators and others who appreciated it likely way more than he did. That’s not very nice. On the other hand, if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it. Unless there was a contract of some kind, not a lawyer, I don’t understand how the judge could have sided with the artists who themselves were on a private property and ended up making claims to said property. Aren’t judges supposed to be impartial and make decisions based on the letter of the law ? Though I suppose the law in the us may protect the artists in this case.
- victorNicollet 9y ago
  > if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it. The general principle is that you can do what you want with your property, but you must pay for any damages you cause in doing so. The important question is whether you did cause those damages (maybe it was someone else's fault, or maybe the damages were inevitable and would have happened regardless of your action or inaction, or maybe you acted in good faith like any other person would have) which gives judges plenty to think about.
  - grundee 9y ago
    A better way to frame this would be to consider if the artists were sculptors who were allowed to leave their sculptures for free on this property. Pieces of art that are not attached to the building make it more clear that destroying the art would leave the building owner liable for damages. Similarly, the artists who painted murals should have had the opportunity to remove their property from the building, which seems to be what they are arguing.
- GhostVII 9y ago
  A verbal contract still counts as a contract though, so if the property owner had a verbal agreement that the artwork would not be destroyed, and he violated that agreement, I think it makes sense that he is liable for the damages. Seems somewhat similar to destroying a painting a tenant had hung up, you have to give them the opportunity to remove it first.
yostrovs 9y ago
What about the artists who covered up previously generated graffiti to display their own? Will they be prosecuted?
- victorNicollet 9y ago
  Artists drawing on temporary sections were expected to know that their graffiti would be deleted according to schedule. The owner, on the other hand, deleted graffiti in the permanent section without warning, ten months before the section was expected to be torn down.
  - yostrovs 9y ago
    It sounds like the real owner of the walls was the guy setting the schedule of who and when gets to paint said walls. The owner that holds the title to the building has been reduced to one of the artists, if that, who should have known better than to decide what to do with what is actually his own property.
    - victorNicollet 9y ago
      I don't understand what you're trying to say. It is a good thing for the owner to be able to willingly give up some of their rights over their property. You wouldn't consider renting a home or office if the owner had the right to kick all of your belongings out of their property, or change the lock and hold them for ransom. The reason why "using someone else's property" can work is precisely because the owner can credibly pledge not to use those rights for a time. This doesn't mean that you own that home or office.
      - yostrovs 9y ago
        I believe in contracts and I doubt there ever was a contract. This seems like someone thought that these walls will be forever theirs, though it was just a matter of a lenient landlord not caring too much about what was going on. And because the landlord wasn't a dick in the first place, but was a nice guy who let them use the walls he owned to display their art for free to a giant audience, he now owes them $6.5 million!! These people have probably never made $6.5 million between them.
r00fus 9y ago
FTA: "Wolkoff has been singularly unrepentant." A book comes to mind - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(novel) Like the protagonist in the book, the owner had plenty of chance to smooth it over or explain his actions but decided his actions and rights were arbitrary. The courts would likely have seen things his way, but in the end if he's going to phone it in, they have power as well.
poster123 9y ago
If you own a building you have the right to demolish it and erect a new one. Even if you let someone put graffiti on the walls, that is not a contract to let the graffiti stay there forever.
- victorNicollet 9y ago
  The question here was not "forever", it was "in the middle of the night, just before the court could reach a decision" instead of "when the building is demolished ten months in the future".
- wahern 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act Moral rights in works are big in Europe but were largely unrecognized in the U.S. until the passage of the above law. It's a kind of copyright, and like copyright generally not contingent on a contract to make it enforceable against someone.
rando444 9y ago
I feel like these artists just screwed over their own community. Sure they got some money, but at what cost? The owner originally allowed these artists an opportunity and a venue to express themselves at no cost, and when he had decided it was time to move on, his kind gesture was met with hostility and greed on the part of the artists. These artists may have gotten their payday, but in doing so now every building owner will think twice about allowing artists to paint, and their fellow artists and the general public who enjoy this kind of art will be the ones that suffer the consequences the most.
- gonyea 9y ago
  You didn’t read the article, did you? The landlord destroyed the artwork before the courts resolved the case. This has nothing to do with artists; these power plays happen periodically and they’re subsequently beaten like a dog by the courts.
  - rando444 9y ago
    You didn't read my comment did you? The artists wouldn't have any power to play with and wouldn't have even have had this venue to practice their art if it wasn't for the kindness of the building owner. The artists are setting a precedent for property owners that to prevent being "beaten like a dog", the best solution is to not let people practice their art on your property.
andyv 9y ago
Very similar to the situation in "The Garden" http://www.thegardenmovie.com http://www.thegardenmovie.com Basically, a property owner in South LA lets people grow gardens on his otherwise unused property. After a while the owner decides to do something else with the property. The gardeners react by trying to get city to exercise eminent domain on the land. The owner ends up kicking everyone out of the gardens and bulldozing everything. Letting people use your property gives them the idea that they own it. With the graffiti buildings, they apparently do.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Letting people use your property gives them the idea that they own it. The idea may not be without legal support, see, generally, the legal concepts of implied easements, prescriptive easements, and adverse possession.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Yet more reasons to never, ever let people use your property for anything but explicitly temporary purposes?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      I would say, not to let people use your property for aextended period in a way you are uncomfortable with becoming an entitlement, except with an explicit and explicitly revocable grant of permission delineating what is allowed.
      - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Like, a normal lease agreement.
kevin_b_er 9y ago
> As a final resort, Cohen tried to prevent the imminent demolition by seeking a preliminary injunction against Wolkoff under the Visual Artists Rights Act. The court denied the plaintiffs’ application for preliminary injunction but said an opinion would come within eight days. > “Rather than wait for the Court’s opinion,” Block wrote, “Wolkoff destroyed almost all of the plaintiffs’ paintings by whitewashing them during that eight-day interim.” Here's the key lines. The landlord attempted an end-run around the courts. They failed and are now subject to heavy penalty for trying to subvert the courts.
cooper12 9y ago
Wow, the title really buries the lead here and I see no comments here talking about how this wasn't any ordinary building: it was the 5pointz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Pointz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Pointz)! Not only that, this wasn't illegal graffiti, but rather murals that were originally sanctioned. When the landlord wanted to demolish the site, the artists went to the courts and the court was going to make a decision, but the landlord went ahead and painted over them a day before the decision.

22 points by shaki-dora 9y ago

This is a scenario where the headline sounds outrageous, but then you read the details in the actual article and it actually makes sense.

anonyx69 9y ago
Graffiti typically means "illegal", so that's why the headline sounds outrageous. 5 Pointz was more of a "graffiti museum", with substantial cultural significance. It was a nice piece of news to see for a change. I was heartbroken when they whitewashed that building.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  So I guess the owner doesn't really "own" the building if enough people come and draw pictures on the side of it then...
  - victorNicollet 9y ago
    If you give people the reasonable expectation that pictures drawn on your property will not be erased in the near future, I don't think it's unusual for you to be held to that expectation. Not all liabilities are written on paper with a signature at the bottom.
  - socalnate1 9y ago
    Again, you should read the article. That isn't the scenario here at all.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    In this case, the owner rented out studios to artists for years, and permitted/encouraged them to paint on the walls. He also designated different walls as "permanent" and "temporary" spaces. All that points to a contractual relationship between the owner and the artists. Remember: contracts don't need to be writing. It's also not entirely clear if the property owner was ever the owner of the art itself. There's a difference between posession and ownership, and while the former is 90% of the latter, that leaves 10% up for grabs. From this pov, the case is maybe comparable to someone finding a Picasso that someone forgot on their front yard, and immediately destroying it. But, in general: yes, if your property somehow becomes valuable for society in some way or another, that may entail new restrictions on your use. Landmark and similar designations for historically valuable buildings come to mind. When some endangered species starts breeding on your property, you may no longer be able to turn it into a parking lot. Property rights just aren't as absolute as people like to think, nor are they not subject to change. It's obviously in society's interest to provide for robust protections of private property because it creates incentives to own stuff, and to be productive in order to do so. But these rights are just a tool that has proven extremely useful to organise our economic activity. There are always competing interests, and societies have to find a balance that maximises total value while remaining fair to each individual.
    - victorNicollet 9y ago
      Yes. The same principles would be at play if you were letting a friend store their bike in your garage on weekdays. One tuesday in April you call them to say "I need to paint the garage in June, come and get your bike". But they're out of the country for the week, so the next day you throw away the bike. You would have the legal right to clear out your garage, you had no signed contract to rent out a space for your friend's bike, but the way in which you did it caused your friend to lose their bike after you had given them a reasonable expectation that they wouldn't, and you had no good reason not to wait until the end of the week.
      - pkaye 9y ago
        What if the friend was out of the country for a week.. or a month... maybe longer... how long before it would be right to throw away the bike?

markpapadakis 9y ago

Looks like the owner didn’t do this gracefully and didn’t care much about the significance of the Art to its creators and others who appreciated it likely way more than he did. That’s not very nice. On the other hand, if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it. Unless there was a contract of some kind, not a lawyer, I don’t understand how the judge could have sided with the artists who themselves were on a private property and ended up making claims to said property. Aren’t judges supposed to be impartial and make decisions based on the letter of the law ? Though I suppose the law in the us may protect the artists in this case.

victorNicollet 9y ago
> if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it. The general principle is that you can do what you want with your property, but you must pay for any damages you cause in doing so. The important question is whether you did cause those damages (maybe it was someone else's fault, or maybe the damages were inevitable and would have happened regardless of your action or inaction, or maybe you acted in good faith like any other person would have) which gives judges plenty to think about.
- grundee 9y ago
  A better way to frame this would be to consider if the artists were sculptors who were allowed to leave their sculptures for free on this property. Pieces of art that are not attached to the building make it more clear that destroying the art would leave the building owner liable for damages. Similarly, the artists who painted murals should have had the opportunity to remove their property from the building, which seems to be what they are arguing.
GhostVII 9y ago
A verbal contract still counts as a contract though, so if the property owner had a verbal agreement that the artwork would not be destroyed, and he violated that agreement, I think it makes sense that he is liable for the damages. Seems somewhat similar to destroying a painting a tenant had hung up, you have to give them the opportunity to remove it first.

yostrovs 9y ago

What about the artists who covered up previously generated graffiti to display their own? Will they be prosecuted?

victorNicollet 9y ago
Artists drawing on temporary sections were expected to know that their graffiti would be deleted according to schedule. The owner, on the other hand, deleted graffiti in the permanent section without warning, ten months before the section was expected to be torn down.
- yostrovs 9y ago
  It sounds like the real owner of the walls was the guy setting the schedule of who and when gets to paint said walls. The owner that holds the title to the building has been reduced to one of the artists, if that, who should have known better than to decide what to do with what is actually his own property.
  - victorNicollet 9y ago
    I don't understand what you're trying to say. It is a good thing for the owner to be able to willingly give up some of their rights over their property. You wouldn't consider renting a home or office if the owner had the right to kick all of your belongings out of their property, or change the lock and hold them for ransom. The reason why "using someone else's property" can work is precisely because the owner can credibly pledge not to use those rights for a time. This doesn't mean that you own that home or office.
    - yostrovs 9y ago
      I believe in contracts and I doubt there ever was a contract. This seems like someone thought that these walls will be forever theirs, though it was just a matter of a lenient landlord not caring too much about what was going on. And because the landlord wasn't a dick in the first place, but was a nice guy who let them use the walls he owned to display their art for free to a giant audience, he now owes them $6.5 million!! These people have probably never made $6.5 million between them.

r00fus 9y ago

FTA: "Wolkoff has been singularly unrepentant." A book comes to mind - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(novel) Like the protagonist in the book, the owner had plenty of chance to smooth it over or explain his actions but decided his actions and rights were arbitrary. The courts would likely have seen things his way, but in the end if he's going to phone it in, they have power as well.

poster123 9y ago

If you own a building you have the right to demolish it and erect a new one. Even if you let someone put graffiti on the walls, that is not a contract to let the graffiti stay there forever.

victorNicollet 9y ago
The question here was not "forever", it was "in the middle of the night, just before the court could reach a decision" instead of "when the building is demolished ten months in the future".
wahern 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act Moral rights in works are big in Europe but were largely unrecognized in the U.S. until the passage of the above law. It's a kind of copyright, and like copyright generally not contingent on a contract to make it enforceable against someone.

rando444 9y ago

I feel like these artists just screwed over their own community. Sure they got some money, but at what cost? The owner originally allowed these artists an opportunity and a venue to express themselves at no cost, and when he had decided it was time to move on, his kind gesture was met with hostility and greed on the part of the artists. These artists may have gotten their payday, but in doing so now every building owner will think twice about allowing artists to paint, and their fellow artists and the general public who enjoy this kind of art will be the ones that suffer the consequences the most.

gonyea 9y ago
You didn’t read the article, did you? The landlord destroyed the artwork before the courts resolved the case. This has nothing to do with artists; these power plays happen periodically and they’re subsequently beaten like a dog by the courts.
- rando444 9y ago
  You didn't read my comment did you? The artists wouldn't have any power to play with and wouldn't have even have had this venue to practice their art if it wasn't for the kindness of the building owner. The artists are setting a precedent for property owners that to prevent being "beaten like a dog", the best solution is to not let people practice their art on your property.

andyv 9y ago

Very similar to the situation in "The Garden" http://www.thegardenmovie.com http://www.thegardenmovie.com Basically, a property owner in South LA lets people grow gardens on his otherwise unused property. After a while the owner decides to do something else with the property. The gardeners react by trying to get city to exercise eminent domain on the land. The owner ends up kicking everyone out of the gardens and bulldozing everything. Letting people use your property gives them the idea that they own it. With the graffiti buildings, they apparently do.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Letting people use your property gives them the idea that they own it. The idea may not be without legal support, see, generally, the legal concepts of implied easements, prescriptive easements, and adverse possession.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Yet more reasons to never, ever let people use your property for anything but explicitly temporary purposes?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I would say, not to let people use your property for aextended period in a way you are uncomfortable with becoming an entitlement, except with an explicit and explicitly revocable grant of permission delineating what is allowed.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Like, a normal lease agreement.

kevin_b_er 9y ago

> As a final resort, Cohen tried to prevent the imminent demolition by seeking a preliminary injunction against Wolkoff under the Visual Artists Rights Act. The court denied the plaintiffs’ application for preliminary injunction but said an opinion would come within eight days. > “Rather than wait for the Court’s opinion,” Block wrote, “Wolkoff destroyed almost all of the plaintiffs’ paintings by whitewashing them during that eight-day interim.” Here's the key lines. The landlord attempted an end-run around the courts. They failed and are now subject to heavy penalty for trying to subvert the courts.

cooper12 9y ago

Wow, the title really buries the lead here and I see no comments here talking about how this wasn't any ordinary building: it was the 5pointz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Pointz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Pointz)! Not only that, this wasn't illegal graffiti, but rather murals that were originally sanctioned. When the landlord wanted to demolish the site, the artists went to the courts and the court was going to make a decision, but the landlord went ahead and painted over them a day before the decision.