When I lived in Philadelphia, I lived in a five story walk-up. Red carpeted, very nice, cheap apartment. That last floor to my apartment was steep. Killer actually. I knew some wall writers. Some graffiti artists. They were very young, bad ass kids. I thought it would be a great idea if they painted my bathroom with their tags. I bought pizza and soda and some cans of silver, neon oranges, pinks and greens and gold spray paint. I think they brought their own markers. I taped the tile with newspapers so all they would be marking were the walls above the tile. Graffiti as an art form was not well known then.

In fact I found out recently, that Philadelphia started it all, with a kid who tagged with the name, “Cornbread.”  He wanted his girlfriend at the time to remember him; He wrote “Cornbread” with a crown over the letters all along her bus route. It even shows up in the video of Bruce Springsteen singing the soundtrack for the movie, “Philadelphia.” Springsteen walks right by a “Cornbread” tag.

Enjoy this picture of Greg Davis. Also known as “T-Bone.” His writing as well as “Meanstreak’s” and “Eyeski’s” can still be seen from all the trains and buses in the Philadelphia area.

Oh, when I found these black and white photos, the “kids” went crazy with excitement.  That night, I took the photographs with my single lens reflex 35 mm camera, which happened to have black and white film in it, 400 ASA.

It’s kind of like a happy ending to the story of Peter Pan. The kids are all grown up now. The work of Keith Haring, Basquiat and Cy Twombly has sold for millions. The wall-writing technique in their paintings are in museums and auction houses today. But these three young graffiti artists, although now far away from the artistic agility required to be an effective sneaky wall writer, still consider themselves Bad Asses.