Street art was born in NYC during the 1970s when the city was bankrupt and overrun by crime. Almost as a response to the chaos, young kids from the Bronx and Brooklyn started bombing subway cars and buildings with graffiti tags. Rather than vandalism, street graffiti has been considered a unique symbol of New York. The best boroughs to see them are Williamsburg and The Bronx, but you don’t need to travel far to see them. Here are the best street art in NYC.
If you have shopped at the Trader Joe’s on 72nd Street and Broadway, you might have seen this graffiti by Banksy, an anonymous England-based street artist who famously loves New York City. Unfortunately, most of his works have been covered or torn down to be sold or defaced by taggers. This modest stencil piece, “Hammer Boy,” is probably one of a few that is still intact thanks to the building owner, who installed a Plexiglas shield to protect it.
Walk out of The Oculus, an aesthetically stunning transit hub, through its southern exit, and you’ll have 2 World Trade Center on your left. Its foundation is covered by a metal shed of bright images inspired by pop art and anime, creating a welcome oasis of color in the Financial District, where the palette is very much muted. This mural was created by Todd Gray, Hektad, BoogieRez, Stickymonger, and husband-and-wife duo Chinon Maria and Sebastian Mitre. It is always changing, so you’ll see something different each time you visit.
On a handball court in Harlem, you will find this famous “Crack Is Wack” mural created by American artist Keith Haring. While he painted the piece without permission, the work’s message quickly earned the mural a blessing of the city. Unfortunately, Keith passed away on February 16, 1990, and this piece is a lasting reminder of his art, which sent out a powerful message that “crack is bad and should be avoided” and continues to instruct and inspire through its wit and vibrancy.
If you run a business in the Lower East Side and want a free way to beautify your storefront gate, participate in the 100 Gates Project, which connects local artists looking for a legally permitted space to showcase their talent. So far, over 75 murals have been up in this neighborhood, ranging from Buff Monster’s elastic flying brain cum cyclops for Bondy Export Corporation to Billy the Artist’s Picasso faces for Michele Olivieri’s sneaker mecca.
They have turned this neighborhood into an open-air gallery that emerges at night. The project has now expanded outside the Lower East Side to include East Harlem, the North Shore on Staten Island, and the Flatbush area of Brooklyn.
If you need additional proof that most street artists love New York City deeply, look no further than this eye-catching “New York” mural. It was created in March 2018 by Philadelphia-based artist Glossblack at the original Lower East Side location of Twin Marquis Inc., a manufacturer of fresh Asian noodles.
Snaking above the industrial West Side neighborhood is a 1.45-mile-long park, the famous High Line, from where you will be overlooking the beautiful Hudson River, massive murals, and the Downtown skyline. This spot is most popular during the warm months when the flowers and plants are in full bloom, and lots of art installations begin to change. One of our favorites over the years is “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door” by artist Dorothy Iannone, which is dedicated to the Statue of Liberty and the Emma Lazarus poem.
Global warming is real, and artists from Audubon Mural Project have come up with creative ways to encourage people to act to stop it. Along Broadway from 133rd Street to 165th Street in northern Manhattan, you will see an untold number of beautiful birds adorning the walls and gates of buildings. These murals, commissioned by the National Audubon Society and Gitler &_____ Gallery, represent over 300 North American bird species threatened by global warming. Over 148 bird species have been painted, with more to come!
On the corner of Houston and the Bowery is a concrete wall slab, which used to be a source of illegal graffiti and commercial advertisements until 2008, when artist Jeffery Deitch and the wall’s owner, Tony Goldman, started commissioning murals. Over the years, this wall has been painted by an untold number of artists, including legends like Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and JR, who all followed the lead of American artist Keith Haring, who painted an original mural as a gift to the community in the late 1970s.
The latest installment is a colorful world introduced by a Brooklyn-based Japanese artist, Tomokazu Matsuyama, who spent about two weeks working on this piece. However, it was vandalized only a few days after completion by two large tags.
Back in the 1970s, the entire Jackie Robinson Educational Complex in Harlem was a place for up-and-coming graffiti artists to hone their craft in a safe environment. There were four walls to play with. Now, the only wall they use is the street-facing boundary of the schoolyard. The site’s motto is “Strictly Kings and Better,” and artists from all over the world come to compete for a precious spot on the wall. While exploring the area, you’ll find art on every corner, from yarn-bombed flowers on chain-link fences to murals celebrating the lives of Latin music legends.
On 18th Street and Tenth Avenue in Chelsea, you will spot this lovely piece on the side of a building created by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra. It is to pay tribute to two great men of humanity: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary granted sainthood for her work ministering to the poor of Calcutta, and Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who led India in its quest for independence from British rule. The best spot to see the artwork is from the High Line.
You may no longer see indie concert venues or dive bars that used to grace the streets of East Village due to the rising rents, but the artistic spirit remains strong thanks to the work of groups like East Village Walls. You will find their colorful murals by artists like Peach Tao, Monks, and BKFoxx all over the neighborhood, with new ones, small or big, popping up all the time.
In Manhattan’s Lower East Side, you will see this simple beloved mural, created by artist Bradley Theodore in July 2018, a month after Anthony Bourdain, a talented American, passed away. If you love his books or have tasted his cookery, stop by and pay your respects. The street artist later announced his work in an Instagram post captioned: “In a city full of villains, we all need heroes.”
Near the Children’s Museum of the Arts in Hudson Square, you will find a world of adorable murals by Peanuts Global Artist Collective that feature your beloved characters from the Peanuts comic strip, ranging from an anime-style Charlie Brown to psychedelic rocker Snoopy with his trusty bird sidekick Woodstock. This is a great spot to bring your kids for an afternoon of fun. The others can be found in Berlin, Mexico City, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo.
“Love Wall” was created by accident when self-taught artist James Goldcrown was testing the pressure of spray cans with heart shapes in his studio. He realized these “bleeding hearts” were more popular than any other piece. Now, the mural is one of the city’s most Instagrammable spots, welcoming an untold number of visitors each day. While it might be a cliche, the overlapping rainbow hearts do speak to a sort of desperation for love, and that’s something we can all relate to. In 2016, Henri also created one at Henri Bendel, across from Trump Tower.
In 2011, Lower East Side residents Jonathan Neville and Pebbles Russell tried to combat the negative impacts of construction sites by transforming a trailer that functioned as a temporary office into a rotating street gallery, which artists would repaint every two months. That’s how Centre-fuge Public Art Project started, and so far, it has beautified trailers around NYC and Miami. The project’s goal is to open eyes and minds around the five boroughs through arts and provide opportunities for artists in a more competitive space to express themselves.
This gem in the Lower East Side can be easily missed if you don’t know its existence. However, thanks to the inconspicuous location, illegal graffiti in the form of tags, stenciling, wheat pasting, and murals can survive the city’s gentrification and proliferate. A small, narrow passage off Rivington Street between Chrystie Street and the Bowery will lead you past restaurants, art galleries, and an untold number of street murals with slight humor and wisdom.
This dapper gentleman you see in the picture is The Vandal, a popular character featured in most of Nick Walker’s work. This talented British artist has sold out shows in both London and Los Angeles, where wealthy collectors waited in line for over 24 hours to be among the first to get his latest print editions. You can find this piece in a nondescript parking lot on the corner of 17th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, which also showcases Nick Walker’s love for New York.
First Street Garden Art Park in the LES has been a hotbed of NYC’s vibrant cultural community for decades. You can find the entrance to the park on the corner of Houston Street and 2nd Avenue. This public space supports emerging artists who work with different mediums — expect to see large murals, photography, and art installations. There are also community and cultural events.
On one side of the rag & bone store in Lower Manhattan, you will find this beautiful mural that changes regularly. Marcus Wainwright, rag & bone’s CEO, Founder and Creative Director, is a big supporter of the arts, so when the store opened with a large blank wall adjacent to the entrance, he knew it would be a perfect spot for murals — and just like that, The Houston Project started. So far, the project has invited 42 artists to make a splash on the wall, including Typoe, Rainer Judd, Jerkface, and James Goldcrown.
Beneath Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, the Freedom Tunnel is a secret spot for the creative type to throw up their signature pieces. Those willing to take the strenuous hike underground will be rewarded with a striking series of murals by artists led by painter and graffiti artist Chris Pape. His satirical “There’s No Way Like the American Way,” aka “The Coca-Cola Mural,” still stands today, inspired by the sensational ads in the 80s and 90s and intended to raise awareness of the displaced homeless in the neighborhood.
