Jurors in NYC side with graffiti artists

NEW YORK — A jury on Tuesday found that a New York City real estate developer broke the law when he tore down the so-called 5Pointz complex in Queens three years ago, destroying nearly 50 swirling, colorful graffiti murals that had been spray-painted on its walls.

The finding by a jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn will serve as a recommendation to the judge who presided over the case and who will render a final verdict.

For the better part of 20 years, 5Pointz, a complex of buildings in Long Island City, was a collaboration between the developer, Jerry Wolkoff, and a crew of graffiti artists that not only became an offbeat tourist destination but also helped transform the neighborhood into a thriving residential enclave.

Although it eventually became what a lawyer for the artists called the “world’s largest open-air aerosol museum,” its existence was always predicated on Wolkoff tearing it down and turning the buildings into luxury apartments, which he ultimately did in 2014.

The artists filed suit against Wolkoff in federal court, accusing him of violating the Visual Artists Rights Act, which has been used to protect public art of “recognized stature” created on someone else’s property.

During trial, the artists’ lawyer, Eric Baum, claimed that Wolkoff had failed to give his clients the proper 90-day notice before he destroyed their work by sending in a team of workers one night to cover it in a coat of white paint.

Wolkoff’s lawyer, David Ebert, had argued at the trial that artists act was irrelevant in the case because it was intended to protect art, not his client’s building. Ebert also maintained that the 21 artists who had joined the suit had known for years that 5Pointz would eventually come down and contended that they had destroyed more graffiti themselves by constantly changing their paintings than Wolkoff had in demolishing the structures.

In the past decade or so, Ebert said, about 11,000 murals had come and gone on the walls of the complex.