Graffiti Days: Battery Townsley II

Posted by liaso (Bay Area, United States) on 18 November 2007 in Art & Design.

Our guide of Battery Townsley said that before the restoration, the entire battery was covered with graffiti like the graffiti above. In the 80s especially, the abandoned battery had become a hangout for teens who wanted to get drunk, high, or both. In the long corridor that once served as the bunk area for the soldiers in the 1940s, about half of the corridor has been restored to what it looked like back then. The other half has not yet been completed, and is still covered with graffiti. The corridor and rooms off the corridor are where I took these pictures. I wonder if they will preserve the graffiti in one of the rooms.

The top right photo is probably some of my favorite graffiti, and I find myself hoping that they do not paint over it. It is actually painted on a tube/tunnel that was built into the battery in the 60s, when the battery became a testing facility studying the effects of nuclear blast winds. Our guide told us that they had considered removing the tube/tunnel that had been built to create the winds, but had decided that the testing period of the battery was as much a part of its history as its military history in the 40s was. I wonder if this line of thought will lead to a preservation of the graffiti that was painted on the tube. The graffiti is considered a destruction of the place, but are we distanced enough from it for it to become "graffiti" and part of the battery's history?

I also like the fact that someone altered, although not fully successfully, the "86 Groovers" to say "86 Goobers". The twelve-year-old in me has a good laugh at that one.

These pictures have had their contrast adjusted and a couple have been cropped for the collage.