The Krog Street Tunnel has become a safe space for anyone with a spray can.
Photo: The Sintoses with permission from Atlanta BeltLine Inc.
Graffiti Can Be a Neighborhood Asset, If Cities Embrace It
As graffiti morphs from real estate blight to urban amenity, Atlanta’s style writers are driving forces in a conversation about public art.
The graffiti-slathered Krog Street Tunnel exists at a collision between old and new Atlanta. On one end, its entrance sits blocks away from the Sweet Auburn district, birthplace of civil rights legend Martin Luther King, Jr. and the site of his tomb. On the other end are Cabbagetown, once home to mill workers, and Reynoldstown, founded by formerly enslaved African Americans, both of which have undergone dramatic neighborhood change.
Markings from the various stages of the area’s transformation are etched, scribbled, Sharpied, bubbled, tagged and spray-painted all through the underpass and both tunnel entrances, in layers upon layers of unadulterated graffiti, with timestamps reaching back decades. The overarching narrative is survival.