PORTLAND, Ore. — There's been a lot more graffiti around Portland in the past few years, and sometimes, taggers go to new heights to do what they do, including to the very top of buildings.
It’s not easy to hang over the edge to do this kind of damage — and it's not easy to clean it up, either.
Large-scale graffiti defaced the top part of the seven-story Pythian Building on southwest Yamhill Street by Director Park. It's been up there for several months, on two sides of the building, and now, it's coming off.
The big letters are about ten feet tall, and this is not spray-painted on. Taggers used paint rollers and two layers, white and black, which makes it much harder to get off. But apparently some taggers like the challenge and take pride in it.
“It's putting their name up and claiming a certain spot,” said Paul Watts, owner of Graffiti Removal Services. “We'll remove it and take it off, and hopefully, the property owner will put up some additional security measures, so they don't get back up there again, but it'll probably happen.”
The removal and cleanup work will likely take three days. Watts developed a portable pressure spraying system to get to hard-to-reach places and also hires workers trained to safely do this off-the-ground work in these cases.
“It's an historic building, so we don't want to sandblast it, we don't want to soda-blast it, we don't even want to paint it. We want to remove it and restore the building back to its original condition,” Watts explained.
To report graffiti in the city of Portland, call 503-823-4000, or go online to do it, as well as to get more information.
