Those who come to pay their respects describe these memorials in more simple terms. The walls are a way to represent your friends in the "hood," says a 23-year-old man sporting cornrows and a leather jacket. He identifies himself as Dutch. Those memorialized need not be prominent or famous. "If I died next week, my peoples would find a wall somewhere and put my face on it," says Dutch, who lives in the Soundview section of the Bronx. "It's a tradition. It's a way to show love."

The memorial wall for "Big Pun" is one of hundreds that pepper some city neighborhoods. In bright orange or hot pink or plain-old black block letters, the dead are memorialized with words and images straight from the heart. It is here that an East Harlem teen named Papote gets "love from your family and friends," or Toby, of the Upper West Side, is told to "rest in peace," or Johnny is thought of "in loving memory."

Big Pun's wall in the South Bronx had a steady stream of visitors in the days following his Feb. 7, 2000, death. PHOTO: Andrew Tilghman

The passage of time, pigeon droppings and chipping paint have made some illegible, but residents say the walls are as much a part of the neighborhood as the corner market or playground. Every day on her way home from the grocery store or Laundromat, 65-year-old Lady Wells passes Johnny Roman's wall at the Happy Warrior Playground on Amsterdam Avenue near 99th Street. On Aug. 12, 1990, a group of guys shooting hoops at the park started shooting guns when the competition turned fierce. For Roman, caught in the crossfire, it turned deadly.

Those details are long forgotten to Wells; she says the Upper West Side neighborhood's violent incidents blur together in her mind. "I don't know who it is," the Dominican immigrant says in Spanish. "I can't tell you his name, and I've lived here 33 years." A stock boy who works at the hardware store across the street, agreed. "This is just a part of the neighborhood now," says Ehrin James. "It's been there as long as I remember."

Johnny Roman was shot to death at this playground. Nearly a decade later, neighbors say they pass this wall and wonder who Johnny was. PHOTO: S. Mitra Kalita

A neighborhood fixture, perhaps. Whether it's welcome is another story. "Why should it be here?" asks Tyrone Morgan, a truck driver for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation who sees several such walls daily. "They sell dope to the kids and end up dying from the same thing. They shouldn't be memorializing drug dealers."

Indeed, members of the Tats Cru allege the city has painted over several of the memorial murals they had created, much to the dismay of family members. BG 183, whose real name is Sotero Ortiz, says his company always obtains explicit permission from landlords and local authorities before painting a wall. "Maybe they feel that they are glorifying violence," BG 183 says, speculating on the city's perception of the murals. "But families are upset. Now they have no place to go. It's sad for them." City officials did not return requests for comment. The mayor's Anti-Graffiti Task Force, meanwhile, has repeatedly and publicly declared graffiti on public property to be vandalism, plain and simple.

 

Why Memorial Walls?
The memorial wall's roots can be traced to a Latino Catholic tradition of erecting roadside memorials or crosses to honor accident victims, says urban folklorist Joseph Sciorra, who co-authored the book "R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art."

The walls are a way of "making grief public and going through the whole mourning process as a community. This became a local, community-based way to remember someone near and dear in someone's hearts and minds."

The earlier construction of walls can be linked to the city's high homicide rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to a proliferation of crack and other drugs, and unregulated or illegal handgun sales, says Sciorra. In fact, some of the people memorialized were known drug dealers; in some cases, family and friends put up the walls to send a tangible message to future generations.

Tributes range from a scrawled name in spray paint to elaborate, colorful murals -- works of art in their own right. Nearly a decade ago, a Bronx trio of street artists started to cash in on the trend of graffiti art and memorial walls.

Known as the Tats Cru for their "Top Artistic Talents," the group estimates erecting at least 100 such walls around the city, straddling the line between graphic artist and graffiti vandals. Co-founder BG 183 - that's his "tag" name -- remembers a couple who asked the group to paint their slain son with a gun in his hand. "The mother said to me, 'I want to show the kids in the neighborhood. I want to let them know my son was doing this, selling drugs, and it was not right.'"

Memorial walls and murals became a way to reclaim the streets, Sciorra says. "They were an artist's creative response to crisis, both personal and in the city," he says.