Federal Judge Indemnifies 21 US graffiti Artists

The sentence of a federal judge of Brooklyn favored today 21 graffiti artists with a compensation of 6.7 million dollars, after the demolition of a building considered a world mecca of urban art.

The verdict forces the current owner of the facility, Jerry Wolkoff, to pay the 21 artists the high compensation for destroying the building in 2014 to build luxury apartments instead.

The aerosol murals in the complex known as 5 Pointz, located in Long Island City, were for two decades a tourist attraction and temple of the best and largest outdoor exhibition of street art.

The ruling considers that a total of 45 of the works made on the walls of the building were worthy of being preserved from any negligent act by the Law of Rights of the Visual Artists of 1990, and condemns the owner to the greater indemnity provided.

A year before the demolition, the owner of the building had painted all the white walls in order to erase the graffiti, without having given time to safeguard some creations.

Several experts of contemporary art, cited during the judicial process, certified the quality of the lost works.