Tales From The Ghost Yard features writers who worked at this infamous locale and illustrates two important periods in the art history of graffiti writing. MIKE 171 & SJK 171, who are also called The Boys from the Heights, painted some of the first pieces on stationary trains there in the early 1970s, as did SNAKE 1, who was co-founder of Writers Corner 188, one of the earliest writing crews. The exhibition includes Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1972-73 photograph of a piece SJK 171 painted in the Ghost Yard in 1971, as well as photographs illustrating writing at the Ghost Yard from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, alongside aerosol paintings.
The Ghost Yard, on 10th Avenue between 207th and 215th Streets along the Harlem River, formerly the location of the 1736 Nagel Burial Ground, was purportedly named for the haunting sounds echoing off the adjacent Harlem River. MIKE 171 recalled that a fog came in off the Harlem River in the hot summer months and the workers used hand held lamps which emanated an eerie glow as they walked around working in the foggy yard, hence earning the moniker Ghost Yard. The Ghost Yard, perhaps the most important yard in New York City writing history, was where writers painted many of the first and last pieces on the subway trains. It was the largest train repair and maintenance yard in New York City servicing nearly all of the New York city train lines, and it functioned as a nexus for writers and was the birthplace for many legendary aerosol works from very first pieces of the early 1970s, through the Golden Age of writing, up until the last days of the Clean Train Era circa 1987.
T-KID 170 painted in the Ghost Yard from 1977-1987 spanning the most prolific period of aerosol art on subway trains. T-KID 170 began ‘writing ‘at the Ghost Yard in 1977, and became ‘King’ of the yard in the 1980s, where he wrote with his own crews The Nasty Boys (TNB) and The Vamp Squad (TVS). Numerous ‘writers’ painted in the Ghost Yard during the first half of the 1980’s, where some of the largest crews of the 1980s joined forces.
Although the Ghost Yard itself is now off limits, as the yards are under strict surveillance and cannot be entered, the area around the Ghost Yard remains an important place for writers. T-KID 170 and others painted a series of Wild Style burners on a large wall near the Ghost Yard in honor of TRACY 168, in the summer of 2024.
The artists featured in Tales from the Ghost Yard kept the tradition alive fifty years later.
