TA Factory: October 21st 2009

For the past few years I have been frequenting an old abandoned factory building next to the TA Wall Area. To be honest, I am not sure what this building served as prior to its abandonment, however, I have found a few references online of people claiming its name to have been the George W. Reed Foundry and dating as far back as circa 1895. I have searched myself and found nothing to-date in any official record detailing the true identity of this location, so for now let's just leave it as the TA Factory. When I find something solid historically, I'll post it.

I come to this place often to take pictures and explore the changing pattern of decay and graffiti over time. This is an active location year round. When things get too cold outside writers hit the walls up during the winter. In fact, all throughout the year writers paint in the factory. You can always find something new on the walls when you visit. Since its abandonment some time ago (even this I am not sure of) this building has become an important part of the TA Wall area and a popular spot to paint. Although I have many, many pics from over the last few years of the factory, I've got my latest shots from the 21st of October posted here when I was last checking up on the TA Wall area.

I've got more in the vault that I'll post sometime soon, but for now enjoy these.

This first pan shot is of the ground floor area farthest from the wall. Again, not the best pan shot put togehter (I'm learning...slowly) but it shows the extent of the hollowing out of thisplace. I remember when I first used to come in this place and it still had the solid cement flooring, none of this mucky dirt.

This next pan shot is of the second floor. It shows the far room to the left and the large open floor room on the right. This floor is the most active now that the first has been pretty much hollowed out. Lots of color on this floor, always some fresh pieces up.

The rest of these shots are mostly from the second floor area, except for the last few that are from the ground floor. I haven't been on the roof lately due to time constraints, but I'll post some fresh roof pics at a later time.

"Fuck the Buff": TA Wall Update

On the 20th and 21st of October I made a couple of quick runs to the TA Wall and Factory to see if there was any recent activity. It seems that the buffing is still in full effect. The upper wall area looks to have been maintained regularly having only a few hollow throw ups and tags. Towards the far west end a lone fill in by MEAT and a hollow done by LEGAL were the only hits that were up on the wall. The supports along the way are also equally as bare with only a few tags and throw ups. The above image is a pan shot of the buffed upper wall. Not the best pan shot put together but it does show you the extent of the buffing on the upper wall.

Alveno and Kode rocked a couple of burners on the support across from the junction box platform as well. Other than MEAT, ROCO and FIEFER bombed the area -FIEFER having tagged up most of the supports running from the west end down the service path leading to the lower wall. Repeatedly he wrote the message "Repeignez bande d'encules!" ("Paint over these fuckers' buff!) on almost every support column along the way.

I made my way to the lower wall area and found that it had also been recently buffed. It seemed, however, that the local writing community was not going to give this wall up as easily, evidenced by a good amount of tags, throw ups, and some pieces that had gone up recently. And they were not happy about it either. Numerous grievances scrawled in spray paint and marker on the wall and surrounding supports: "fuck buffing", "fuck the buff", "Beau pillage de fonds publics" ("Nice waste of public funds"), and another wrote "You suck, let this grey city have color on our walls, let us have art". "Fuck the buff" though seemed the most popular choice by many of the writers as it was pretty much up on the area from end to end. Clearly local writers were unimpressed and had decided to voice their discontent of the recent buffing of the TA Wall.

Although the upper wall has been maintained pretty regularly for the last while, the lower wall will not be silenced so easily. The importance of this spot to the local graffiti community has definitely been voiced to the city and MTQ. The TA Wall is an historical referent for local writers, years of painting have been put into this spot, it is a pillar when it comes to unofficial spots for painting. The comments and recent activity at the wall displays the outrage of writers to the buffing of this area and their resolve to fight for it. Keep posted, I'll be checking this spot as regularly as I can and keeping my ear to the rail for anything in the headlines.

I'll post my factory pics from the 21st soon.