Reader:

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This is madness that, if broadly applied, risks conflating vandalism — which is willful defacement of property, and should as a rule be removed

5Pointz, owned by Jerry Wolkoff. For two decades as it sat vacant, graffiti artists, with Wolkoff’s permission, paid pilgrimage there and put their skills to work.

In so doing, they turned the site into something whimsical, colorful, surprising, even joyous — an outdoor gallery.

It was pretty great while it lasted. But the taggers and painters knew all along that Wolkoff’s plans were to tear the building down, as was his right — which he did, after whitewashing the walls one night in 2014.

They never owned it. Their work was attached to — indeed was an inextricable part of — someone else’s private property. Graffiti, even when beautiful, is still graffiti.