East End Graffiti Arms Race Accelerates as Management District Upgrades Removal Equipment

The Greater East End Management District is taking its latest graffiti-blasting weapon to the streets. In the video demo above, workers from the GEEMD’s graffiti abatement team are shown taking out the tagging on the limestone front of the Longhorn Building at 3176 Navigation Blvd. last month. The new equipment is a mobile blaster from Houston’s own Dustless Blasting, which uses a high-pressure stream of recycled glass and water to remove paint and other finishes.

The system is used primarily for refinishing cars and boats, but it appears to work rather quickly on graffiti too: Back in March, the manufacturer showed off this promotional vid for its own attack on another east-side site: the former Waddell Housefurnishing Company buildings on Sampson St. between Rusk and McKinney on the eastern border of East Downtown, slated to become the Sampson Lofts:

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Videos: Greater East End Management District (Longhorn Bldg.); Dustless Blasting (Sampson Lofts)

Dustless Blasting

6 Comment

  • I can think of a much more effective weapon.

  • graffiti is the language of the city

  • “graffiti is the language of the city” Its dumb crap like that that has kids thinking tagging stuff is art. Just a bunch of two bit criminals without purpose or direction in life destroying the property of others.

  • I wish someone would remove all of the graffiti, including “Be Someone”, from the railroad bridges over I-45 and I-10 north of downtown.

  • Thank you Turning Basin for correcting cmoney!!!! If you want language, use your words, as mothers say to toddlers, and if you want to produce art, use your own money and property. As they say, art is in the eye of the beholder, and I don’t consider it art if it’s ruining something of mine or that I contribute to paying for.

  • @Turning_Basin: I know, right? Art has to cost bazillions dollars and be kept in official art places where it can’t get at property.