Bill Tsourapas has seen the future, and it is graffiti remover.
“I talked Joe into making me a partner,” says Tsourapas. “I guess he was pretty desperate to turn to a 17-year-old kid. But I have a lot of ambition. And he liked that.”
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This year Tsourapas and Markopoulos generated about $22,000 worth of business in a cleaning season that runs roughly from April to November. “We’ve done dozens of demonstrations,” says Tsourapas. “We’ve driven up to buildings and offered to clean their walls.”
Police contend that the graffiti epidemic that’s spread across the city over the last decade began in near-northwest Hispanic neighborhoods, but it’s long since moved beyond one ethnic group or community. A few years ago, some art lovers were convinced that graffiti was a kind of folk art. But that talk has faded, and now just about anyone who lives in the inner city or owns property there curses the stuff.
Then earlier this year came a proposal to ban the sale of spray paint within the city altogether. That raised a hue and cry from the paint industry, who felt that their retailers, distributors, and law-abiding customers were being unfairly punished for the bad deeds of a few lawbreakers. The city dropped the proposal in exchange for some cooperation from the paint industry.
“Every solution has its limitations,” says Tsourapas. “They’re either costly or labor-intensive. That’s where our formula comes in.” Coligado won’t say what’s in his formula–“I don’t want to give away my secrets to the competition”–but he will say that part of the secret is a sealer he also invented.
“We spent hours at Cabrini going over the buildings, preparing our proposal,” adds Markopoulos. “We were there every day from 8 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon for three weeks. But we never heard from the CHA.”
