Nov. 22, 2016 By Hannah Wulkan
Community members working to promote LIC’s positive vibe through the placement of post-it messages on the wall at the Vernon-Jackson subway station were disappointed last night when they discovered an overly zealous MTA cleaning crew removed their notes from the wall.
Inspired by the Post-It wall at Union Square, several Long Island City residents began a similar “Post-It-tivity wall” in Hunters Point yesterday. However an MTA cleaning crew took down the Post-Its last night, despite the group having permission to decorate the wall.
“One of the reasons I thought it would be nice is to have it as people exit the subway station to come in to LIC and see that our community is inclusive and accepting and tolerant,” said organizer Kate Revill yesterday, before the Post-Its were taken down.
Before beginning the process of putting up the friendly notes, local resident Kadie Black spoke to the 108th precinct, the transit authority, and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer’s office to ensure she would be allowed to put up the notes and they would not be removed.
A group of local girl scouts put up the first batch of notes yesterday afternoon on a wall on the Queens-bound side of the station, and a group gathered to begin filling out the wall around 8 p.m. last night.
“You hear of some people in the neighborhood and city and really throughout the country being targeted with hate crimes, and we’re all just trying to do a little bit to counteract that and make sure that there’s more good vibes than there are bad vibes,” Revill said.
Around 11 p.m. last night, a community member posted in the Facebook event that she saw a cleaning crew getting rid of all the notes from the wall, and when she asked them about it and said that there were permits in place for the wall, the crew said that it didn’t know about any permits and the notes constituted defacing of property.
Though the post-it wall was taken down, several community members said they are determined to rebuild it.
Black said that organizers are contacting the MTA, and working to secure permission to put up more Post-Its without them being removed.
To keep tabs on the project, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1231222576951235/
