Stockade neighborhood homes tagged

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Stockade homes were tagged over the weekend. Seen here is tagged fence at 26 Front St.

Several houses in Schenectady’s historic Stockade neighborhood were tagged with graffiti over the weekend, a problem Stockade Association President Mary D’Alessandro said probably doesn’t have a solution.

A handful of homes were marked Saturday night on Front Street and Washington Avenue, said city police Lt. Mark McCracken. He said it’s an open investigation with no suspects, and like most cases involving graffiti, it probably won’t get much traction.

“It probably won’t get assigned to a detective unless it rises to a felony level,” McCracken said Tuesday. “It comes and goes, and there are times that graffiti goes up and then it stops, and then it comes again.”

D’Alessandro said the Stockade Association has considered the option of installing cameras in the neighborhood, but the cost would be “enormous.” Instead, she said, raising awareness about the issue is the next-best thing.

“Graffiti is a problem all over the city and, unfortunately, the Stockade is not excluded from it,” she said. “We looked at different options for cameras at least three times, but it is not financially feasible. It would cost around $10,000 a camera. And then where would we put the cameras?”

D’Alessandro said she plans to discuss the weekend’s incident with members of the Stockade Association during the group’s regular meeting Thursday. Aside from cameras, D’Alessandro said the only other thing residents could do is report suspicious activity and pinpoint houses that have been tagged in the area so they could be cleaned up.

“It is a problem, and sometimes people see them and police do get them,” she said. “More awareness is the most important thing. I always encourage people to report suspicious activity and call the non-emergency number. Hopefully in our discussion we can come up with solutions to help. We definitely won’t ignore it.”

If homeowners don’t paint over the graffiti themselves, there is a program in the city, called Give Graffiti the Brush, which does the work free of charge. City Councilwoman Leesa Perazzo started the program in October 2013. Teenagers assigned to community service through the courts participate in the program, which runs from May through October.

“I think everyone is concerned and upset about this recurring situation,” she said. “When the program is running, we just keep going back. If a place gets tagged, we go back and recover it. A lot of the properties that we have covered have stayed clean.”

Perazzo said she plans to add the addresses of the properties tagged over the weekend to a list of homes she is looking to clean up when the program starts again later this year. So far, 25 homes are on the list, she said.

When the program is underway, teenagers on probation paint houses throughout the city every other Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. She said it’s a great project because everyone works together and feels as though they’ve accomplished something.

“The kids are actually excited when something stays clean,” Perazzo said. “I think in some respects we have made strides. We may not have the perfect answer, but at least we’re doing something.”

Perazzo asked that people report graffiti in the city by emailing her at [email protected]

“I can’t encourage people enough to report their location,” she said. “This is at no cost to the taxpayers. The program is done through some donations from Home Depot and some funding put forth by the Schenectady IDA.”