Graffiti revival threatens New York subway system

江西 鄧玉梅

近年來，紐約市地鐵上的涂鴉現(xiàn)象日益增多，這導(dǎo)致交通局花費(fèi)數(shù)百萬美元進(jìn)行清潔并且調(diào)整地鐵服務(wù)，更讓人震驚的是，一些藝術(shù)家甚至冒著生命危險(xiǎn)去為列車涂鴉。

主題語境：文化 篇幅：387 詞 篇 建議用時(shí)：7分鐘

1 The ten-car subway train was adorned at the end of June in a tunnel in Queens.The artists appeared to use paint rollers to cover it along one side, from top to bottom, in an awful shade of pink with a brown line.

2 Tagging (涂鴉) a train is often less about art and more about the prize of marking something that involves risk and echoes the original graffiti writers, who blanketed subway trains, including the windows and seats inside, in the 1970s and 1980s.

3 “Modern graffiti began in Philadelphia in the 1960s.But it became an art form in New York City,” says Eric Felisbret, author ofGraffiti New York.“Graffiti benefited from the popularity of hip-hop globally,”says Mr Felisbret.“Out of all the elements of hip-hop, graffiti is by far the most rebellious...Back then, all graffiti was illegal.”

4 In 2020, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the subway,spent $1.2 million on cleaning.By the end of May 2022 it had already spent$1.1 million.In all of 2021, 681 subway cars were “ruined”.In 2023, more than 700 cars have been “ruined”.More than one in ten subway cars had to be taken out of service for cleaning.

5 The recent spike in subway graffiti activity once paralleled the lifting of travel restrictions.The graffiti on trains usually gets cleaned or hidden quickly, so artists post images of their work on social media.Sharif Profit, who organizes the annual Graffiti Hall of Fame in Harlem, says he can always tell when the work is done by someone from another country: “It is not on the same level.”

6 Tagging on the subway is dangerous.The live third rail is lethal (致命的) and the tunnels are dark.Trains can appear with little warning, so trespassers (不法進(jìn)入者) may have no way of avoiding them.Two French graffiti artists were killed by a train in Brooklyn in April.

7 The MTA removes any tagged train so as to avoid encouraging other people.Passengers then have to wait longer.“That was the case recently,” says Richard Davey, head of the MTA's New York City Transit system, when eight trains were ruined.The resulting delays affected thousands of commuters.“It's our goal to make sure we don't return to the 1970s,” he says, “whether it's in our stations or on our cars.”

8 Graffiti on the subway began to die out in the late 1980s.One former graffiti writer said it is almost shocking to see tagging there now.

Reading Check

Detail1.Why do graffiti artists tag a subway train?

A.For the prize of an art competition.

B.In pursuit of artistic beauty.

C.To express their dissatisfaction with society.

D.To imitate the early graffiti creators.

Vocabulary2.What does the underlined word“ spike” in paragraph 5 mean?

A.Increase.B.Participation.

C.Drop.D.Pause.

Inference 3.What can we infer about tagging from the text?

A.It helps people better understand the world.

B.It has brought inconvenience to commuters.

C.Modern graffiti was at its peak in the 1970s.

D.It is embraced by a majority of artists now.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

Tagging a train is often less about art and more about the prize of marking something that involves risk and echoes the original graffiti writers, who blanketed subway trains, including the windows and seats inside, in the 1970s and 1980s.涂鴉列車往往不是為了藝術(shù)，更多的是為了獲得標(biāo)記的獎(jiǎng)賞，這涉及風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，也與最初的涂鴉作者不謀而合，他們?cè)?0世紀(jì)70年代和80年代在地鐵列車上涂鴉，包括車窗和車廂內(nèi)的座位。

【點(diǎn)石成金】本句中，that引導(dǎo)的是一個(gè)定語從句，先行詞為something；who引導(dǎo)的是一個(gè)非限制性定語從句，先行詞為the original graffiti writers。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

benefit from 受益于……

take...out of service 停止使用……

on the same level 處于同一水平

die out 逐漸減少

make sure 確保