5Pointz Developers Ordered To Pay Artists $6.7 Million For Whitewashing Their Work Is Now Appealing

Photo Credit: iamNigelMorris

The developers aren't trying to pay the 5Pointz artists the amount decided on.

5Pointz, the iconic graffiti spot in Queens, received some justice earlier this year when a judge ruled the developers who whitewashed it to pay $6.7 million. Now, those developers are trying to appeal the ruling.

READ: Developer Who Destroyed '5Pointz' Forced To Pay Millions 

Speaking to the Commercial Observer, developer David Wolkoffsaid "We didn't feel the decision was the correct one. The nature of graffiti in itself is to paint over itself constantly, and [the artists] made reference to that and it's what happened over the 27 odd years."

In the appeal, Meir Feder, the lawyer representing David and Gerald Wolkoff, said that they didn't "willfully" violate the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and the court "abused its discretion" with the judgment.

"The district court's repeated expressions of its affinity for the works at issue…and its statements that could be viewed as expressing hostility to the defendants, could suggest to a reasonable observer that the court''s impartiality is in question," Feder said.

The incident stems back to 2013, when the Wolkoffs, who have owned the five-story warehouse since 1971, decided to paint over the graffiti and murals there overnight in hopes of turning the building into two-luxury towers called 5Pointz Towers. Gerald started to allow graffiti artists to spray paint on the exterior walls in the early 1990s after being approached by Jonathan "Meres One" Cohen, a Bronx-born visual artist.

Following the whitewashing of the art, the artists sued, claiming that the VARA had been violated. In November 2017, a jury sided with the artists and in February of this year, Judge Frederic Block said that the Wolkoffs had to pay $6.7 million to the artists in the suit, at $150,000 per work of art.

"If not for Wolkoff's insolence, these damages would not have been assessed," Block said. "If he did not destroy 5Pointz until he received his permits and demolished it 10 months later, the Court would not have found that he had acted willfully."

"The whitewash did not end the conflict in one go; the effects lingered for almost a year," He added. "The sloppy, half-hearted nature of the whitewashing left the works easily visible under thin layers of cheap, white paint, reminding the plaintiffs on a daily basis what had happened."

Source: Commercial Observer