When Frank Zammarelli first arrived in downtown Providence two years ago, he said, it was covered in spray-painted scrawl.
“There was so much of it because no one was removing it,” Zammarelli recalled last week. “It was terrible.”
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So he got to work.
Zammarelli is the project manager for Block by Block, a Kentucky-based company that was hired by the Downtown Improvement District in 2005 to provide safety and cleaning programs.
It took a team of people working every day for four months to erase most of the scrawl and get things under control.
“The businesspeople, they really appreciate it,” Zammarelli said.
Indeed. Marc Johnson, branch manager of AAA Travel Agency on Dorrance Street, said that he used to spot lots of graffiti on poles and walls near his workplace. But it disappeared when Block by Block moved in. “And I have not seen it come back,” said Johnson, who piled on the praise for the clean teams.
That’s a far cry from back in 2004, when companies downtown were lamenting the amount of graffiti in the business district and the costs for them to remove it. At the time, those businesses were calling on the city to step up enforcement and cleanup.
That was before the Downtown Improvement District was established, an area of Providence in which property owners pay a fee equal to 3.5 and 3.75 percent of their real estate tax bills to fund cleaning and safety initiatives.
Since early 2005, Block by Block’s special projects team has patrolled the streets, pressure-washing sidewalks, handling landscaping, and dealing with graffiti. These days, they’re armed with special cleaning agents, power washers, silica sand blasters and paints.
“It’s difficult to remove graffiti tags off of buildings,” Zammarelli said. “Especially if you have no experience doing it.”
The special projects team has removed 24,900 graffiti tags since the program began more than two years ago. In 2006 alone, 4,700 tags were removed.
“As soon as it goes up, we take it down,” Zammarelli said.
The efforts by the Downtown Improvement District have allowed the city’s own Graffiti Task Force to focus its efforts on other areas of the city. Alan Sepe, director of public properties, said the city has stepped up the battle against graffiti in recent years.
About two years ago, the city purchased two vans at about $14,000 each for carrying equipment for graffiti removal, according to Sepe, who oversees the city’s graffiti cleanup efforts.
Now a team of at least two city workers – and many times four workers – are assigned full time to respond to graffiti complaints in the neighborhoods.
And the task force is not just concerned with the city property. Sepe said workers will remove graffiti from private buildings if they have permission from the owner.
Between June and December 2006, graffiti cleaning crews removed 2,132 tags, according to Sepe. Since January, workers have taken down another 1,452. “We average about 30 tags cleaned up every day,” he said.
To ease the reporting of graffiti to the task force, the city has set up a special hot line (1-800-TAGGERS). Complaints also can be filed online at www.providenceri.com/graffiti.
In an effort to track down offenders, two officers were reassigned to the Providence Police Department’s graffiti squad over the summer, which led to some arrests, according to Maj. Paul Fitzgerald.
According to city ordinance, punishment for graffiti vandalism could include up to a $1,000 fine, restitution for property damage and community service. There’s also a $500 reward for information leading to the conviction of offenders.
Between May 2006 and May 2007, police made more than 50 arrests for graffiti vandalism, according to Fitzgerald.
“We take this very seriously,” Fitzgerald said. •
