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JULIO 204 was a Puerto Rican resident of Inwood who wrote graffiti in his youth. He was not the first graffitist to write in New York City, even though he's usually credited as being the original New York City writer and the inspiration for Taki 183. He started writing his nickname in his neighborhood as early as 1968. He retired when he was arrested for vandalism in the summer of 1970.
Julio lived on 204th Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, and was a member of the
JULIO 204 was a Puerto Rican resident of Inwood who wrote graffiti in his youth. He was not the first graffitist to write in New York City, even though he's usually credited as being the original New York City writer and the inspiration for Taki 183. He started writing his nickname in his neighborhood as early as 1968. He retired when he was arrested for vandalism in the summer of 1970.
Julio lived on 204th Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, and was a member of the Savage Skulls
The Savage Skulls are a mostly Puerto Rican and African American street gang started in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx during the late 1960s, gaining popularity in the 1970s. The gang declared war on the drug dealers operating in the Hunts Poi ...
. In 1971 the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published an article about another graffiti writer with a similar style of including their street number in their tag, Taki 183. According to the article Julio had been writing for a couple of years when Taki began tagging his own name all around the city. Taki also states in the article that Julio "was busted and stopped". Julio 204 kept his tags localized to his own neighborhood, and never rose to the height of fame as Taki, who was the first to go "All City".
References
Further reading
*''Style: Writing from the Underground. (R)evolutions of Aerosol Linguistics''. Stampa Alternativa in Association with IGTimes, 1997. . *Gastman, Roger, Ian Sattler, and Darin Rowland. ''Freight Train Graffiti''. Harry N Abrams Inc, 2006. * Naar, Jon. ''The Birth of Graffiti''. Prestel 2007. *Austin, Joe. ''Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City''. Columbia University Press 2001.External links
{{Street Art American people of Puerto Rican descent American graffiti artists Anonymous artists