: The West End Sewer Tunnel
Environment: Arched Concrete Infrastructure
The Narrative: Two Decades Under the Arch
There’s a specific energy to this Sewer Tunnel. It’s a relaxed spot, a local crossroads where the high school crowd filters in during breaks to kill time. Because of that, the work here is rarely "permanent"—the walls are a revolving door of tags and teenage experiments. To paint here is to accept that your work is part of a temporary gallery.
The architecture itself is unique; the tunnel vaults into a 40-foot dome, curving the concrete toward you as it rises. That inward lean actually makes hitting the high sections easier, allowing for a more natural reach when you're working the upper scale of a piece.
The Session: Restoration with Merk and Morty
I’ve been hitting this spot off and on for twenty years, dating back to when I worked in the area. This latest entry in the archive was a much-needed reset. I originally hit this section with Merk and Morty, but by last year, the local chaos had caught up with it and the wall was heavily tagged over.
Morty and I headed back down to reclaim the space. The timing was perfect—the "Synthesis" of the new orange piece against the raw, arched concrete came out exactly how I wanted. It’s a clean, high-contrast burner that stands out against the grime of the tunnel. In a spot where nothing lasts forever, getting a clean flick of this piece was the priority
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