Graffiti at Brookland Metro Keeps Memory of Sean Taylor Alive

Wash Syndicate

A few days after the Redskins’ Sean Taylor was killed in Miami, Florida, a spray-painted memorial mural, written in the team’s colors, appeared on the northbound wall of the Brookland Metro station where it remains today, untouched. The mural, painted in burgundy, gold, and white, is seen by tens of thousands of Red Line riders going in and out of the city every day.

Taylor, 24, was in his fourth year with the Redskins. In the twelfth week of the 2007 season he had 5 interceptions — third in the league, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. His reputation as one of the hardest hitting players in the league and his all-out style of play had endeared him to fans.

News of his death during a home invasion on November 27, 2007 quickly spread across the region, leaving his teammates and fans in a state of disbelief and grief. While the Redskins organization honored Taylor’s memory on the field, an established DC graffiti artist took to the red line in a public display of deference. 

“The Red Line has been a hot spot since the mid-80’s, but became the spot in the early 90’s,” according to Roger Gastman, a Bethesda native and author of Free Agents: A History of DC Graffiti and the forthcoming The History of American Graffiti. “If you wanted to be someone in the DC graffiti scene, you had to hit the Red Line.”

“The Brookland station, you can walk right up to it. It is a very good location, if you can pull it off,” says Gastman.

“The best writers interact with their environment,” asserts Gastman, citing graffiti as the fastest growing art movement of the past forty years.

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CERT

Beginning his graffiti career with the tag of “CERT” in 1992 at the age of 14, the well-known writer of the Sean Taylor mural declined an interview request for this article.

“The Red Line was CERT’s backyard. He basically lived there and owned it. CERT could disappear, but, to this day he holds enough respect that his spots will remain untouched for years to come,” reads CERT’s profile in Free Agents that describes his graffiti as “hardcore and illegal” and “always in highly visible spots.”

“Graffiti to me is my childhood, my teen years. That’s what I was about 100 percent. But I’m still representing. Don’t count me out. Don’t forget me. I can come back at any moment and in a month I’ll take king of the Red Line again,” contends CERT in the 2001 book.

“Whatever his reasons for slowing down, CERT is a true D.C. king. It’s time for him to sit back and let the mark he left on the city soak in. And like he said, don’t count him out. With a closet full of paint and heart that’s true to the game, CERT will be back,” Gastman foretold in the conclusion of CERT’s profile.

The mural has remained untouched since its appearance more than 3 years ago.  Gastman says there is a code among writers that is being followed. 

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“Brookland station can be considered a museum for DC graffiti, because of the pieces that have endured over the years,” says Saaret Yoseph, a graduate student at Georgetown University. “Brookland is unique in that the art is eye level. The graffiti is looking right at you as you wait for your train.”

Yoseph is directing, “The Red Line D.C Project,” a documentary exploring the “communal experience” of graffiti on the Red Line as a public art space. It will be released later this year.  

Rider Reactions

“What struck me about that one was here was a memorial to someone we actually knew–or knew of. So much graffiti is inscrutable. Who are the people named there? What’s the purpose of it? But this was one we could grasp immediately,” said John Kelly, a writer for The Washington Post and Red Line rider since 1983. “And then a few years later, just across the platform was another one that fell into that category: some memorial paint for Michael Jackson.”

On a recent morning at the Brookland Station, riders’ reactions to the graffiti suggested a sense of pride in the station’s distinction as the home of the Sean Taylor mural.

“If they cleaned it up we would be really hurt behind that one,” said Milford Obendorf, a Brookland resident waiting with his wife on the northbound train to Silver Spring.

“It’s been here since he passed away. People come here to look at it,” said Marquette Obendorf.

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“It’s real creative,” said LaWanda Swain, a custodian with Metro for 6 years. “He played here so they have respect for him.”

“It spices things up. If they cleaned it up then you’d be staring at a wall for 15 minutes,” said Mike Young, 20, a cell phone sales rep downtown. “People remember Sean Taylor because he shouldn’t have died. He hit the hardest like when he cracked yungin’ in the Pro Bowl.”

Numerous videos on YouTube have compiled Taylor’s highlights as a Redskin, including a tackle of punter Brian Moorman in the Pro Bowl that lifted Moorman off his feet to a point where he was parallel to the field.

However, some riders expressed frustration with the station’s illegal art.

“It grows and grows until they clean it up,” said Joe, an older man in a white dress shirt, a Brookland resident for more than two decades. “The kids that do it are talented, but they can put their talents to better use.”

As a regular rider of the red line for more than a decade, I can remember the walls at Brookland being cleaned, “buffed” in the language of graffiti, about five years ago.

“The graffiti is on CSX property, not Metro property. Typically, when we become aware of graffiti, our goal is to remove it within 24 hours,” said Angela Gates, a Media Relations officer with Metro.

CSX did not respond to email and phone call requests for comment.

“There have been no graffiti-related arrests or citations in the last year at Brookland-CUA,” said Gates who emphasized that the property is outside of Metro’s jurisdiction.

With no apparent plans to clean the walls and a lack of enforcement around graffiti, the Sean Taylor mural will continue to be a distinctive cultural landmark for the Brookland Metro station.

Member of Fans’ Hall of Fame, Brian Mitchell Awaits NFL Hall of Fame Invite

Before playing 10 seasons with the Washington Redskins, and in the process becoming beloved by fans, Brian Mitchell, known as “BMitch,” first came to Washington, DC in 1986 as a high school senior on a Presidential Classroom program sponsored by Upward Bound.

“On that trip I said, ‘I’m going to live here.’” recalled the 42-year-old Mitchell, a Louisiana native. “It sure worked out.”  

Inducted into the Redskins’ Ring of Fame in 2009, Mitchell was selected by the team with the 130^th pick of the 1990 NFL Draft. Although Mitchell set NCAA records as a quarterback at Southwestern Lousiana, Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs shifted him to special teams. In his second season Mitchell led the NFL with 600 punt return yards and two return touchdowns.

Mitchell retired in 2003 after playing for two of Washington’s NFC East rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants.

“I identify with BMitch,” said Joshua Champ, 32, a patrol officer with the Seventh District. “He’s a short guy, like me, but he brings the biggest heart all the time.”

Officer Champ recalled what is known as the “Body Bag Game,” when Mitchell, then a rookie, played quarterback on “Monday Night Football” after the Eagles knocked the Redskins’ starting and back-up quarterbacks out of the game.

“You should have been higher,” said Champ who, a couple days before meeting Mitchell at Uniontown Bar & Grill in Anacostia, had watched a program on the NFL Network featuring its Top Ten Versatile Players of All-Time. Mitchell was ranked eighth.

First gaining experience in radio with his own segment on WHUR (96.3 FM) in 1993 and later with WTEM (980AM), Mitchell has since become a fixture on Comcast Sportsnet and WUSA (Channel 9). Fans have come to trust his perspective and inside analysis as a member of the last Redskins team to win a Super Bowl in 1991.

Mitchell, whose last season in Washington was Dan Snyder’s first, said the owner’s free-spending ways have changed how the Redskins are perceived around the league.

“People come (to Washington) to get paid,” Mitchell said. “Let somebody else buy the diamond ring for you,” challenges Mitchell, referring to the ring players on championship winning teams receive from the NFL.

“Today the game is softer. It went from being rated R to rated PG. The players are bigger and stronger but not necessarily tougher,” says Mitchell.  

Mitchell believes that there’s a natural and reciprocal feeling of affection between himself and his fans. As a community, Washington is not for “pushovers” and has an “edginess” that Mitchell identifies with and fans identify in him.

“Some players have a tendency to avoid fans, but BMitch gravitates towards those who support him and he supports them back,” says Rick “Doc” Walker, a member of the Redskins’ 1982 Super Bowl champions and established local media personality.

When asked what it was like to be a return man in the NFL, Mitchell said “you have to be a crazy person” to survive within the “organized chaos” where the “fastest and craziest are coming for your head.”

“To the person who was trying to tackle me, I always tried to deliver the blow,” Mitchell fondly tells with a wide smile. “If I was the person (off the field that) I was on the field, I would be in jail.”

Veteran sportswriter David Elfin is the Washington representative on the selection committee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“Brian was different than most kick returners who are usually speed guys. Brian was unusual in that he ran over people,” said Elfin, a former President of the Pro Football Writers of America who covered Mitchell for The Washington Times from 1993-99. “He’s number one in all-time return yards. If you are the best ever, why are you not in the Hall of Fame?”

Walker agreed that Mitchell should be enshrined.

“He is worthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his numbers speak for themselves,” says Walker. “Among his peers, he is in the Hall; the people have put in him, because the boy was a flat-out baller.”

But Mitchell knows that his former Redskins teammate and thee time-time Super Bowl Champion Art Monk, at the time of his retirement the leader in NFL history in receptions, waited eight years before his selection to the Hall of Fame in 2008.

In Mitchell’s last game as a Redskin on January 15, 2000 in the Divisional Playoff game versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he returned the second half kickoff  100 yards for a touchdown that put the Redskins up 10-0 in a game they would lose 14-13.

While Mitchell’s bruising style of play and fervent trash-talking earned him a special place in the hearts of local fans, his statistics are what confirm his credentials for induction into the Hall of Fame.

Mitchell currently holds the NFL’s All-Time record for most kick returns: 607; kick return yards, 14,104, punt returns, 463, and punt return yards, 4,999; combined returns at 1,070 and combined return yards at 19,013. Mitchell is second only to receiver Jerry Rice with 23,316 all-purpose yards, which adds up to more than 13 total miles.

His 13 return touchdowns (nine on punt returns and four on kick returns) are second-most-all time, behind current player Devin Hester. At the time of his retirement Mitchell was the all-time leader in return touchdowns. He also rushed for 12 touchdowns and caught 4 receiving touchdowns.

Fittingly, Mitchell actively interacts with Redskins fans through two Facebook accounts he manages and his Twitter page, “Bmitchlive,” with nearly 2,300 followers. Following the lead of former players who became successful motivational and public speakers, Mitchell plans to continue building relationships with all fans, even one as young as seven years old who claims Mitchell, and former Baltimore Colt quarterback Johnny Unitas, are his favorite players of all-time.

Danny Boy sues City Paper for publishing facts of his awful ownership

Instead of putting a winning team on the field Danny Boy wants to sue a solid reporter who chronicled his A-Z decade long effort to not put a winning team on the field. Danny Boy — you are a real pile of manure.

Deadskins Me’Angelo Hall Named MVP of Pro Bowl

Me’Angelo doesn’t fail to be himself.

From ESPN.com article,

“I was just about to buy another SUV,” the Washington Redskins cornerback said, “so to come out here and grab one for free, I like that.”

Is Dan Snyder’s next move to buy the struggling Washington Times?

Wash Syndicate

 

 The Syndicate willingly abstained from participating in the fanfare sweeping the city this weekend with Saturday evening’s 2010 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner where President Obama, intentionally, dropped an F-bomb.   

The WHCA held is first dinner in 1920, and in 1924 hosted the first of its 14 Presidents when Calvin Coolidge attended. Over the years the event has grown and with Camelot 2.0 in power the event has become a must-be-seen-on the-scene for both the long established and the latest faux/ wannabe  Who’s Who of Washington’s power elite.   

Before Saturday’s Post story about the long-known sale of The Washington Times, sources told The Syndicate a pretty interesting rumor…… Dan Snyder is going to buy The Washington Times. The source, who I trust, said it is nowhere near being a done deal and would not reveal any specifics other than from what they’ve seen and heard it is going to happen sooner rather than later.   

When I asked my source from some hard evidence to back up their speculatory claim they gave me some good info, although with a little digging I find the info is not as confidential as they wanted me to think. But it is good.   

For a paper no longer publishing a Sports section and in dire financial condition with subsidies from the Moon family drying up, why would the paper not only buy multiple tables at the 2010 WHCA Dinner, but why would their guests of all people be Redskins owner Danny “Danny Boy” Synder, new quarterback on the block Donovan McNabb, new coach on the block Mike Shanahan, and ‘Skins GM Bruce Allen? (Also spotted at TWT‘s tables were Ward 2 City Council Member Jack Evans, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich with his famous wife, and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell amongst others.)   

On February 8, 1999 as Snyder was settling into his britches as a 34 year old owner of the team he grew up cheering for, TWT‘s Business section ran a cover story on the boy wonder.   

“He’s absolutely fearsome in his pursuit of goals,” said Philip Guarascio, senior vice president of advertising for General Motors Corp. and a Snyder Communications board member. “I wouldn’t say relentless, because that implies to me a total disregard of everything else, but fearsome. The guy just doesn’t stop.”   

More than a decade of foreshadowing looks like it might come full circle.   

We can accept the move. It would further the sphere of influence of Snyder’s media empire as his Red Zebra Broadcasting is the primary owner of WTEM ESPN 980 AM and WTNT Freedom 570 AM which already broadcasts the Wash Times’ “America’s Morning News” hosted by long time Wash Times ‘Inside the Beltway’ columnist John McCaslin. Most know Snyder’s longstanding disdain for the city’s paper of record, so we think it’s only right he makes this move.   

You heard it FIRST from The Washington Syndicate.

Photo of the Day_February 5, 2010

Rest in Peace Sean Taylor, Washington Redskin 4IFE

 

Red Line – CUA / Brookland Station