Of all the companies getting up on gates in New York, only a few crews are truly all-city. Some focus on a borough, some, their neighbourhood- just a handful hit gates all over NYC.

Here are three, sharing a gate, and a bit of black paint from a tag: Gates ‘R’ Us & Iron Works, NYC Gates & Iron Works, and these upstarts; POSTERCHILD – I AM International Gates & Fencing- who haven’t yet gone all city, but have put up well over a thousand stickers in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, (in that order of saturation) just a couple in the Bronx, and none (to my knowledge) in Staten Island yet.

A thousand plus stickers is a lot of stickering. It took us a couple days of dedicated walking, I AM on one side of the street, myself on the other, to hit all those gates up- plus whatever few we would hit up casually on our travels around the city- but the bulk was done as hours and hours of continuous walking. Sore feet and sticker paper. A great way to see the city! It was a lot of stickering, but, I think, not all that much stickers- especially compared to the big boys who have been steadily bombing the city for years. Still, enough to get noticed!

That’s where this gets interesting.

I AM had a really interesting talk with one of the other crews, who have indeed, noticed. He relays the story in this email he sent me, below. There’s not much more I can say on it, as I AM does such a good job- so I’ll just say “You should really read it”;

“I had a fascinating (if not absurd) conversation with a gate repair guy.

On my walk to work, I noticed a guy peeling stickers off the side of a
gate, and then I noticed a van parked at that intersection that had the
Gates ‘R Us logo on it. It looked like the guy was peeling off
competitors’ stickers. This was an opportunity to learn more about the
Gates ‘R Us stickers! (So I thought.)

I told the guy I’d noticed his stickers before and that I was really curious
about them: how many the company puts up, how often, how many
people they employee to do it, stuff like that. He was immediately wary
(perhaps I approached it wrong?) and said he didn’t have anything to do
with the stickers. Pressed further, he referred me to a co-worker.

A side note: both of these guys were large (the “well-built” but “not fit”
definition) guys in sweatshirts. Working class. Maybe a little
thug-looking.

I asked him the same thing. I was curious about how that part of their
business works. He asked why I wanted to know, and I told him I had
noticed the stickers everywhere – it wasn’t any sort of law enforcement
thing – and that I and a friend were doing a project inspired by/a spoof
of all the gate stickers that we see. One of the stickers we’d put up was
nearby, so I showed him.

The Gates ‘R Us guy had seen our stickers. He was aware of them, and the
first thing he said is, “Oh the one with the phone number that doesn’t
work.” I explained to him that it wasn’t a full phone number (it has a
fraction!) and it was not intended to be something anyone would call. I
explained how the gate stickers are a pervasive part of the urban
environment and the similarities and variations are really interesting.

He was really stuck on the phone number and was upset that it wasn’t real.
Clearly he’d tried to call.

“If you’re going to put a number on it, why don’t you put our number on
it?” he asked. I explained that I couldn’t favor one company; it wasn’t
an ad. The idea was to spoof all of the stickers.

He seemed to think this non-working phone number would hurt his business.
He was concerned someone would call the fake number and then not get through
to anyone and then…I don’t know! I couldn’t pull it out of him. “Then
they would just try a different number from a different sticker, right?” I
asked. I thought it worked more in his favor that the phone number DIDN’T
work. That didn’t assuage his fears.

He asked why we would spend money on this, and I told him it was an art
project. He claimed the project was just like graffiti, like “drawing on a
sticker and sticking it up”. “Well that’s exactly what you’re doing,
right?” “No, we’re a legitimate business.” But neither of us have
permission to put them up!

He said our project cluttered the gates. “This is bad enough,” he said,
pointing to a bunch of stickers from actual gate companies. “But your
stickers are cluttering the gates, too. You guys were here before we
were. We were inspired by yours!” “But we’re a legitimate business.”

He said he was getting really heated, and he was clearly getting upset.
“Look, we’re out here busting our asses. You’re hurting our business.
Why would you do that to us?” “We’re going to have to agree to disagree
on that. I don’t see how we’re hurting your business, but I’m sorry
you’re so upset. That was never our intention. It’s not like we’re
covering up any of your stickers.” (He admitted that he knew we weren’t,
so at least he noticed our courtesy there.)

He asked how many we’d put up, I told him, and then when I asked how many
stickers they had put up, he said it was none of my business. And then he
proceeded to say the project was retarded, and that I’m a retard and a
reject. That’s when I decided to leave!

I understand the class conflict here, and why our project might be so
mystifying to the guy. Those stickers are the man’s livelihood, and he
can’t separate the aesthetics of the sticker from his day-to-day business
like we can. He probably doesn’t spend much time thinking about any sort
of aesthetics anyway, and he may even have thought we were making fun of
him.

But I was being really friendly, curious, open, and generous about myself,
and nothing I did could calm him down or open him up. And I just don’t
think there is any excuse for someone behaving like that, class difference
or not.

I didn’t necessarily expect the gate repair guys to pat our backs for the
project, but I never expected them to have such animosity towards it! The
guy acted really entitled about the whole thing. I suspect the gate
repair business is a mafia-like controlled market.

I was afraid I drew more attention to the project and these guys would be
more active in taking down our stickers, but I haven’t noticed many more
removed than usual.

–i am”