Gunk on a Link

LinkNYC kiosks seem to have avoided a lot of vandalism since they first hit the streets of New York back in February. A “Vote for Hillary” sticker I spotted a few months ago might have been the first evidence I saw of a vandal’s poison sword wielded at a Link device. Since then I’ve spotted a few more stickers but that’s been about it.

With summer finally here that relative tranquility might be ending. I was not sure what to make of this scrawl of gunky junk on a Third Avenue Link last week. I thought it might be blood from a murdered body hurled against the device. It appears to be the etchings of a vandal armed with some kind of heavy-duty marker. Was it a heated pen, or even a soldering gun?

The Link devices I’ve encountered since February have been remarkably clean, seemingly untouched. I left this one untouched by my hands. It looked contagious. Or at least sticky. Closeups seem to reveal residual damage to the screen from whatever instrument was used to make these markings. This residual damage (if that’s what it is) is most visible when the LED is brightly lit:

Whatever implement was used to it seems to signal the unfortunate but inevitable reality that vandals have their sights set on Links. With the retrospective exception of a small cadre of 1980s and 1990s scratchitti artists the Payphone Project has little patience for all forms of physical vandalism, whether directed at payphones, LinkNYC, or one’s private property. These focused images seek not to glorify but to illustrate the damage done.