From Washington Heights to the Galleries: How SJK171 and Mike171 Brought Graffiti Into the Art World

Graffiti didn’t begin as an art market commodity. It was a cry for existence, a declaration of presence from kids who had nothing but a spray can and a vision. Two names stand tall in this origin story: SJK171 (Steve “the Greek” Kesoglides) and Mike171. Together, they transformed graffiti from a street-corner rebellion in Washington Heights into a movement that reshaped the global art world.

Washington Heights in the Late 1960s: Poverty, Pressure, and Expression

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Washington Heights was a neighborhood struggling with poverty, crime, and neglect. For teenagers like Steve and Mike, the streets weren’t playgrounds — they were battlegrounds. While wealthier New Yorkers sped through the city in cabs and private cars, Washington Heights youth sat on stoops and curbs, trying to “make a dollar out of 17 cents.”

Tagging walls, buses, and eventually subway cars was more than vandalism. It was a desperate shout into the city’s noise: “I exist. See me.”

For SJK171, the choice of tag was personal. The letters came from his initials, while “171” marked his home street. Every scrawled signature was proof that a kid from uptown could inscribe his presence across a city that rarely looked north of 96th Street.

The High School of Art and Design Meets the Streets

Steve wasn’t a dropout or a troublemaker. He attended the High School of Art and Design, one of New York City’s premier creative institutions. He studied technique, form, and color theory in classrooms by day — and then pushed those lessons into motion at night, armed with cans of Krylon.

The contradiction was sharp. To the police, Steve and Mike were vandals. To themselves and their peers, they were artists. Every line of paint was a stroke of visibility. Every train they hit became a moving gallery, carrying their names from Washington Heights to the farthest corners of Brooklyn and Queens.

Becoming King of the A-Trains

The A line subway became their kingdom. Trains that rolled out of uptown yards were canvases waiting to be claimed. SJK171 covered them with tags, throw-ups, and eventually more elaborate designs. Commuters couldn’t miss it: the A-train became a moving monument to Washington Heights youth.

The nickname “King of the A-Trains” wasn’t given lightly. It meant domination, ubiquity, and respect. To earn it, Steve had to outpaint rivals, dodge cops, and keep climbing back into the yards night after night.

But it wasn’t just adrenaline. Their style was evolving. SJK171 is credited with pioneering radiant squiggly lines and the first widespread use of arrows in graffiti lettering — techniques that later influenced mainstream artists like Keith Haring.

The Hustle, the Heat, and the Handcuffs

This was dangerous work. Transit police hunted graffiti writers relentlessly. Getting caught meant arrest, fines, and a record. Writers sprinted down dark tunnels, clambered over fences, and hid in shadows.

But this was the price of being seen. Steve once explained that while wealthy Manhattanites had art hanging on their walls, kids in Washington Heights only had subway steel. Every spray-painted tag was both rebellion and aspiration: art for the people, not the elite.

The hustle was real, and so were the consequences. Yet the arrests only reinforced their determination. Every bust was proof that the city was paying attention — even if it was in the form of handcuffs.

The Push Into the Art World

By the early 1970s, graffiti wasn’t just an underground fad — it was a phenomenon. Reporters wrote features about it. Photographers documented it. And cultural organizers began to ask: was this vandalism, or was it art?

In 1972, the United Graffiti Artists (UGA) collective was formed. SJK171 and Mike171 were among the writers invited to participate. This was revolutionary. For the first time, graffiti was shown not on subway cars but on gallery walls in SoHo.

Then came the Joffrey Ballet’s “Deuce Coupe” in 1973. Imagine graffiti writers spray-painting live onstage while ballet dancers pirouetted across the floor. It was a collision of high and low culture that forced critics to reckon with graffiti as legitimate art.

Fighting City Hall, Fighting the Police, Fighting for Recognition

New York authorities labeled graffiti “public enemy number one.” Mayor John Lindsay launched campaigns to scrub it off trains. The NYPD created specialized graffiti squads. Newspapers called it urban blight.

But to the OGs like SJK171 and Mike171, these crackdowns only proved their point. Graffiti wasn’t decoration — it was a battle for space, for identity, for acknowledgment.

When they picked up spray cans, they weren’t just defying cops. They were defying a whole system that ignored poor neighborhoods. Their grit, their guts, and their endless runs into train yards made graffiti impossible to erase.

From Margins to Museums

Fast-forward to today, and graffiti is a cornerstone of modern art. It sells at Sotheby’s. It hangs in the Museum of the City of New York. It commands attention in exhibitions like Beyond the Streets.

But it’s crucial to remember where it started. None of this global recognition would exist without the risks taken by those first kids from Washington Heights.

Every radiant line and arrow that SJK171 sprayed on a subway car was a building block for what we now call “street art.” Every run Mike171 made into the train yard was an investment in a cultural future that no one yet imagined.

Legacy of the Originals

SJK171 and Mike171’s story is more than graffiti history. It’s a parable about resilience. About demanding to be seen in a city that would rather look away. About taking the tools at hand — cheap paint, neglected infrastructure — and transforming them into global culture.

Today, brands sell “graffiti-inspired” sneakers, and galleries mount retrospectives of spray-can art. But those polished versions are built on the backs of kids who risked everything. The OGs fought the cops, fought city hall, and fought the stigma to push graffiti into the mainstream.

Their message still resonates: “We exist.”

Conclusion: Remember the Roots

Graffiti is now celebrated worldwide. But before it was art on a pedestal, it was survival on steel. Washington Heights teenagers like SJK171 and Mike171 wrote their names not because they were vandals, but because they were visionaries.

They turned subway cars into rolling museums. They forced New York to see its forgotten youth. They fought authority and carved a space for street voices in the global art conversation.

When you see a graffiti-covered wall today — whether in Brooklyn, Berlin, or Buenos Aires — remember that it traces back to those gritty nights on the A-train. To the boys from 171st Street who had the guts and the grit to write themselves into history.

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• SJK171 graffiti
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• New York subway graffiti history
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• King of the A-Trains
• origins of street art