Who’s Nekst? A Legacy of Graffiti in New York City

Graffiti is everywhere in New York City. The city's many surfaces are cleaner than they once were, thanks to Rudy Giuliani and subway cars that are easier to buff, but even a brief stroll down the sidewalks yields name after name immortalized in spray paint. One of the most omnipresent tags over the past decade or so has been Nekst, which somehow seems to be written a half dozen times on every block in all five boroughs. His foremost skill was not his artistry but his ubiquity. Most people walking the city streets probably won't know that Nekst, aka Texas native Sean Griffin, died late in 2012, because it would take a decade of fevered scrubbing to remove his work from every improbable place he put it. And until that happens, this giant, clunky, ground-level tag on the corner of Bowery and Spring streets shows that somewhere in New York there will always be a home for those who want to get their name out.