Modern meets old school: Smart Crew, a Queens-based group of graffiti artists, has painted a graffiti mural in homage to the Ivy League. The mural, in Queens, N.Y., features the insignia or mascot of each of the eight Ivy League colleges, from Brown’s bear to Columbia’s lion and Yale’s Y-with-bulldog.
“Pretty much, we just painted it as a tribute to our Ivy League education,” one member wrote in an e-mail. “We just happened to have members that have attended/graduated from every Ivy League school in the past,” and each of those members painted a tag in the colors and spirit of his former alma mater.
From left to right, the top of the mural reads GRAD, TOPER, CON, and MARTY. The bottom reads NEZM, HUESO, MARX, and DCEVE. The mural is located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, though the group prefers to keep the exact location secret “so people can still stumble upon it” by themselves, the group member wrote.
Smart Crew is a “graffiti artist collective” begun in Queens in 1997. Their group’s logo is an S with a graduation cap hovering atop it.