Tales From The Ghost Yard

Featuring MIKE 171, SJK 171, SNAKE 1, and T-KID 170

Bronx Art Space

January 8-February 14, 2026

Tales From The Ghost Yard features writers who worked at this infamous locale and illustrates two important periods in the art history of graffiti writing. MIKE 171 & SJK 171, who are also called The Boys from the Heights, painted some of the first pieces on subway trains there in the early 1970s, as did SNAKE 1, who was co-founder of Writers Corner 188, one of the earliest writing crews. T-KID 170 represents the next generation of writers, and he painted in the Ghost Yard from 1977-1987 spanning the most prolific period of aerosol art on subway trains.

The exhibition features Gordon Matta-Clark’s photograph of a piece SJK 171 painted in the Ghost Yard in 197-, as well as snapshots taken in the Ghost Yard spanning the early 1970s to the late 1980s. These are exhibited alongside paintings.

The Ghost Yard on 10th Avenue between 207th and 215th Streets along the Harlem River could be called the most important yard in New York City in writing art history. It was here that writers painted many of the first and last pieces on the subway trains from 1972 to 1987. It is one of the largest yards in New York City, one of two major train repair and maintenance stations servicing nearly all of the New York city train lines. The Ghost Yard was purportedly named for the haunting sounds echoing off the adjacent Harlem River, and it was actually the location of the Nagel Burial Ground, purchased in 1736 by John Nagel to use as a graveyard. The property was acquired in 1829 by Michael Dykman as part of a larger parcel of farmland, and the cemetery was said to be the resting place for Revolutionary War Soldiers (in 1932 the remains were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where a monument marks their location). The locale, referencing a place of ghostly activity, was the perfect place for the faceless era of writers who created masterpieces there from the 1970’s to the 1980’s. The Ghost Yard functioned as a nexus for writers and was the birthplace for many legendary aerosol works from very first pieces of the early 1970s, through the Golden Age of writing, up until the last days of the Clean Train Era circa 1987.

The Boys from the Heights were the first writers to work on stationary trains in the Ghost Yard. MIKE 171 recalled that a fog came in off the Harlem River in the hot summer months and the workers used hand held lamps which emanated an eerie glow as they walked around working in the foggy yard, hence earning the moniker Ghost Yard. JEC* Remembered “Me, Mike171 and SJK171 discovered and named the 200st train yard the ‘Ghost Yard’. The reason being the guard that patrolled the yard had a huge lantern that swayed back and forth as he walked creating a shadow that was bigger than any person and then disappeared as he walked the yard. Then train cars were moved and the screeching of the wheels gave it that feeling of an old Hitchcock movie, therefore the Ghost yard” (@ junkyard dogs). At first, ‘writers’ began painting on trains while they were in service. They would get to work tagging the insides and outsides of the trains as they were on the subway or when the train pulled into the station. Tagging soon evolved into early window-down pieces placed in the area under the train windows. Then, around 1971, writers began ‘hitting’ the lay-up tracks (side-tracks used for storing out-of- service trains), tunnels, and the train yards directly to paint trains not in service, where the trains were stored when not in use, often in the dead of night. The Number One tunnel, located between 137th street and 145th street on the One line in Harlem, was one of the first tunnels in which The Boys from The Heights painted on trains. Subsequently, C.A.T. 87, FRANK 207, JEC*, MIKE 171, SJK 171, SNAKE 1, and STITCH 1 all painted some of their earliest train pieces at the Ghost Yard. Access to these locations allowed writers the time to create larger, more elaborate pieces. SJK 171 painted the piece photographed by Gordon Matta-Clark in 1972-73 in the Ghost Yard (Gordon Matta-Clark, SJK 171, 1972-73, © 2025 Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark). The Boys from The Heights were active in the Ghost Yard until around 1976.

After the pioneers moved on, the next generation soon discovered the Ghist Yard. T-KID 170 began ‘writing ‘at the Ghost Yard in 1977, and The Magnificent Team (TMT) painted there from around 1979. T-KID 170 became ‘King’ of the yard in the 1980s, where he wrote with his own crew The Nasty Boys (TNB) and The Vamp Squad (TVS). Numerous ‘writers’ painted in the Ghost Yard during the first half of the 1980’s, including TAT crew members BG 183, BIO, CEM TWO, KENN, MACK, NICER. MARE 139 (2002) said that ‘the Ghost Yard had to be my all-time favorite yard, you could literally go “All City” (paint trains from every line on it) in one night because they parked every line there for repairs.”

T-KID 170 (2022) recalled numerous meetings and run-ins with ‘writers’ who came to the yard as he tried to maintain control over the location. He described how some new ‘writers’ would bomb, do damage, and even break windows at the yard, which led to increased security and less access for long-term ‘writers’. One of the most fortuitous meetings of the early 1980s was between TAT Cru and T-KID 170, which enabled TAT Cru to paint in The Ghost Yard. As NICER (2022) recalled: “CEM and KENN hooked up with T-KID because they lived over by the Four train by Kingsbridge and they introduced us to T-KID. You know I always idolized this dude, but you know he was before us. He was a ‘style master’, so when we met him, he was kind of like the overseer or the gatekeeper of this yard called The Ghost Yard. That yard was a repair yard so trains from all over New York City, every line would go to this yard to get repaired. So, when you got in there it was like a fairy tale, like a dream come true. You don’t have to go to Queens to paint a Queen’s train. It’s right there. You ain’t gotta go to Brooklyn to hit a Brooklyn line. It was right here. And everything was there, every number line, every letter line so it was like you hit the jackpot. So, we started to paint in The Ghost Yard and that’s how we got to places and people around the city got to know of us.”

Some of the largest crews of the 1980s began to form at this time and join forces, oftentimes at the Ghost Yard. ‘Writers’ from TAT Cru began to paint with members of other ‘crews’ joining their names to create TAT-TNB (The Nasty Boys), TAT-AC (KENN and CEM with the TAC ‘crew’), TAT-VS (MACK was a member of The Vamp Squad). BG 183 (2025) explained they would go to RAZ ONE’s house every day. He lived by the Ghost Yard, where he would paint almost every day. They planned who would paint with whom, the number of cans they would need, the colors they would need. As they painted, they’d toss the cans to the next painter using multiple colors. By 1983, TAT Cru was known throughout New York City.

In one ‘burner’ train image the ‘writers’ SEEN UA (under the ‘tag’ PSYCHO), PAIN, and KENN-TAT worked together to ‘write’ their individual names in three different three-dimensional fonts under the windows of a train, superimposed on a full Baby Blue background that was decorated with a multitude of dots. (Instagram© (2020). Classic SEEN on Instagram [online] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-HWZ69RTsM/ [Accessed 4 Jul. 2025].) It was created on a Pelham Bay Six train in the Ghost Yard in the 1980s. SEEN painted a piece as APACHE with RAZ-TAT on the number 6 Pelham train in the Ghost Yard in the winter of 1984. SEEN also painted a DEMON piece in the Ghost Yark this same year.

SAK (MBT, TNB-TAT, FBA, MSK and OTB and KD) who was first active in the Ghost Yard between 1979 and 1981, recalled “entering through the 207th street side of the yard and me and my little toy partners would be hiding behind a wall at the end of the Ghost Yard by the river; We would say, “at the count of 3, we go for it fellas…1-2-3! Then we would run out into the opening and jump over what appeared to be about 20 lands of subway tracks, mind you we would run right pass the control watchtower, and never got busted. It wasn’t until 1983, when I hooked up with T-KID and his crew, that I know how to enter the Gosht Yard from the 215th street side, where you were virtually undetected.” He also recalled the classic pieces he would see at the Ghost Yard, including “QUIK pieces in color with the Nesle Quick Rabbit, buffed MITCH 77 whole cars with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and buffed Fred Flintstone whole cars.” SAK told the story of the famous 1984 Ghost Yard raid: “As far as raids stories go, there was this one time in 1984 in the Ghost Yard, when there was like 20 of us painting;  All of  the members of the TNB and  TAT crews were there going strong (and some other great writers were there as well).  The whole crew took up  about one whole subway  lane, while Me, RIZE and KC decided to paint away from the crowd and skipped a few lanes to paint on the 4’s for a change (giving Broadway a break).  RIZE and KC went to the other side to map-out outlines for another 3-man car for us to start on, once we finished the one on the 4s.  I was the last to finish, then something told me to look to my left and what do I see but two uniformed cops and a work bum watching me paint, so I grabbed up my camera and paint and ran for it.  I realized that no one else was in sight, which was strange at the moment, and also noticed while running for the hole to get out that there was a trail of flavored Krylons leading to the hole in the fence.  You name it all the colors were there, popsicle orange, turquoise, avocado,  clover greens, and fed purples. ( I found out later that KENN  dropped them while running out).  I was the last one out, but I got away.  Here’s the crazy part…..T-KID 170 had everybody in such deep  check that he said “there’s too much mother fuckers in here today, that’s why we got raided.  So I’m gonna have to dismiss some of you.  When we headed back to the Ghost Yard, he had everybody form a single line and he started to weed out the ones who couldn’t go back in.  He said “you can go in, you can go in, you can go in YOU CAN’T GO IN, you can go in, you can go in, you can go in, YOU CAN’T GO IN”.  (I won’t mention the names of the writers who couldn’t get back in, but I wasn’t one of them).”

Although the Ghost Yard itself is now off limits, as the yards are under strict surveillance and cannot be entered, the area around the Ghost Yard remains an important place for painting. T-KID 170 and others painted a series of ‘burners’ on a large wall near the Ghost Yard in honor of TRACY 168, in the summer of 2024. These Wild Style burners are a touching tribute to TRACY 168, who asked T-KID 170 to keep the legacy of Wild Style alive. Today T-KID 170 and others continue to respect TRACY 168’s wish, and the artists featured in Tales from the Ghost Yard do just that, keeping the tradition alive fifty years later.