Defeating Graffiti
Todd Kelley and David Bershad are supplementing Philly 311's graffiti removal services with socially conscious business models
If you went to public school as a child, or if you frequent dive bars as an adult, you’ll have an intuitive understanding of what David Bershad has learned since he started removing graffiti from public property on the streets of Washington Square West.
“Graffiti attracts graffiti,” he said, comparing street signs to that one desk in the back of every classroom that’s barely visible beneath decades of doodles left behind by troublemakers. The same phenomenon manifests itself on the walls of dive bar stalls — one drunk armed with a sharpie leading the way, scores more following suit. Street signs and parking meters are no different — one tag attracts another, one piece of tagged-up property bleeds over into the next, and so on.
Desk doodles and stall art are harmless enough, and perhaps street graffiti seems similar at first blush, but an abundance of tags can drag down an area’s property values, and one form of urban decay can lead to another. So, there’s a genuine public interest in keeping streets graffiti-less. But is there a corresponding public service that meets the need?
Citizens who notice graffiti in their neighborhoods can submit a 311 service request to the City, but according to Todd Kelley, owner of Graffiti Removal Experts, LLC (GRE), “there’s only so much [the City] can do.” It’s outmatched by the volume of taggers, and it limits its services to first-floor removals. So, even with an official graffiti removal institution in place, many tags — perhaps most — still slip through the cracks, especially in neighborhoods that lack bustling business districts or have under-resourced civic associations. In Washington Square West, the civic association used to have a contract with GRE to supplement the standard 311 services. As of late, the association can no longer afford those services. But David Bershad didn’t want to cede any ground to the taggers, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.
Bershad hits the streets around 5:30 A.M. to pull stickers off of signs and scrape paint off of parking meters. “The city is gorgeous in the morning,” he said, “the lighting is perfect.” Removing graffiti isn’t just good for his neighborhood, it’s also good for his mental and physical health. He views it as a way to work some exercise into his routine, soak in the beauty of his city, connect with his community. “There’s just something satisfying about it,” he said. But Bershad also has motives other than sheer enjoyment for spending so much time polishing up his neighborhood’s streets.
Bershad is a real estate agent, and he explained that everyone in his line of work has to put money into self-promotion. Well, time is money, and he’s started to view his graffiti removal work as a means of marketing himself. He gets out into his community where he can form connections with local residents and businesses who appreciate the work he’s doing. As he goes, Bershad snaps pictures of the cityscape he’s keeping clean, which he then uses to help with networking on social media.
Eventually, if this marketing approach proves successful, he hopes to hire someone to do graffiti removal work for him in Bershad-branded clothing. If he’s able to do that, then he plans to start sending his graffiti removal team out into the streets of other neighborhoods more lacking in resources. And in the best-case scenario, if Bershad’s experiment illustrates the viability of the tactic, he hopes to inspire others in the business to emulate his example. He thinks the model has a chance to catch on with younger real estate agents, who tend to be more social media savvy and perhaps more interested in this kind of socially conscious business model — a model in which, Bershad says, “everybody wins.”
GRE owner Todd Kelley is a fan of such business models. His company — which started as a one-man operation that grossed $30,000 in 2013 and has since grown to around a half dozen employees and over $300,000 in annual revenue — hires only people who have been incarcerated or homeless. Kelley spoke proudly, and choked up slightly, when discussing his first such employee, who was homeless when Kelley brought him on. The employee started sleeping on Kelley’s couch and doing graffiti removal work for him; now, he has a home and a family of his own, having gotten back together with his girlfriend.
Not all of Kelley’s employees have fared so well, but even those who’ve returned to homelessness or incarceration have benefitted from the experience. Kelley recalled one who was able to pay for a surgery that otherwise would’ve been inaccessible. And several have expressed to him how good it feels to be seen by people on the street and thanked for their work, instead of being ignored or treated poorly while homeless.
GRE isn’t merely managing to stay afloat with its unconventional business model — it’s thriving. The company’s annual revenue grew even throughout the pandemic, having been deemed an essential business by the city. And the company’s services only became more essential as civic unrest grew in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. In addition to removing spray paint and stickers, GRE also offers glass restoration services. Kelley said he saw a sharp spike in requests for window restorations from store owners and other street-level businesses during the summer of 2020.
Kelley’s primary customers are business districts and civic associations. They enter into contracts with GRE for regularly scheduled graffiti removal services within a defined territory. Kelley and his team go out for removals once a week or so in each contract area —sometimes in the dead of night to avoid disrupting passersby. It’s important to do the work on a weekly basis, or the tags just come right back. But if you stay on top of removal, the taggers wear out, and then the momentum is on your side.
GRE also has plans to go on the offensive, instead of always doing removal work. Kelley is a firm believer that graffiti can be a valid form of art, and sometimes he feels bad removing it. He wants to see talented street artists find a better outlet for their work. So, he plans to start working with local artists to get their work featured — with city approval — in places that suffer from a high volume of tags. He envisions murals on frequently targeted walls and billboards, designs on traffic light control boxes, etc. The idea is to deter graffiti by replacing blank spaces with beautiful works of art. That way, not only is GRE keeping neighborhoods clean, it’s helping to beautify them — and again, it’s a win-win, because local artists get the opportunity to show off their skills.
Kelley is confident that GRE will continue to grow both in Philadelphia and beyond. He’s established a successful company with an innovative business model, turning traditionally public-sector work into a profitable enterprise. And there’s plenty of untapped demand waiting to be capitalized upon. Except, with GRE, “capitalizing” doesn’t carry quite the same negative connotation that it sometimes does in the context of other for-profit companies. Kelley is proving that it’s possible to run a profitable business that’s sincerely interested in community and art and marginalized people.
And Kelley, like Bershad, is offering a service that fills a gap left behind by official city institutions. Instead of lamenting the failures of government, they’re finding innovative ways to pick up the slack. In this sense, they’re at the forefront of an encouraging new trend. Here’s to hoping the trend continues.
I'll drink to that