BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Hertel Art Alley, when created a couple weeks ago, was intended to add something cool to the Hertel Avenue community. But, an act of vandalism in the alley has shocked people in this neighborhood.
Someone used blue spray paint to vandalize many pieces of artwork there and whoever did this had a message to send.
The Hertel Art Alley is about three blocks long and runs parallel to Hertel Ave.
Sometime last week, someone spray painted the message: "716 Locals Only" on one of the paintings here.
Not only that, but they also used that blue spray paint to draw a line through many other pieces of art.
All these paintings -- about 20 in total -- were created a couple weeks ago during the Hertel Alley Art Festival.
A majority of the paintings were made by local artists who used their own supplies and volunteered to create something special here.
"Where they wrote '716 Locals Only' that was on one of the local artists and like I said 90 percent of the artists here were local," said Buffalo Common Council Member Joel Feroleto, "we're chalking this up as some punk... and it's very very frustrating that they would do something like this but, we're not letting this deter us. We plan on hosting this event again next year."
There are security cameras in the back of some businesses here in Hertel Allye. Feroleto says that some of those businesses have gone through their video to see who did this but so far no luck.
Feroleto says all the artists have been contacted about this vandalism.
And now, the effort of trying to remove or cover up that spray paint is underway.