Last year, Artnet Magazine’s Charlie Finch predicted that the High Line would lead to rising rents, sounding the death knell for the Chelsea gallery scene. While this has not yet happened, the well-liked aerial greenway is arguably having an antiseptic effect on the arts neighborhood, with Exhibit A being the recent destruction of a storied graffiti mural on West 23rd Street, in keeping with a city program to spiff up the buildings around the successful park. The prominent "REVS/COST" mural, featuring the names of the two graffiti artists in enormous white letters, was removed with chemicals over the weekend, according to the Vanishing New York blog (which has photos).

While the giant white letters may not have much significance to those who are not graffiti fans, they hold an important place in the history of New York street art, arising out of the retrenching of that scene after mayor Rudolf Giuliani’s crackdown in the early ‘90s. The exploits of Revs have been featured on This American Life, and profiled in the New York Times, with Randy Kennedy saying in 2005 that his work "upended many traditional notions of graffiti and helped inspire a new generation of so-called street artists."

A 1994 Artforum interview by critic Glenn O’Brien gives the background of the artists, describing them as two "White Kids" in their 20s. In a notable bit of tongue-in-cheek color, O’Brien recounts his quest to contact them, and being put in touch with their mentor, the Grandma of Graff, an anonymous "wise old lady" who "goes back to when Kilroy was around." The Chelsea mural developed from a series of poster works that they did, each featuring their names and modifiers, for example, "Specimen REVS. COST was here," or "Turkish REVS. COST fucked Madonna." Their works served as a kind of transition between early tagging and more Dada-ish street art.

Asked about their motivations, Cost replied, "We're trying to do something positive. We're trying to change philosophies a bit. Change everyday life. We want to open people's eyes up when they walk outside their house, let them see something a little different." So far graffiti enthusiasts have been relatively silent about the destruction of the Chelsea mural. However, as Gothamist pointed out in its post on the affair, Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin had previously stated when the graffiti clean-up around the High Line began that "if they touch the Revs/Cost Mural. . . it's war."