WICKER PARK — Two construction walkways in Wicker Park's main intersection where the iconic Northwest Tower is being converted into a boutique hotel are serving as blank canvasses for graffiti taggers and street artists.
In recent days, Pepper Construction, the contractor spearheading the renovations for developer Convexity Properties, installed signs warning that the site along the northwest corner of the Milwaukee and North Avenues intersection is being monitored by armed security.
A spokeswoman for Pepper Construction was not immediately available for comment on the beefed up security at the site, which encompasses several buildings from 1600-26 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Earlier this week, Abraham Villagod, 24, a Logan Square resident, said he enjoys walking past the graffiti and street art, the bulk of which is located along temporary barriers set up to protect pedestrians from the ongoing construction.
"I dig it a lot, because it turns the city into a playground. The tags are weak unless you are someone known for your tags but the wheat pastes are cool," Villagod said, referring to the characters and symbols that have been pasted over the temporary wooden boards.
Harley Esposito, a 45-year-old Wicker Park resident who was walking through a covered barrier along North Avenue on Monday, said he "can't wait for the construction to be done."
"It's dark and dingy [walking through the covered area]," Esposito said.
The construction is expected to be complete before spring 2016, when the hotel is scheduled to open.
Isa Giallorenzo, founder of the Chicago Looks fashion blog, and a regular Reader and New City contributor, announced a new unofficial exhibit in a blog post.
"By the way I just put up a street exhibit in Wicker Park on Milwaukee Ave, just south of Damen in that little construction nook. You're invited! I just can't guarantee it will be there... " Giallorenzo wrote last Thursday.
As of Tuesday, Giallorenzo's portraits, featuring fashionable Chicagoans, were still plastered on the boards, next to a wheat paste of a smiling man riding a motorized ATV that by street artist Goons.
Craig Norris, a Wicker Park resident, said he walks past the Northwest Tower on a daily basis and does not have a problem with the temporary graffiti "as long as it is temporary."
Norris added, "It's a slippery slope if you let graffiti go too far anywhere because it has gotten out of control. There is a lot of it everywhere."
Evan Meister, a spokesman for Convexity Properties, declined to comment on the graffiti.
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