Rockaway boardwalk stained with graffiti

 

 CBS New York

 Vandals went wild with spray paint over the weekend on a large section of the Rockaway boardwalk, and that had residents demanding an immediate cleanup.

On Wednesday, city crews were out in force with power washers, and as CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff reported, they're promising a swift response to graffiti on the newly built boardwalk.

Far Rockaway resident Michael Blomquist sees the Rockaway boardwalk as his escape to natural beauty, but on Saturday he came upon gasp-worthy ugliness.

"I've never seen that much graffiti in one place, and this is such an important place for us, for the community," Blomquist said.

He and others took to social media to share a community outcry -- to not let what happened stand as the new normal on a five-mile boardwalk just rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy.

Graffiti tags, at least 100 of them, with profanity, were sprayed across the entire width of the concrete boardwalk, from Beach 54th Street to 55th Street.

"Someone else will say, 'That's a good idea,' and every block will be marked up like that," Far Rockaway resident Methun Singh said. "They hurt the whole family, the neighborhood, everybody who lives here."

"I don't know what they were thinking. Some people just don't like to see things looking nice," resident Helen Jackson added.

City officials say this was a job for a special detail, and on Wednesday morning sent in the big guns -- its borough-wide graffiti removal squad.

"This was a whole block of the boardwalk with spray paint, so it's that much more visible, that much more obnoxious, and that much more problematic and troublesome," NYC Parks administrator Eric Peterson said.

The quick and complete cleanup sends the message that graffiti will not be tolerated.

"If you know your work is going to be erased immediately, hopefully you'll be less inclined to do the graffiti and damage the park,"  Peterson said.