For five years, 45 Park Place has been a blight on the New York City skyline, the top third of its 43 stories sitting unfinished, concrete underpinnings exposed to the elements. This week, it got a new coat of paint courtesy of the graffiti artist RAMS, who somehow managed to rappel down the side of the building’s upper levels to throw up an epic piece.

“RAMS is one of the best graffiti writers in the world right now—every time I see RAMS do something, I’m always like ‘what’s he going to do next?’
And it’s always something bigger and more ambitious, daring,
and stylistic,” street art expert Roger Gastman, the mastermind of the blockbuster Beyond the Streets graffiti exhibition series, told me. “He’s just pushing the limits of this culture.”

Gastman caught wind of the artist’s latest work after photos popped up on Reddit, where users were amazed that RAMS had managed to paint such a monumental and visible work on a high-end real estate development.

The anonymous artist has been active in the street art scene for well over a dozen years, and there is little known biographical information about him. In 2018, RAMS appears to have told Bombing Science that he is from Auckland, New Zealand.

RAMS rappelling down the side of the abandoned skyscraper 45 Park Place to spray paint his name on the building. Photo by driftershoots.

The 45 Park Place piece is the sort of bold, in-your-face graffiti that seems like a holdover from a bygone era. In recent decades, street art has become increasingly mainstream, gaining acceptance in both real estate and the art world. But while developers might appreciate the sudden appearance of a Banksy, or a sanctioned mural, a graffiti bombing of this nature is still almost certainly unwelcome.

“If they are renovating an old building and find graffiti behind a plywood wall or something that’s, you know, 30, 40, 50 years old, then they’re interested in preserving it and telling the story of the building.
But if it’s happening while the building is actually going up, they’re usually just pissed off,” Gastman said.

RAMS rappelling down the side of the abandoned skyscraper 45 Park Place to spray paint his name on the building. Photo by driftershoots.

He expects the piece, which RAMS painted on some kind of construction shed suspended on the upper floors, will be short lived.

“The longer it’s up, the more it’s gonna inspire other artists—but the shorter it’s up, the more of an urban legend it becomes,” he said.

RAMS graffiti on 45 Park Place in New York, photographed through binoculars from an office building. Photo by shwazinator.

The 667-foot-tall skyscraper designed by New York architecture firm SOMA was originally set to be completed in 2018. But construction work seems to have crawled to a halt in late 2019, according to New York YIMBY, leaving the sparkling glass facade incomplete.

(In April, the Tribeca Citizen blog listed the building as the “worst offender” among the neighborhood’s abandoned construction projects, but noted it had recently passed an inspection.)

RAMS rappelling down the side of the abandoned skyscraper 45 Park Place to spray paint his name on the building. Photo by driftershoots.

Hitting a large building like this is not a task for the faint of heart, especially if you’re doing it solo, as RAMS works. (The artist declined to comment on his process.)

“You’re suspended a zillion feet in the air—it’s pretty impressive to think about doing that alone,” he said.

Gastman couldn’t tell us much about the artist’s process without risking revealing trade secrets, but RAMS did give an anonymized interview with LivingProof earlier this year about how he rappels to reach high-profile, high-altitude spots.

RAMS setting up to graffiti 45 Park Place. Photo by driftershoots.

“You’re gonna have to walk up a lot of steps that probably aren’t very well lit, carrying your supplies,” Gastman said. “And there’s nowhere to run when you’re up there.
It’s not like you’re painting in an alley that has an exit both ways.
Getting into the building is one thing. Getting up the building is one thing. Doing the job is another thing.
Then getting out is a whole other thing.
You’re very, very exposed when you do these types of things.”

As for what might inspire such a daredevil stunt, Gastman has a few ideas: “striving for greatness.… the adrenaline… the drive to be the best at your craft.”