5 Pointz lawsuit sets developers back another $2.7 million

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the developers of 5 Pointz in Long Island City. The decision means the artists will receive roughly $6.75 million in damages. Last month, a judge ordered the developers to pay another $2.7 million in attorney fees. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

By Rachel Vick

The Queens real estate developer who ordered the destruction of the Long Island City street art mecca 5Pointz will have to pay nearly $3 million in legal fees to the artists’ attorneys, on top of the $6.7 million paid directly to the artists, a federal judge said late last month. 

A joint stipulation filed in November forces G&M Realty to pay $2.7 million in fees and costs to Eisenberg & Baum LLP,  the firm that has represented the artists — whose work was whitewashed overnight and without warning in 2013.

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal filed by G&M to overturn a ruling that granted $6.7 million to a group of more than 20 artists suing under the Visual Artists Rights Act.

"Seven years later all the art is gone and cannot be brought back," Marie Cecile Flageul, a spokesperson for the 5Pointz artists involved in the lawsuit, told Gothamist after the ruling. "With this final chapter the legacy of 5Pointz is and will be this historical recognition of the art form and a victory for visual artists and their moral rights."

When the artists learned that developer Gerald Wolkoff, who died in July, filed to demolish the existing warehouses to build luxury apartments in 2013, they came together to file the lawsuit. 

Wolkoff whitewashed the facade, erasing decades of iconic artwork while the artists were banned from being on site.

"Wolkoff whitewashed the artworks without any genuine business need to do so,” according to a February decision by Judge Barrington Parker from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

“It was simply, as the district court found, an 'act of pure pique and revenge' toward the artists who had sued him." 

Despite the ongoing lawsuit, the art was lost forever and development of 5Pointz Towers moved ahead. The Court Square branch of the Queens Public Library, which lost its previous home earlier this year, has been offered space inside.