First, don’t sell self-incriminating t-shirts and second, don’t take holidays off. On Christmas Day 2006, the Made U Look crew was at work below Central Park, painting the now infamous “Cash is King” whole train. They painted ten subway cars top to bottom and end to tend, spelling out the crew’s name over 750 feet long. Xplicit Grafx, the international graffiti magazine interviewed Made U Look, helping to shed some light on their feat and confirming speculation that law enforcement actually was behind the sketchy website that popped up to sell t-shirts and a video of the hit.

According to Made U Look, the now defunct website, madeulooknyc.com, was created by “New York authorities, in an attempt to confuse and perhaps slip us up.” “We had nothing to do with any of that – website included and if it was up to us no on would have seen what we did for a very long time.” So if you had the bad sense to order one of those cheesy t-shirts, you can figure some “NYC authorities” have started a file on you.

Photographs and part of the Made U Look interview are excerpted below.

Continue reading: How to Paint Subways and Not Get Caught

It was pleasantly surprising to see Razor Apple in the latest issue of Mass Appeal magazine. A feature story on the wide world of graffiti websites, internet beef and general e-thuggery makes mention of the whole Made U Look drama and our wild speculations. Thanks dudes!

Now seriously, let’s get this rumor mill cracking. Email ra@razorapple.com with the latest dirt and unsubstantiated rumors.

(Good looking out for us, Uneek!)

After our extensive reporting on the Made U Look whole train and our possibly-misguided-but-we’re-over-it coverage of the Made U Look website selling t-shirts of the feat, we’d be completely remiss not to mention the latest issue of Day in the Lyfe Magazine. It appears to be the Made U Look crew in front of a subway train, but we’re not assuming anything about nothing anymore. As far as we know it might just be a secret show with MF Doom (over on the right) getting ready to kick a rhyme.

We’ve fallen behind in reporting on the MadeULookNYC wholecar graffiti drama, but we’ll fix that. To recap, 10 subway cars were painted with the name “Made U Look” in late December, and shortly thereafter a website selling t-shirts of the hit appeared (albeit under the name MadeULookNYC). Finally, because of the website’s shady business we speculated that the NYPD might be behind it. Although graffiti writers criminals in general do some stupid things (like DRO caught breaking into a store while videos in his car of his crew painting), selling t-shirts via Paypal seems too dumb.

Now, to silence critics and cash in, MULNYC is auctioning live video footage of their feat on Ebay. Though we’re curious about the legitimacy of the video and the auction is only at $25, we’ll probably hold off and invest our money in the amazing Britney Spears hair art for sale. That seller has 99.3% positive feedback, and MadeULookNYC has none, to say the least.

Link: MadeULookNYC Video on Ebay

Last Friday, Metro NY recapped the graffiti drama going on with MadeULookNYC.com, Made U Look and the MTA. There’s not many new details about the case except for the discovery of part of the wholetrain.

- An eight-car R train was found covered in graffiti at 10:20 a.m. on Christmas Day at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue — where there’s an underground “lay-up” for parked trains — according to NYC Transit spokesman James Anyansi.

- Many graffiti writers use the darkness of lay-ups to paint trains and take photos after they finish their pieces.

Some graffiti writers use the brightness of subway stations to paint trains and take photos too. It’s called a backjump. You learn something new every day.

Screenshot of NYPD visit on Sitemeter (Click for full screen).

The days when undercover cops only sold drugs, sex and guns to catch criminals may be over. It seems they’ve also entered the cheap t-shirt business. If you were thinking of buying a t-shirt commemorating Made U Look’s painting of 10 whole NYC subway cars, you may want to reconsider now. Rumors and suspicions have circulated for a while that the New York City Police Department was behind MadeULookNYC.com, but until we saw a tipster’s screenshots of our very own Sitemeter, the story didn’t have any legs.

Screenshot of source code on MadeULookNYC.com with same Statcounter code as referral address.

The images show multiple visits from the NYPD were referred to Razorapple.com from inside a password protected Statcounter belonging to MadeULookNYC.com. It appears as though the police were carelessly monitoring internet discussions and collecting information for their investigation.

Leary of their address request to send us a free t-shirt, we started asking questions, some of which are included after the jump.

Continue reading: NYPD Going Undercover as Graffiti Writers — Online?

After yesterday’s teaser photos of the Made U Look “Cash is King” whole train, we got a much better look to share. Although the photo is missing the ‘M’ and ‘A’ it’s probably the best around because the R line, which this was painted on, only runs a maximum of 8 cars per train. Because of this it’s likely the whole thing was painted in two parts: two cars with ‘MA’ and an 8 car whole train, with “DE U LOOK” and Mr. Monopoly.

Clocking in at 750 feet of painted steel, this is a major feat for the so-called clean train era and a possible record for biggest whole train painted in history. It’s just too bad that Darius McCollum, the metrophile arrested nearly two dozen times for joyriding subway cars and attempted theft of a locomotive, was too locked up to help move a couple subways cars so the Made U Look crew could paint a continuous piece.

All the collected photos of the piece are included after the jump.

Continue reading: A Big Slap to the Clean Train Era

Following the Daily News report that few graffiti writers are being caught or punished for major hits on the subway, Made U Look has confirmed rumor that they painted 10 whole subway cars in December. That’s a whole train! Our arithmetic was off on the last report as we didn’t forsee a possible Mr. Monopoly wholecar.

Photos by Made U Look.

While you were passed out from holiday pies and Peter Vallone was mixing things up with an attack on pit bulls, some graffiti writers were finishing some whole cars. Rumor has it these two cars photographed by an MTA conductor are just two of nine whole car series. That’s one short of a whole train! It’s up to you to play hangman and fill in the seven other letters though.