34th Street Graffiti Wall

One of the great offbeat charms of Gainesville, Florida, is a 1,120-foot graffiti wall that has new graffiti added every day. The 34th Street Wall is a giant public art piece, community bulletin board and fun cultural landmark that Gainesville residents and local students have been painting away on since 1979. The wall is sometimes called “Gainesville’s public diary,” as it constantly chronicles developments of the day both locally and in the world at large. And the wall always features some really terrific street art.
The 34th Street Wall is a gigantic living mural that spreads nearly a quarter mile in length, with a patchwork of different paintings that all change by the day. Some of the painting is exceptionally brilliant; some is slapdash and amateur. And it all gets painted over eventually, with some areas estimated to have more than 250 layers of paint.

There is only one section of the wall that remains the same, a permanent memorial to five victims killed in a tragic 1990 crime spree. That panel of the wall turned into a shrine, and some administrative police staff took up the cause to maintain that section of the mural. It continues to be maintained, and painters generally respect that portion as off limits. But everywhere else on the 34th Street Wall, anything goes.