There is an artistic renaissance afoot in the city of Rochester. It's all-at-once beautiful and illegal, uplifting and, some say, economically repugnant.

"It makes the neighborhood look cheap, poor," says Albert Algarin, president of the North Clinton Business Association. "If people are used to doing business on Park Avenue and East Avenue, they come to this neighborhood and they say, ‘I don't want to do business here.' It sends the wrong message."

The Association consists of about 75 businesses from Upper Falls to East Ridge. Many of the buildings have been used as canvas for giant murals. Some are nothing more than indecipherable scribbles - called "tagging" - but others are breathtaking images rivaling graphic novels in quality.

Graffiti, according to many sources, is exploding all over Rochester. The city is working overtime to remove it, but the way to get a handle on this issue, many say, is to categorize the different kinds of graffiti and develop strategies for each.

Graffiti artists fall into three subsets: taggers, gang bangers, and artists. The word "tag" - an acronym for an early crew of vandals, Tuff Artists Group - is also a generic umbrella term for all types of graffiti.

"My impression is that there's not necessarily an increase in gang tagging," says John Klofas, criminal justice professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "I don't think anybody supports the gang-tagging stuff."

Gang graffiti, according to Nick Petitti, a crime research specialist with the Rochester Police Department, is typically done "by a low-level guy" with very low-tech equipment. The work often contains the "crew" or gang name, street names the gang considers part of their turf, and a "roll call" - "people who are cool in that area," Petitti says, "who are part of their crew."

Each gang has its own symbols, Petitti says. "It's a message clearly understood" by the rest of the subculture.

You often see gang-tags crossed out, Petitti and Klofas say, and that's usually a rival gang's show of disrespect. That'll turn into a back-and-forth, they say, as the first gang repaints the area and the rival gang blots it out - ad infinitum.

Gang tags are "part of a much larger issue," says Molly Clifford, the city's NET director and head of a newly formed graffiti committee. The strategy that seems to work here, she says, is to get the artwork painted over as quickly as possible. Rapid removal, Councilmember Bob Stevenson says, acts as a deterrent. The gang may feel that the city has "reclaimed" that space, Klofas says.

 "Taggers" are poorly regarded in the graffiti culture, scorned by gang bangers and artists both: not tough enough to be part of a gang, not talented enough to be called a graffiti artist. It's "Kilroy was here" or "For a good time call Roxie" for the modern age. The work is often simply the artist's name written in an exaggerated scribble.

Clifford says it is believed that a small number of people are doing the tagging and that police enforcement is the best approach.

"If they can make arrests, it'll put an end to the process very quickly," she says.

Now, about those murals. Often working in groups and sometimes with sophisticated tools available at art-supply stores, artists create astonishing, eye-popping works full of color and energy. This is the area, experts say, which seems to be experiencing the growth.

"Some of it is very intricate," Klofas says. "They're very talented."

There is an artistic progression, says graffiti artist Michael "Snoe" Marrocco. Many taggers start by doing "throw ups" - painting their name across a surface. Throw-ups are quick hits. Marrocco says he can throw his name up over a relatively large surface - the entire span of the front window of SPoT Coffee on East Avenue, for example - in about 20 seconds. The next step is "get ups," which can be a name in an outline, using one or two colors. From there, it's on to "pieces," taken from the word "masterpieces."

"A piece is like, you're there," Snoe says. "You take different colors and you experiment and you blend."

An artist truly comes into his own when he does "productions," Snoe says, which are the full-blown murals. Snoe started throwing up in 1989 and "I probably started rocking production about six years ago. It takes time."

Snoe's art group, From Up Above (FUA), does about a mural a week, he says, each taking about 20 hours to complete. FUA is the group responsible for most, if not all, of North Clinton's murals.

Petitti says murals usually contain messages the group wants to get across. Putting that message on the largest-possible canvas at heavily-traveled parts of the city ensures, he says, that it's seen by the maximum number of people.

The artistic merit of these works makes this a more complicated issue with which to grapple. Even Algarin, who appealed to City Council recently for help with the graffiti problem in his business district, says he'd be OK with some graffiti. It's the proliferation and, he says, the growing appearance of more violent imagery that bothers him. A recent mural, Algarin says, depicts a double shotgun.

"Are we sending a message for you to come shopping here or come here to get shot?" he says.

(Snoe says FUA's work is not violent, sexual or political.)

Some artwork is welcome, Algarin says, "but it comes to a point: how many can we have in one neighborhood? They got good talents. They're just not using it in a correct way."

And in that one sentence may be the solution, say Clifford and Klofas.

"Can we channel that in a way that is not destructive or harmful, to fill space you want filled?" Klofas says. Some of those opportunities may include legitimate mural work or for gallery display.

The city, Clifford says, is looking for ways to provide legal graffiti opportunities. Village Gate Square on North Goodman is a well-known haunt for artists, but some people take it too far, owner Mitch Stern says.

"We were OK with it," he says. "We didn't call the police on them or try to stop them."

But some artists have been painting outside the designated area, he says, and that's not cool.

"They're not sticking to the back," Stern says. "It's not a small problem. It's really defacing our property."

It's a complex situation. While some may argue that graffiti is bad for business and the community, Klofas says, others may believe that the artwork makes the neighborhood more attractive and is actually helpful.

"It brightens up the 'hood," says a young man walking down Clinton Avenue one day recently. He didn't want his name used. "We like to see something done with the buildings up here. It's art to them. It makes it look like you want to come around here."

An artist confesses

It's all about one thing: Fame. Making a name. "Bombing" the walls and letting the people know FUA is the biggest and the best.

"There is no better than us in the city of Rochester," says Michael "Snoe" Marrocco, 32. "The more people that see your name on the wall - that's like advertising,"

FUA - From Up Above - began as a loose collection of hip-hop artists and devotees in the early 80's, Snoe says. FUA is now primarily a street art group - the crew responsible for those large graffiti murals on North Clinton. Snoe - when he lived in Florida, people constantly asked him to describe winter - grew up on North Clinton and FUA considers the street its own urban art gallery.

"Graffiti, to me, is an expression that beats depression," Snoe says. "I've been to hell and back on Clinton. Graffiti was my escape. It keeps me focused, on top of myself. It's like my higher God."

Snoe insists that all FUA's North Clinton murals are legal, done with permission from the owner of whichever wall the crew wants to paint. Albert Algarin, president of the North Clinton Business Association, disputes that. A confrontation between the two sides seems inevitable: Algarin wants FUA to cut back and tone down its murals and is turning to the city for help. Snoe says he'll fight any effort to curtail FUA's creativity.

"I'll go knocking door to door," he says. "I'll bring it to whoever's attention I've got to bring it to."

Algarin is willing to compromise, but if FUA won't go along, he says he'll do everything he can to force the issue.

"I think we'll have to crack down because of the money invested in the area," he says. "I understand Snoe wants to do his art, but it cannot be done at our expense."

The city has been working with North Clinton business and neighborhood leaders to revitalize the area, Algarin says, and FUA is jeopardizing that effort. Snoe doesn't buy it. Businesses make more money, he says, "because they've got a nice graffiti mural."

"You don't see no businesses on Clinton closing down because they've got a graffiti mural," he says.