Police probe graffiti painted on Harvard building

February 28, 2009 05:48 PM Email| Comments (5)| Text size – +

By John M. Guilfoil, Globe Correspondent

A Boston Police unit that handles gang-related activity in the city is looking into graffiti painted on a Harvard Medical School building late this week.

On Friday, an employee of G. Greene Construction Co. doing work on the building at 641 Huntington Ave. called police to report 11 graffiti images on the outside of the building that had appeared between Thursday morning and Friday morning.

Officers responded and quickly handed the case over to detectives from the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, which largely deals with gang crime.

“They are an intelligence gathering unit, so typical spray painting wouldn't be investigated by them,” said Officer Joe Zanoli, a police spokesman. “It must have some significance to it.”

The building is located in the Longwood Medical area near the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

G. Greene Construction specializes in the private school, college, hospital, and corporate sectors, according to its website. A company spokeswoman confirmed that the company was doing renovation work on the building and that she was aware of the graffiti incident but had no further comment.

A spokeswoman from Harvard Medical School had no immediate comment on the incident.

Globe correspondent Emma Rose Johnson contributed to this report.

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5 comments so far...

dude. that is NOT roxbury.

Posted by first middle last February 28, 09 06:13 PM

Well, what did it look like? No pics?

Posted by reindeergirl February 28, 09 07:13 PM

Must be "Kilroy wuz here"

Posted by R. Linkshaut February 28, 09 08:29 PM

...did anyone get any information from this article?

Posted by NotJim February 28, 09 10:17 PM

its kind of ridiculous that they investigate a harvard building that has been graffitied but nothing else in the damn city that is graffitied, what about all the public parks that have been vandalized? it just go's to show how the rich and privledged are at a higher value than the rest of us, we are second class citizens if we don't go to harvard and apparently we don't deserve graffiti to be investigated let alone removed in our own neighborhoods( or anywhere else in roxbury for that matter) and is it really requiring an investigation? seriously, graffiti should not be shocking in Roxbury. I also think its pretty great that this is getting more press than the liquor store owner in my neighborhood who stomped a puppy in his store in front of employee's and other customers...

Posted by mallory February 28, 09 10:29 PM