The Urban Trapper

Jeff Greenspan had no practical involvement in street art before the age of 39. Doing improvisational comedy was his attempt at having any sort of public impact. A copywriter and creative director by day, he was never audacious enough to call himself an artist.

Then, he had an idea. He thought it might be interesting if someone divided New York streets between tourists and natives. So last May, he decided to try it. “It took time to experiment and find the right tools,” Greenspan says. “Where do you get a line-making machine in New York City? If you can’t get one, how expensive is it if you’re not the New York Jets? Where do I keep it in my apartment? All those little things become fun puzzles.”

Greenspan used a lower-tech apparatus to create his first “Tourist Lane.” A few days later, images of it spread across the Internet. He ordered a high-quality line-making tool to give his next lane a more professional look. Newspapers and traditional media outlets took notice. Next, Greenspan teamed up with Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere and further refined the piece, adding a performance aspect with actors pretending to be pro-lane city officials.

The finished product was a less antagonistic fusion of Banksy’s “Fat Lane” and Joey Skaggs’ “Walk Right.” Lanes began appearing in other parts of the country and even in Barcelona, Spain, says Greenspan. Mayor Bloomberg commented, telling reporters at a press conference, that the Lanes were a “nice thing to do.” In less than a month, Greenspan went from an adult professional with no street art experience to a living blueprint for how to shape culture.

“I’d never done graffiti. I’d never stenciled. I just tried one on an East Village street,” Greenspan explains. “It got photographed and it spread.”

Since then, Greenspan has collaborated with friends on a number of other pieces. This past winter, several media outlets covered his Letterbombing collaboration, which involved the timed editing of Facebook profile pictures to spell out messages with posts on public figures’ pages. His latest project, “Urban Traps,” which he worked on with collaborator Hunter Fine, generated millions of hits over the past two months through word of mouth and online media interest. The first, the “Hipster Trap,” became a blog favorite. Those traps, which dotted the LES and Williamsburg in early March, contained PBRs, neon sunglasses, a bike chain and a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. “Someone came by and took a photo and put it on Reddit. Three hours later it had a quarter of a million hits,” says Greenspan. “It’s just astounding that people from Australia and Sweden have asked to interview us.”

Greenspan says he doesn’t have a press representative. “I don’t even try to seed these things. It’s all been the work of social media.”

None of Greenspan’s projects generate income and many seem essentially pointless. They are not advertising coups, although one would guess someone with Greenspan’s background in that industry might cash in on the attention. He hasn’t attempted to go “legitimate art world” with his work, and he doesn’t seem to want to do so. “I’m 40 and this is a ridiculous use of my time,” he readily admits.

So why bother with these projects now? “To see what the ideas turn into,” he says. “There’s something strange about Googling an idea and getting no hits on it, and then releasing something and getting a million, but that’s not the point, the point is to satisfy an urge and see what happens.”

To see what happens, I met with Greenspan and Fine outside of Pacha, the Hells Kitchen nightclub, on a drizzly Thursday evening a few months ago when they were placing their second wave of Urban Traps.

Dressed in oversized, hooded sweatshirts, the duo seemed suspicious next to the tight T-shirts and miniskirts a few feet from them. The crowd didn’t pay much attention as they laid a “bear trap” (constructed of laminated paper board) and littered it with items: spray tan, PATH tickets, a train schedule, a gold chain, Got2b hair product and some offensively strong cologne. Then, they waited: Some people reacted. Others didn’t. One burly guy almost stepped on the trap. One group contemplated taking the spray tan and the cologne. The duo took photographs. After a few more minutes, they pulled their contraption and headed to the Lower East Side to get more reactions.

The pair dubbed their trap the “Bridgeand-Tunnel Trap.” The next weekend, they headed to Washington, D.C., to debut their next trap, aimed at Tea Party members, containing a miniature Constitution, Don’t Tread On Me stickers, a NObama pin, a No More Taxes button and gun cleaner.

Greenspan won’t say what he has planned moving forward, but he does suggest that other projects are in the works and that as soon as they are fully realized, he’ll move on them.

“Now, my thing is, if I have an idea I think is executable, I do it,” Greenspan says. “The minute I have an idea, I say ‘OK, I’ll just do it. I’ll just see if it works.’” And so far, according to Greenspan’s criteria, it has.