2789 Crew, AKA Pittsburgh Bomb Squad, 1996
Level 13, Mercer, Ldog, Rev, Dyno Myke, Billy, Oba (R.I.P.) & Wes
It all started in the fall of 1996, when I moved to Pittsburgh to attend the Art Institute. On my first day there, while moving into Allegheny Center’s student housing I met Ldog. He’d started at the Art Institute earlier that summer. Trying to hustle for pinch profits, he asked if I wanted to buy weed. Long story short, game recognize game, and we joined forces to find some fellow freshmen to hustle.
An hour or two later, we ended up on the elevated tracks between Allegheny Center and the bridges. As we rolled up the proceeds of our first joint business ventures, and sparked with some of the squatters up there we got on the subject of graffiti. They showed me some pieces Ldog, and some other art students had done that said “Crazy Ray”, and “Mike The Spike” They were shout outs for two of the guys that living up up there that would buy 40′s of Blue Bull for art students.
Down the wall I scoped 3 distinct pieces I’ll never forget: a Clear, a Bim (by Necs), and a Prism. They had crisp, precise outlines, fresh colors, and wild letter styles that could only have been gilded during Pittsburgh’s golden age of graffiti. I tried to imagine how they layered the paint to get those perfect lines. I’d been tagging and drawing bubble letters for years, but had only ever seen graffiti like this in books. Seeing burners like this, up close for the first time actually changed my life.
Ldog and I, along with a few other kids from student housing all started painting graffiti together that fall. How we met up originally was funny, each one of us was trying to get with one of the “901 girls”. They were student housing’s coolest, most desirable female roommates, and the four of them lived in apt 901. The name 2789 actually came from a drunken attempt at adding together some of the original member’s apartment numbers from Allegheny Center, while chilling in apt 901.
Admittedly, we all started out pretty toyish, as most art school crews do. Eventually though, our skills & status improved over time. We had a pretty good run for a few years, even though none of us really made it past local infamy. Years later, I was stoked, and a bit surprised listening to some of Pittsburgh’s next generation of writers talking about seeing 2789′s work when they were growing up. They described it in much the same way I talk about the graffiti I saw on the North Side, the first day I moved to Pittsburgh.
Our crew eventually faded out of the burgh with the end of the 90′s. Most of us either graduated, or just ended up leaving town in search of work by 1999. Level 13, and I both continued painting freights a few more years out in Denver. Ldog, Dyno Myke, and Oba (R.I.P.) all joined different branches of the Armed Forces. Billy ended up on tour with the renaissance fair. Rev left town for Michigan, and Wes settled down and got a real job sometime in 1999. Most of us are still in touch till this day, and even meet up every few years to reminisce about the good ol’ days.
