Welcome back to Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky graffiti art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

Our latest entry comes from 2009, taken during one of my wanders through Long Island City, the eastern area of Queens, NY, that became a booming area for the real estate industry, as high-rise apartment buildings have sprouted up all over what used to be an industrialized neighborhood (with more on the way!).

What you see here is one of the many constantly changing murals that used to decorate 5Pointz (formerly the Phun Phactory), a mecca for graffiti artists from around the world whose talents were on display from street level to rooftop. The site was a run-down (but still in-use) factory that artists had moved into over time, starting in the 1990s. But by 2013, the building owner had plans to tear it all down and construct apartment buildings, which led to attempts to preserve 5Pointz as an artistic landmark and a lawsuit against the owner. Bottom line? He won, the artists lost, and today you’ll find an immense, high-rent apartment building also called 5Pointz where the original Phun Phactory once stood.

Well, this is one of the reasons I photograph murals like Fairyland—you never know if it’ll be there tomorrow! Graffiti may be a temporary artform, replaced by another artist’s work or ruined by unnecessary tagging, but tearing down the building it was on is a lot more permanent.

The fairy and her urban-fantasy landscape might be long gone from the Horror Streets of LIC, but the Internet will never forget her…

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries, like the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, and the Spooky Forest!