The second major event took place in 1968 once again under the direction of Parks Commissioner Moses, the completion of a 15,382-unit co-op apartment complex on the northern edge of the Bronx. This was followed by the exodus of any remaining middle class families from their comfortable and well kept homes. With tremendous vacancy rates, decent landlords began to sell out to professional slumlords and as a consequence, the Bronx deteriorated into a neighborhood with so many unkept and vacant buildings. As the Bronx deteriorated, the third major event was directly related to the development of Graffiti art, perhaps the first born element of Hip-hop. This event occurred in 1968 at the same time Parks Commissioner Robert Moses" second major project in the Bronx, the co-op city was undertaken. The third event involved a group of seven teenage boys that began to terrorize the neighborhood around the Bronxdale project on Bruckner Boulevard in the southeast Bronx. This proved to be a pivotal act because this group of teenagers laid the groundwork for a surge of street gang activity that would overwhelm the Bronx for the next six years. Those teenagers called themselves the Savage Seven who included the future old school rap star Afrika Bambaataa; this group was one of the earliest and most important graffiti crews, and as they increased in number, they became the Black Spades. Many other crews followed the Black Spades and graffiti art became a tool to mark boundaries. Graffiti as an art had been known to be around since the 1950's and began to seriously develop in 1969, flourishing in 1970. Graffiti artists could gain respect by spreading their names out in large quantities but creating an original lettering style was much more prestigious. Originality was very important to graffiti artists and in 1972 a well-respected artist named Super Kool replaced the dispersion cap on his spray paint with a wider one from a can of oven cleaner, it was creativity like this which caught eyes.
