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# Metropolitan Opera Defaced by Spray-Paint Vandals
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/metropolitan-opera-defaced-by-spray-paint-vandals/
- Published: 2014-06-25T21:29:30.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:16:52.000Z
- Description: The offices of the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center were spray-painted with obscene messages by vandals overnight, the New York Times reported.
- Author: Mostafa Heddaya
- Tags: In Brief, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera, Vandalism, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![10066793194_c158f6b57f_z](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/06/10066793194_c158f6b57f_z.jpg)

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center (image via Flickr user aspis7)

The offices of the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center were spray-painted with obscene messages by vandals overnight, the *New York Times* [reported](http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/metropolitan-opera-offices-vandalized-police-and-company-say/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.* The opera’s administration confirmed the incident — which primarily affected administrative areas, though a performance space was also targeted — in a statement to the *Times*, noting that it brought “little or no permanent damage.”

Police told the paper that there were no signs of forced entry, indicating that the defacement of “some paintings and sculptures — as well as on part of a band shell at Lincoln Center” was likely an inside job. The *New York Daily News* [reported](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/art-vandalized-nyc-met-opera-article-1.1843727?ref=hyperallergic.com) that one of the targeted paintings is worth some $50,000.

The NYPD further speculated that the vandalism could be linked to [ongoing contract negotiations](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/arts/music/operatic-drama-swells-in-met-labor-talks.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) with 15 unions representing Met Opera employees, though one union official, from the American Guild of Musical Artists, disputed this claim: “Nobody’s that crazy,” he said.