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If you look closely on the J line between Brooklyn and Queens,or on the subway platforms, you're likely to see a compressed, angular bit of graffiti, "Swing One." It's Rolando Rodriguez' tag, his graffiti signature. For Rodriguez, a 17-year-old senior at Franklin K. Lane High School, the outlaw art was a form of expression and a way to get attention. Reflecting on it now, the graffiti was "taking something away," a kind of psychic disruption, said Rodriguez, a shy, introspective youth.
Now, he's ready to give back. Rodriguez is creating a 4- by 8-foot mural, a multicolored celebration of the school's 50th anniversary, which will hang on the platform of the J line's Forest Parkway station in Woodhaven, where the steel walls gave way long ago to graffiti.
Rodriguez and 10 other Lane artists are participating in Creative Station, a project funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to bring art and other decorative...