Mimi Comerford doesn’t remember when the graffiti started appearing on the south wall of the Eisenhower Expressway ditch. For as long as she can recall, big, colorful tags have covered the beige highway wall that runs alongside the Blue Line train through Oak Park and Forest Park.
“It’s colorful, some of it is bold and bright, some it’s not so great,” said Comerford, who owns a building on Harrison Street in the Oak Park Arts District that backs up right to the Eisenhower. “Sometimes you get profanity. It runs the gamut. Just like all artwork, some is great, some is not in my own opinion.”
Graffiti artists in the community have been drawn to this wall for decades. Local street artist TEEL ONE, self-described “graffiti artist, sarcastic pop artist, and professional troublemaker with a spray can,” recalls hitting this wall in the 1990s.
“Many moons ago, but I can still feel the adrenaline like it was yesterday,” he said. TEEL ONE used to own Momentum Art Tech in Oak Park. Now, he runs an annual festival Battle 4 The City, which celebrates mural and graffiti art in Chicago.
Over the decades, graffiti artists have transformed this wall into “a billboard without a corporate logo,” said TEEL ONE. “Every train, every car, every commuter sees it.
“Graffiti writers are like guerrilla advertisers – we know the value of a prime spot. And that wall is pure gold.”
The wall in question is under the jurisdiction of and maintenance of the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). Covering up such graffiti is part of IDOT’s routine maintenance to Illinois highways.
The department does not have an exact date when it began to cover up graffiti along the Ike. “IDOT has been addressing graffiti in this area for a couple of decades,” said IDOT spokesperson Maria Castaneda. IDOT most recently removed graffiti on August 15 but could not provide specific data on how often graffiti is removed. Castaneda said the department routinely removes graffiti district-wide before major holidays.
Castaneda said that it is important to remove graffiti for a “multitude of reasons.”
Sometimes graffiti covers important road signs, sometimes it is offensive, and sometimes it could contain “hidden messages.” One of the biggest reasons is simply that “it’s an eyesore,” she said. Whether it is on public or private property, “I’m sure no one is really wanting to have this graffiti on there.”
The south wall of the Eisenhower Expressway seems to be the site of a constant battle between graffiti artists and IDOT. Graffiti often reappears shortly after the department has covered it up, sometimes reappearing the same night.
These days, graffiti artists often expect that their work will be covered up. “The streets don’t offer lifetime warranties. You get your flicks, you move on,” said TEEL ONE. “But back in the day? It cut deep. Supplies were scarce, paint was expensive, and we didn’t have instant cameras in our pockets. You waited days for film to develop, praying the shot was good. If it wasn’t, your work was gone forever. That stung.”
This wall brings “unique challenges” for IDOT. The section affected by the graffiti (approximately stretching from Home Avenue to Austin Blvd. with a shorter wall in Forest Park) is roughly 20 feet tall and over a mile long – and is also within 25 feet of an active railroad. In order to remove graffiti in this location, IDOT has to coordinate with CSX Railroad to provide railroad flaggers.
Comerford sees this graffiti daily. The graffiti has become such a part of daily life that it fades into the background. It isn’t the expressway graffiti itself that bothers Comerford, she said.
“What I mind is when they deface our buildings.” The side of Comerford’s building, her dumpster, and her alley door have all been targeted by vandalism. She said she found this incident to be “frustrating” and wondered, “Why would you do this?”
She said she felt the same when it came to vandalism on public and private property: “If it’s illegal, it’s illegal,” she said.
Comerford said she was also “frustrated” by the use of tax resources to remove the graffiti. “I don’t think it’s a great use of our tax dollars,” she said. So far in 2025, IDOT has spent roughly $1.8 million on graffiti removal district-wide, according to Castaneda.
Comerford, who is on the board of the Oak Park Arts District and an artist herself, wondered if there could be an alternative to the illegal nature of the graffiti art in the area.
“It would be nice if they could create some sort of program for these graffiti artists,” she said.
She and her husband are “big proponents of the arts,” she said. “We support the artists. We want to make sure that artists have an outlet to create. And so I wish that there was a more structured program for these graffiti artists so they didn’t feel the need to go around and deface public property, private property. I guess that’s what my perspective on it is. I don’t want to shut it down. I just want it to be a little bit more structured and I want to hopefully get artists to understand that it’s not cool to deface property that isn’t set up for that.”
With sculptures lining its most lively streets and new murals often appearing on walls that would otherwise be empty, Oak Park is a village that understands the importance of public art. The illegal aspect of graffiti is what bothers Comerford, which is why she hopes for a legal alternative.
TEEL ONE brought up a similar idea. “A decade ago, I told Oak Park and surrounding cities: let us paint it, make it a landmark, even kick in some paint money,” said the artist.
“They laughed me off. Now mural culture is booming, and everyone’s acting like it’s a new idea.” The artist said he would “like to reopen the conversation again so we can have a new wall for art.”
IDOT has “no current policy or program” for incorporating public art into its infrastructure. However, previous installations have included art medallions on the Dan Ryan in 2007 and the International Sculpture Program.
Graffiti art is “the only art form born from kids who had nothing but a voice and a wall,” said TEEL ONE. “No rich patrons, no galleries – just spray paint, hustle, and the need to be seen. It scares people in power because we figured out how to speak without their permission, and without playing by their rules. Graffiti is the voice of the streets, and the streets don’t ask politely.”
“It’s a complicated issue,” said Comerford. “I don’t condone them doing art illegally. But I do want them to have a place where they can create.”