{{sources}} The '''Zoo York Wall''' was a famous Graffiti wall in Manhattan's Central_Park, where subway writers and other street artists "made their marks" in the early-70s. It was a temporary wall, erected in 1971 by the New_York_City_Transit_Authority to block unauthorized entry into the site of a new subway extension running underneath the Central_Park_Zoo. An excellent photograph of the wall is prominently displayed on the second page of ''The_Faith_of_Graffiti'', the noted 1974 Photo_essay book on New_York_City graffiti, documented by Mervyn_Kurlansky and John_Naar, with text by Norman_Mailer. (Praeger_Publishers, Inc.) Its name originates from the subway tunnel it was supposed to guard, then called the "Zoo York Tunnel," which still runs below the area of the Central_Park_Zoo. During its construction (1971-1973), the tunnel provided a subterranean gathering place for very early subway artists who hung around together in Central_Park, and was named '''Zoo_York''' for obvious reasons by '''ALI''', founder of the SOUL_ARTISTS graffiti gang. Armored with polished aluminum in the futile hope of resisting spray-paint and permanent marker ink, the wall did little to dissuade teenage graffiti writers from climbing over and descending into the tunnel during its construction. There, extensions of both the Broadway BMT and Sixth_Avenue IND subway lines merged below Central Park on two sub-levels, then curved underneath the zoo grounds and out under Fifth_Avenue to the east, connecting there to the new 63rd_Street_Line. Upon completion of the tunnel project in 1973, the "Zoo York Wall" was torn down. Category:Central_Park