Julio 204


JULIO 204 was a Puerto Rican who wrote graffiti within his Manhattan gang turf as a youth. He is not the first graffitist to write in New York City, even though he's usually credited as being the original New York City writer. He started writing his nickname in his neighborhood as early as 1968. He retired when he was arrested for vandalism in the summer of 1970.
Julio lived on 204th Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, and was a member of the Savage Skulls. In 1971 the New York Times published an article about another graffiti writer with a similar style of including their street number in their tag, Taki 183. According to the article Julio had been writing for a couple of years when Taki began tagging his own name all around the city. Taki also states in the article that Julio "was busted and stopped". Julio 204 kept his tags localized to his own neighborhood, and never rose to the height of fame as Taki, who was the first to go "All City".