The City Beneath

“The City Beneath . . . tells a rich story of another L.A., left behind in the sometimes hidden and coded “I was here” of hoboes, surfers, soldiers, gay outcasts and striking students -- graffiti that, like many of the people who made them, have often gone unseen by the rest of us.”—Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times

  “The alternative history of L.A. you didn’t know you needed.”—PureWow

“An important addition to graffiti studies and. . . a resource for those interested in graffiti for years to come. . . . The City Beneath is a beautiful book.”—John F. Lennon, Visual Inquiry

“The City Beneath takes the mandate to write history from below to new heights, offering a radically inclusive account of a city known too well from the top down.”—Eric Avila, Western Historical Quarterly
 

2021 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award winner, sponsored by the Urban Communication Foundation

“An astonishing book and a revelation, from first to last. I learned from every single page and from the sheer exuberance of Phillips’s long journey into these places, spaces, histories, and inscriptions.”—William Deverell, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West

“Susan Phillips insightfully shows how the study of graffiti can provide evidence for the changing nature of the city itself.”—Rafael Schacter, author of The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti

“Crack open the canon and make room at the top for The City Beneath. Deeply researched and consistently breathtaking, this book will change the way you see and understand Los Angeles.”—Josh Kun, author of The Autograph Book of L.A.

“A fascinating investigation into graffiti as visual history, highlighting the inherent desire we have to leave our mark or message on a place.”—Roger Gastman, graffiti historian

“Susan A. Phillips’s wonderfully researched book is truly unique in the study of graffiti. Not only has she examined the cultural origins of mark-making, but she also re-defines the geographical narrative, stealing the crown from New York and placing it on the head of the West Coast as the cultural epicenter of the birth of American graffiti.”—Aaron Rose, Beautiful Losers