Based on older prison, hobo and gang graffiti and graffiti of the kind that said "I was here", New York style writing graffiti, aka hip-hop graffiti, began to grow in 1967. A new phenomenon was that graffiti began to appear massively all over the city. Each author stood out from the others with his or her own style. With increasing competition, developments came thick and fast on the scene, fueled by tools such as marker pens and spray cans which were now widely available. Monochromatic at first, linear and legible with a marker on the walls of the artist's own district, then those of the city as a whole, there were soon larger, more elaborate, sprayed graffiti to be found in the subways too. Around 1973 the wall taggers were superseded by new protagonists who sprayed subway cars and later freight trains with larger, complex, polychromatic works, so-called (master)pieces. These often had multi-colored fillings and outlines. With a technical virtuosity hitherto unknown, they reached their climax around 1980. What with the political pressure that had begun to build up in the face of this spread of graffiti in the illegal sphere, they became known through film, TV and illustrated books. That popularity enabled the spark to jump across to Europe, where it continued to develop and spread ... from there on out into all corners of the world, for example by Interrail, through copied sketchbooks and graffiti brochures ('zines') – and, together with street art, into Saarland and the Greater Region too.