Like other forms of ghetto street culture — graffiti, verbal dueling, rapping­ — breaking is a public arena for the flam­boyant triumph of virility, wit, and skill. In short, of style.

Back in 2008 Radtke's anti-graffiti enthusiasm may have gotten the better of him. He was arrested for ruining a graffiti-style mural that had been painted with permission of the property owner.

City Park recently hired a graffiti eradicator to blot out some small, unauthorized murals on an unused brick building — including a paper print made by the internationally known artist ...