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Bright green and purple splashes began appearing on posters, paper cutouts pasted on walls and images stenciled on the sides of buildings more than a month ago. Many were accompanied by messages posted on white paper near the splatters, including one that read: ''Destroy the museums, in the streets and everywhere.”

Altered works include pieces by Shepard Fairey, a Los Angeles artist who is known for stenciled images of the wrestler Andre the Giant that have appeared with the word ''obey'' in cities around the world; and Banksy, who stenciled images of a girl jumping rope and a boy reaching upward on a wall in Williamsburg last summer.

“Nobody has yet reported the splatterings to the police, perhaps because city laws say that the art that was defaced is just as unlawful as the paint splashed onto it,” according to the Times. But the destruction has the street art community buzzing.

Marc Schiller, who runs a Web site about street art called the Wooster Collective, woostercollective.com, said he was disturbed by the ease with which art could be destroyed by an anonymous figure. And vintage shop owner David Brockman added that he was saddened by the attack on a nearby Swoon work.

''That was a revered and respected piece of art,'' he said. ''This is just vandalism.''

The New York Times: Defacer With Mystery Agenda Is Attacking Street Art