Philadelphia fetes murals as mirror of urban life

By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Life!) - On a shabby street corner in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, a pair of murals covers the sides of two row houses a block apart.

The colorful paintings in Philadelphia depict a melancholy mix of incarcerated men, a dead boy and somber-looking people, most of them black. But there are also angels, a man growing out of a stout tree trunk and people holding hands in an apparent gesture of solidarity.

The murals, together called "The Healing Walls," tell the story of violence, punishment, remorse and redemption in a place with the highest rates of homicide and poverty among the 10 biggest cities in the United States.

Philadelphia boasts some 2,850 wall paintings and is getting ready to celebrate the 25th year of a program that has made the city the world capital of murals and spawned imitators as far away as Paris and Hanoi.

The murals are bolts of vibrant color in a gritty urban landscape where sidewalks crumble and litter blows through empty lots.

In bold, house-high strokes, they tell stories about local traditions such as quilting and playing music, trace the history of the neighborhood and depict real people from the community.

"It's really about making a space alive and lived in again," said Jane Golden, executive director of the Mural Arts Program, a nonprofit group that gets a quarter of its $6 million budget from the City of Philadelphia.

COMMUNITY PRIDE