City Safari: The Golden Years In Philadelphia
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Wed, May 15, 2019
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There’s no better way to get a sense of the city’s latest mural arts projects than to ride around in a car with Mural Arts Philadelphia (MAP) Executive Director, Jane Golden.
This was my third city road trip with Golden. The previous tours were years ago and followed the same pattern: I sat in the front seat with driver Cari Feiler Bender of Relief Communications, LLC, while Jane sat in the back, a stash of MAP notes on her lap. Not that Jane Golden needs notes, of course, but it’s always good to have something to look at amid the running threads of commentary you always get when there’s a Golden present.
Meeting Jane and Cari for this tour meant walking up Broad Street from City Hall to PAFA, where the Feiler Bender car would be waiting. I spotted Jane on the sidewalk before the car came into view. She was talking with a friend or passerby who had just highjacked her ear. When you’re Jane Golden everybody wants to highjack your ear although once Jane spotted me she was by my side faster than a Steeplechase winning horse.
After greetings are exchanged, I join Jane in the little car that moves swiftly into traffic. Broad Street isn’t too bad even though it is a Friday, traditionally the worst traffic day of the week. We’re on a tight schedule. Ten minutes into the tour, I learn that after me Jane is to meet the former Secretary of Defense (and his wife) under President Bush at the Bellevue for another private city tour of notable murals.
Cari heads down Arch Street to 22nd, then onto the Parkway around the Eakins Oval and near the Spring Garden Street Bridge. Jane is already in bubbling conversation mode, so we’re hitting on some heady topics: homelessness and increasing violence in the city. Jane expresses some worry about the latter, and then mentions MAP’s work with the justice system and the youth offender program that allows troubled kids to help in the creation of outdoor art.
“Art brings us back to the world. I’m always fascinated how people respond to art, everyone connects to it on some level,” she says.
She mentions Philadelphia’s low recidivism rate, the lowest in the country, although a few minutes earlier I had told her that I found it ironic that although Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner promised a liberalization of abusive incarceration laws the opposite of that seems to be happening. More and more of the opioid-addicted homeless seem to be finding their way to the prisons in the Northeast for minor infractions like possession and parole violations.
As Cari heads to Park Towne Place to show me Parkway Daydreams, a colorful and whimsical mural by Miriam Singer dedicated in 2017, I mention the fact that there’s now a regular popular cable TV show about crime in Philadelphia. Jane and Cari both shake their heads in disbelief: what terrible publicity for the city, they seem to be thinking. As an aside, Jane mentions that she has a brother in Clearwater, Florida. We all agree that Clearwater is a nice place to visit but it probably wouldn’t make a good home for tried and true city people.
On the Spring Garden Bridge life springs into action with tulips. The 600 foot long mural, Sing Because It’s Heard, was created by hundreds of kids who studied the work of Diego Rivera and the wealth of Mexican art in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. MAP’s website states that the motif was inspired by the PMA’s fall 2016 exhibition, Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950.
Traffic lights punctuate our art talk, the perfect time to ask about these journalist mini tours. Cari and Jane chime in together. They happen about 2 or three times a year; the last big press tour was with 7 Philadelphia Inquirer reporters in a mini bus not driven by Cari. “Not driven by Cari?” I’m thinking. “That was a really fun event,” Jane recalls. “They were mostly young reporters.”
Suddenly we’re face to face with Times Journey: Patti LaBelle, a mural by Peter Pagast (2004) at 3413 Mantua Avenue. The mural’s muted gray steel colors are fantastic and there’s no sense that the mural needs restoration although Jane mentions that MAP will work on it this summer.
We’re deep into the Mantua area now and the light traffic pattern is still holding up. There don’t seem to be many people on the sidewalks, either. Jane points out two more murals, Wild Iris by Paul Santolleri (1999) and Tim Spencer by Willis Humphrey (2018). With the help of the Wilson Goode administration, Tim Spencer founded and led the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network in 1984, which later became the Mural Arts Project.
A great big Comic Book mural emerges on our right. Jane also calls it The Graphic Novel mural because it tells a kind of story and covers a good portion of the front of the Charles L. Durham Free Library. Although there’s no Far Side or Zap comic characters depicted in the mural, its carefree whimsical nature transforms the immediate urban environment like a visual B-12 shot. Looking at this mural, it is hard to envision Mantua as it once was: a crime-ridden den of danger.
We take another look at the Tim Spencer mural at 34th and Wallace as both Cari and Jane relate how the artist, Willis “Nomo” Humphrey, died suddenly last year in his early forties leaving behind three children. This mural replaces an older Spencer mural that had to be removed.
In an online memorial to the artist, MAP notes how Humphrey “will be remembered for his warmth and kindness, his ability to listen and engage,” and that “his vibrant, complex murals have become cultural touchstones across Philadelphia.”
In discussing the lives of both Humphrey and Spencer (also deceased) a quiet descends in the car that’s broken when a car going in the opposite direction takes a swift turn in front of Cari, causing her to break. While there’s no screeching of tires, it’s still one of those unwelcome city road surprises that would cause many to flip into road rage.
At Belmont and Lancaster Avenue, we’re hit with a battery of murals. Alex’s Lemonade Stand (which reminds me of Whitman’s comment that he preferred champagne to lemonade) is followed by A Spiritual Journey Elevates the Human Mind, a mural that Golden says attempts to universalize notions of faith, spirituality and belief, a hard task for any artist although the mural is apropos considering the name of its anchor building: the Sunshine Food Market.
At the massive MLK on Lancaster Avenue mural by Cliff Eubanks at 40th and Lancaster Avenue, located directly on the spot where MLK spoke to a crowd of 10,000 in 1965, Golden shares her worry that a developer might be building something in front of it soon.
Developers, like a plague of summer mosquitoes, must be monitored because if left unsupervised they could very well cause Philadelphia to go the way of Dresden, Germany during WWII.
The coming and going of developers is a common thread throughout the press tour. Jane would talk about the proximity of a new mural to a vacant lot and then wonder how long it would be before somebody came along and built something to block the mural out.
Although MAP gets three to five requests a day for mural projects, the process is not like snapping your fingers. Jane says it’s a process and that processes take time. It’s fascinating to me that people tend to think of Jane as some kind of genii. “People think that MAP can pull rabbits out of a hat,” Jane says. MAP employs about 300 artists a year and many of these artists have been working for 20 to 30 years.” Jane adds that while she wants to safeguard the positions of these long-term artists, “we have to make space for new artists.”
As we breeze over the South Street Bridge towards the end of the tour, Jane talks about a city mural to end all city murals, and that the epic newcomer will fill the entire AT&T building wall facing bridge traffic. “We did this on a whim,” Jane says. “We never expected the idea to be accepted but AT&T liked it.”
An artist has already been chosen for the project.
Riding up to the Bellevue on Broad Street, Jane spots the waiting black limo that will chauffeur her and the former Secretary of Defense and his wife on another private tour.
But just as Cari is about to pull into a temporary parking space to let Jane and me out of the car, a cab appears out of nowhere and cuts her off.
This was my third city road trip with Golden. The previous tours were years ago and followed the same pattern: I sat in the front seat with driver Cari Feiler Bender of Relief Communications, LLC, while Jane sat in the back, a stash of MAP notes on her lap. Not that Jane Golden needs notes, of course, but it’s always good to have something to look at amid the running threads of commentary you always get when there’s a Golden present.
Meeting Jane and Cari for this tour meant walking up Broad Street from City Hall to PAFA, where the Feiler Bender car would be waiting. I spotted Jane on the sidewalk before the car came into view. She was talking with a friend or passerby who had just highjacked her ear. When you’re Jane Golden everybody wants to highjack your ear although once Jane spotted me she was by my side faster than a Steeplechase winning horse.
After greetings are exchanged, I join Jane in the little car that moves swiftly into traffic. Broad Street isn’t too bad even though it is a Friday, traditionally the worst traffic day of the week. We’re on a tight schedule. Ten minutes into the tour, I learn that after me Jane is to meet the former Secretary of Defense (and his wife) under President Bush at the Bellevue for another private city tour of notable murals.
Cari heads down Arch Street to 22nd, then onto the Parkway around the Eakins Oval and near the Spring Garden Street Bridge. Jane is already in bubbling conversation mode, so we’re hitting on some heady topics: homelessness and increasing violence in the city. Jane expresses some worry about the latter, and then mentions MAP’s work with the justice system and the youth offender program that allows troubled kids to help in the creation of outdoor art.
“Art brings us back to the world. I’m always fascinated how people respond to art, everyone connects to it on some level,” she says.
She mentions Philadelphia’s low recidivism rate, the lowest in the country, although a few minutes earlier I had told her that I found it ironic that although Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner promised a liberalization of abusive incarceration laws the opposite of that seems to be happening. More and more of the opioid-addicted homeless seem to be finding their way to the prisons in the Northeast for minor infractions like possession and parole violations.
As Cari heads to Park Towne Place to show me Parkway Daydreams, a colorful and whimsical mural by Miriam Singer dedicated in 2017, I mention the fact that there’s now a regular popular cable TV show about crime in Philadelphia. Jane and Cari both shake their heads in disbelief: what terrible publicity for the city, they seem to be thinking. As an aside, Jane mentions that she has a brother in Clearwater, Florida. We all agree that Clearwater is a nice place to visit but it probably wouldn’t make a good home for tried and true city people.
On the Spring Garden Bridge life springs into action with tulips. The 600 foot long mural, Sing Because It’s Heard, was created by hundreds of kids who studied the work of Diego Rivera and the wealth of Mexican art in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. MAP’s website states that the motif was inspired by the PMA’s fall 2016 exhibition, Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950.
Traffic lights punctuate our art talk, the perfect time to ask about these journalist mini tours. Cari and Jane chime in together. They happen about 2 or three times a year; the last big press tour was with 7 Philadelphia Inquirer reporters in a mini bus not driven by Cari. “Not driven by Cari?” I’m thinking. “That was a really fun event,” Jane recalls. “They were mostly young reporters.”
Suddenly we’re face to face with Times Journey: Patti LaBelle, a mural by Peter Pagast (2004) at 3413 Mantua Avenue. The mural’s muted gray steel colors are fantastic and there’s no sense that the mural needs restoration although Jane mentions that MAP will work on it this summer.
We’re deep into the Mantua area now and the light traffic pattern is still holding up. There don’t seem to be many people on the sidewalks, either. Jane points out two more murals, Wild Iris by Paul Santolleri (1999) and Tim Spencer by Willis Humphrey (2018). With the help of the Wilson Goode administration, Tim Spencer founded and led the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network in 1984, which later became the Mural Arts Project.
A great big Comic Book mural emerges on our right. Jane also calls it The Graphic Novel mural because it tells a kind of story and covers a good portion of the front of the Charles L. Durham Free Library. Although there’s no Far Side or Zap comic characters depicted in the mural, its carefree whimsical nature transforms the immediate urban environment like a visual B-12 shot. Looking at this mural, it is hard to envision Mantua as it once was: a crime-ridden den of danger.
We take another look at the Tim Spencer mural at 34th and Wallace as both Cari and Jane relate how the artist, Willis “Nomo” Humphrey, died suddenly last year in his early forties leaving behind three children. This mural replaces an older Spencer mural that had to be removed.
In an online memorial to the artist, MAP notes how Humphrey “will be remembered for his warmth and kindness, his ability to listen and engage,” and that “his vibrant, complex murals have become cultural touchstones across Philadelphia.”
In discussing the lives of both Humphrey and Spencer (also deceased) a quiet descends in the car that’s broken when a car going in the opposite direction takes a swift turn in front of Cari, causing her to break. While there’s no screeching of tires, it’s still one of those unwelcome city road surprises that would cause many to flip into road rage.
At Belmont and Lancaster Avenue, we’re hit with a battery of murals. Alex’s Lemonade Stand (which reminds me of Whitman’s comment that he preferred champagne to lemonade) is followed by A Spiritual Journey Elevates the Human Mind, a mural that Golden says attempts to universalize notions of faith, spirituality and belief, a hard task for any artist although the mural is apropos considering the name of its anchor building: the Sunshine Food Market.
At the massive MLK on Lancaster Avenue mural by Cliff Eubanks at 40th and Lancaster Avenue, located directly on the spot where MLK spoke to a crowd of 10,000 in 1965, Golden shares her worry that a developer might be building something in front of it soon.
Developers, like a plague of summer mosquitoes, must be monitored because if left unsupervised they could very well cause Philadelphia to go the way of Dresden, Germany during WWII.
The coming and going of developers is a common thread throughout the press tour. Jane would talk about the proximity of a new mural to a vacant lot and then wonder how long it would be before somebody came along and built something to block the mural out.
Although MAP gets three to five requests a day for mural projects, the process is not like snapping your fingers. Jane says it’s a process and that processes take time. It’s fascinating to me that people tend to think of Jane as some kind of genii. “People think that MAP can pull rabbits out of a hat,” Jane says. MAP employs about 300 artists a year and many of these artists have been working for 20 to 30 years.” Jane adds that while she wants to safeguard the positions of these long-term artists, “we have to make space for new artists.”
As we breeze over the South Street Bridge towards the end of the tour, Jane talks about a city mural to end all city murals, and that the epic newcomer will fill the entire AT&T building wall facing bridge traffic. “We did this on a whim,” Jane says. “We never expected the idea to be accepted but AT&T liked it.”
An artist has already been chosen for the project.
Riding up to the Bellevue on Broad Street, Jane spots the waiting black limo that will chauffeur her and the former Secretary of Defense and his wife on another private tour.
But just as Cari is about to pull into a temporary parking space to let Jane and me out of the car, a cab appears out of nowhere and cuts her off.
