Artists help revitalize businesses by adding a splash of color and culture to The Heights
The song "Meet Me on South Street" could well have been sung about the corner of South Street and Central Avenue in Jersey City, where a fanciful mural embellishes a brick sidewall at Daisy Cleaners. Two blocks south on the corner of Central and Charles, an artist's interpretation of Central Avenue spreads across the stucco wall of .99 POWER.
The two murals, completed in October, are the second installment of an arts project dedicated to revitalizing business from the neighborhood community by showcasing local talent in public works. Produced by the Central Avenue Special Improvement District Management Corporation (CASID), a consortium of 450 member businesses, it is expected to continue over several years along Central Avenue in The Heights section of Jersey City. "We have a vibrant artist community, especially now in The Heights, and we wanted to give artists an opportunity to leave their mark on the neighborhood," says David Diaz, CASID district director. "We have some artists who were very interested in doing this project and we were able to find them wall space and they installed it."
The project was facilitated when CASID received a Local Artist Program grant from New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs. Their request for proposals (RFP) resulted in a healthy response, enabling property owners with wall space to select the artists. "Of the paintings that were done, one is reflective of Central Avenue as it is today. The other is more symbolic of the community itself," says Diaz. "It really helped re-energize the district and give people something to look at."
The locations selected have often been tarnished with graffiti, so an additional incentive for doing the project is that murals tend to deter graffiti artists. "There's an unspoken code that you don't damage someone else's murals or artwork. These mural installations are hoped to go a long way in keeping graffiti off the walls when artwork occupies the space that otherwise is troubled by graffiti," Diaz explains.
Megan Gulick, illustrative painter, incorporated landmarks of The Heights in her mural: Mosquito Park's buffalo and bear statues, Reservoir Number Three, a Mayan birdhouse and colorful fish to represent the city's diverse population. "I think about all the people on the street," she says. "One of the things with the project is how to make it accessible to people who walk by. I didn't want to do anything with ethnicity in it. Fish you can do all different ways, so I figured that's the perfect metaphor for Jersey City. I wanted their faces to show because it's more interesting to have fish or anything interacting."
Gulick did the project because she enjoys challenges - like the logistics of being 4 feet 11 inches tall and painting a 20by-25-foot mural - and because she likes meeting people. "It's a coming out party of sorts," she says. "If you are painting on a wall for a month, there's no way to deny you're a painter. There's a lot of anonymity in being a painter, so it's fun to see the reactions to things, good or bad."
Just one block away from an elementary school, her mural drew kids who stopped to watch her work. She painted fish upon request and named them after the kids, who often returned with their parents for pictures in front of the mural. They felt like they were part of the installation.
Richard Lo Revere, impressionistic/realistic painter and draftsman, creates mostly architectural renderings and old-fashioned-style drawings of street scenes. His mural depicts a stylized "mirror image" of modern day Central Avenue. "As I was painting, people were really getting a kick out of the fact that they could recognize their surroundings and how different it looked than the usual grimy way that everything looks to us in reality," he says. "Some of the owners of the stores came over and said, 'Make sure you put my sign in there.' There's a spirit of recognition and sense of place that goes with that. People were taking pictures in front of it like it was a tourist attraction."
Murals make a community more interesting than blank walls and more interesting than gang tagging, Lo Revere says. Once ordinary walls, now artists' palettes, cost little for the shopping district in the sense that there's something new and exciting on Central Avenue.
Although the artists' contracts stipulate maintaining the murals in good repair for just one year, the hope is that they will remain for a long time. The ultimate goal is to have a mural done by a different artist on every corner of Central Avenue. "We hope to do this on an annual basis, install two or three murals each year," Diaz says. "Other property owners are excited now and really eager to be part of it."
Gulick says the project is important because it instills pride in the community. Says she: "Anything that lends a sense of culture to a community is a positive thing."
Author: Jasch, Mary
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