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| | | H Street mural takes shape | | May 15, 2009 | | | | Voice Correspondent | | Northeast residents are hoping to pay tribute to the history of H Street — and highlight its renewal — though a community art project.
The public art nonprofit City Arts recently unveiled a mural design that residents helped develop. It features a view down the middle of the street, with images of the annual H Street Festival. The bright design includes a diverse, active crowd of people holding balloons, carrying shopping bags, walking dogs and pushing baby strollers. The Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE, and H Street Playhouse, 1365 H St. NE, appear in the draft design.
Images of historical photos of H Street appear at the bottom of the draft mural in a timeline format. Residents want the majority of the mural to focus on the present day, according to City Arts managing director Danna Reynolds, but they “like the idea of showing the old with the new.”
Residents who attended a meeting last month offered many other possible ideas for the mural. According to Reynolds, residents would also like to see a depiction of the street sign at 10th and H streets.
Other ideas included depictions of now-defunct H Street businesses and the former Uline Arena, where James Brown and the Beatles performed. Residents also suggested a “phoenix rising” theme, saying they want the mural to express that “this is an area really coming back to life,” Reynolds said.
Others wanted to pay tribute to what the street looked like before the riots in the late 1960s, she said. The project is going to “put a positive spin on how the street is resurging after so many years of neglect,” said G. Byron Peck, City Arts’ founder and artistic director.
City Arts plans to install the mural on the north side of H Street at 10th Street NE, on the side of Mason’s Hair Gallery, 1010 H St. NE, which has operated there for 48 years.
Robbie Mason, son of owner Nurney Mason, said the barbershop is pleased to participate in the project. “This will bring some color to the block,” he said.
The 16-by-32-foot mural will be painted on concrete panels using paint that has a 100-year guarantee. While the technique and paint are costly, Reynolds says they will protect the city’s investment.
The project — which is funded by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the city’s Neighborhood Investment Fund — will cost $53,500.
Local public high school students who participate in City Arts’ Urban Arts Mentoring Program and graduates of the program who are now in college will help create the mural. The program offers young artists yearlong paid apprenticeships.
City Arts planned to present the final version of the mural’s design yesterday to the Northeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission (ANC 6A). The commission’s community outreach committee chair, Elizabeth Nelson, said she was not aware of any opposition to the plan.
City Arts estimates the project will be complete in June or July, pending further approval from the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
City Arts has designed and installed more than 25 murals and mosaics in D.C., including the Duke Ellington School of the Arts mural at 13th and U streets NW and the Frederick Douglass mural at 12th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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