Still Revolutionary – Part 2 — Real Philly History with Jim Murphy

Philly started the Mural Arts Program in 1984 to stop graffiti … and it worked!

**Eye-Fooling Art #1 (Trompe l’oeil**): © Growth of a Metropolis, 2016 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Richard Haas. Location: 251 N. 3rd Street. Shows history of architecture in Philadelphia from 1682 to 2105, and includes some of the city’s most iconic buildings. I only knew one city tour guide who could easily identify all of them: Josh Silver. Unfortunately, he died last September. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of Real Philly History, Real Fast.

I love to tell people who tour with me that Philadelphia is still surprisingly revolutionary.

Want proof? Just look around as you walk about our city.

From the Percent for Art Program that began in 1959 … to Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program that started in 1984 … Philadelphia is awash in interesting sculpture and colorful art.

What other city has started two unique, revolutionary programs like these? None that I know of.

Fighting graffiti in the 1980s

The city’s mural arts program began in 1984. It was part of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network (PAGN) under the administration of Mayor Wilson Goode Sr.

Tim Spencer, head of PAGN, hired a young artist named Jane Golden … who soon started what became Mural Arts Philadelphia (MAP).

Since then, MAP has created over 4,000 murals … placed throughout the city’s 134 square miles of land area … and Philadelphia has become internationally known for its murals.

Pivoting to community art

When the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network closed in 1998, the mural arts program almost was shut down, says billypenn.com. Jane Golden recalls. “I asked Ed Rendell, who was the mayor at the time, if we could build on the spirit of anti-graffiti and create a community-based public art program — and he agreed.”

Today, Mural Arts Philadelphia is involved in a dizzying number of innovative community programs.

These include:

Paying hundreds of people who were homeless or economically insecure to paint 200 concrete columns supporting South Broad Street in the Walnut Street Station Concourse during Covid. The result: geometric patterns that made the walk underground brighter, pleasanter and more colorful.

Providing in-school and after-school arts programming and education for over 2,000 students at 16 sites.

Helping reclaim over 500 ex-cons from the street, says 6ABC. “I went from being a number and an inmate to covered in paint, doing something that I love to do and giving back in a positive way,” said Amira Mohamed. 6ABC quotes a Yale University study that says only 10% of mural arts ex-cons return to jail. That’s 6.6 times better than the national recidivism rate.

In addition to employing some 250 artists a year, MAP hires nationally and now internationally known artists to create murals in Philadelphia.

Meet just a few of these artists:

Amy Sherald is creator of an untitled, acclaimed work at 1108 Sansom Street that’s a powerful portrait of student Najee S.

**Eye-Catching Art: untitled © 2019 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program / Amy Sherald, 1108 Sansom Street. Photo by Steve Weinik.**

Steve Powers helped produce 50 rooftop murals in West Philadelphia called “A Love Letter for You” that ran from 45th to 63rd and Market Street.

Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, aka Haas and Hahn, known for spectacular work in Rio de Janerio, created “Philly Painting.” This program covered a four-block stretch of Germantown Avenue with vivid color in 2012. The project won a public art award from the Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network.

Faith XLVII/Faith47, a South African artist, is responsible for “The Silent Watcher,” a 19-story-high, 11,000 sq -foot mural at 3901 Market Street. The work is bordered by a series of yellow lights that keep it visible at night. The artist included the words “Philadelphia Maneto” from the City’s official seal, meaning “Let Brotherly Love Endure.”

But Jane Golden isn’t done yet.

Scheduled from now to 2026 (the Semiquincentennial or 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence), are these varied events … in collaboration with various groups:

A digital mosaic of “Love of the Game” by Nilé Livingston, commissioned especially for Philadelphia Soccer 2026. The mural will be created in collaboration with communities across Pennsylvania and Philly, and installed in the spring of 2026.

Printmaking By the People: A public art printmaking project about the Declaration of Independence. It includes artist-led, hands-on printmaking and a city mural inspired by the work.

A mural to celebrate trailblazing Black abolitionist and writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on the 200th anniversary of her birth … placed somewhere near the Betsy Ross House.

The People’s Budget: A project to get everyday Philadelphians involved in how to advocate for issues and learn how budget priorities are translated info funding. It will include Neighborhood Budget 101 Workshops, a special website and a People’s Budget Office at LOVE Park.

FloatLab: a unique platform for public art in the Schuylkill River at Bartram’s Garden and S. 56th St.

You just have to see the FloatLab to understand it.

And finally, Major Gateways. MAP is working with the City of Philadelphia and Creative Philadelphia to install beautiful works of art on the most visible walls people see when they enter the city. So watch for these at a gateway near you.

Interesting Oddities:

Jane Golden grew up in Margate, NJ, attended Mount Holyoke College and Stanford University, then assisted on a 10-story mural in Los Angeles. Sick with lupus, she returned to Philadelphia to be near her family. After hearing Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode say he wanted his anti-graffiti program to have an art component, she immediately sent in a resume. The rest is history. California’s loss was our gain.
Golden’s first job was huge: to paint a mural on a 636-foot-span of the Spring Garden Street Bridge day and night for about four weeks with a large group of young people from the neighborhood. Why? A major visitor was coming. Fortunately for her, the mural was a huge success. After the event, Mayor Goode said to her: “I think I owe you something.”
A mural of former Mayor Frank Rizzo near Philadelphia’s 9th Street Market was probably defaced more than any other Philly mural. Eventually, it was painted over. “Anyone can go up to a mural at any given time and deface it, but people just don’t,” Golden says. “Only about 5 percent of the murals that we have have been defaced,” she told the Inquirer.

Philly’s Mural Arts Program has been a huge success for 40 years, bringing national and international travelers here to see it.

So if you have friends or colleagues looking to travel, point them to Philly.

Tell them that Philadelphia is still revolutionary … 343 years after William Penn first set foot here.