The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and a Penn academically based community service course are helping to create a new beginning for West Philadelphia's district of Mantua, an area located between Lancaster and Hamilton avenues, 40th Street and the Schuylkill River.
This past semester, the class -- called "The Big Picture: Mural Arts in Philadelphia" and co-taught by Mural Arts founder and director Jane Golden -- collaborated with the Mantua community to paint a mural on a large shed at the Department of Recreation playground, located at 39th and Aspen streets. The community mural was based on pictures that neighborhood children had drawn.
More than 50 residents volunteered last Saturday to work on the project as part of Mantua Community Day.
Participants included children from the neighborhood, teenagers from anti-delinquent programs, Penn students and members from Mantua Community Organization.
"The kids got their own handprint on" this work, said Johnnie Durham, president of the Mantua Community Organization. "Now they won't want to graffiti it."
The mural was an effort organized by the Penn students and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program to involve the Mantua community in a larger neighborhood beautification project that will consist of two murals and one community garden. The murals and garden will face the Department of Recreation playground.
The murals will share a passing-of-the-torch theme. One will show an older woman quilting and the other will show children from the neighborhood holding the quilt.
"It's about building connections," Golden said.
The project has brought a wave of excitement and pride throughout the community.
"It's like a new beginning here in Mantua," Mantua resident Bob Perkins said. "Nothing been put up here new in six or seven decades. People used to be scared to come out here."
For some, expectations for the project went beyond neighborhood beautification.
"Now [the kids] are learning what real art is," Durham said. "They may go to school for it. Maybe go into advertising or something."
Unfortunately, community service programs like Philadelphia Mural Arts are in danger of being shut down, as Philadelphia Mayor John Street has recently proposed closing recreation centers in an attempt to reduce the city's forecasted $670 million deficit.
Golden and others are fighting Street's proposals.
"We're gonna stop the chaos and sickness that's going on in this city," Perkins said. "Let it be known to the city what Mantua is doing for its people so they can have a new beginning."
