Walk This Way: Millvale’s Art Crosswalks

January 31, 20211 Comment

crosswalk mural of woman with wild multicolor hair

Wild hair. Crosswalk mural at Sedgwick Street and Grant Ave., Millvale

While no one wants to be a doormat, we might all wistfully hope to be a crosswalk. At least, we would if we were rendered this lovingly.

Standing on the corner, the woman in the street is quite the vision. With a plain face and porcelain skin, she is more antique doll than real flesh and blood. It is her hair, though–a psychedelic swirl of curled pinks, mauves, and orange locks spread out across a technicolor rainbow backdrop–that gets the well-deserved focus here.

The mural is painted across Sedgwick Street, in Millvale. It is one of a couple dozen similar murals painted last summer directly on top of existing crosswalks in the borough’s great little downtown business district. We don’t know who the individual painters are [artists: please get in touch so we can credit you!] but various reports have the murals loosely associated with the group that puts on the annual Millvale Music Festival. That free weekend turn-every-business-into-a-music-venue hootenanny, along with everything else, just couldn’t happen last year.

street crosswalk mural of large fish in water

Something fishy (Grant & Sherman)

street crosswalk mural of books on a shelf

BIG free library (Grant & Sheridan)

While the show wasn’t able to go on, Millvale’s civic spirit continued unabated. The murals are 100% focused on the community, with almost all of them containing unnamed but sly references to the small businesses that exist in the immediate proximity.

There are a pair of collections of disembodied haircuts near Shear Timing and Salon 22; a lineup of dancing tacos, hot peppers, and salsas by Baby Loves Tacos’ North Ave. location; a firehose dowsing a raging flame in front of the fire department. A row of books is just down from the public library; stacks of Pamela’s glorious crepe-like pancakes at the P&G Diner; happy kids and chocolate bunnies by Yetter’s Candy Shop.

As waistline-watching, model-building, music fiends, we’re wondering how Jean-Marc’s French bakery, Esther’s Hobby Shop, and The Attic Record Store slipped through cracks here, but perhaps those are all in the works for this coming summer.

details from different murals painted in crosswalks, all of haircuts or scissors

Curl up and dye (details) (Grant & Sedgwick; North & Lincoln)

street crosswalk mural of fire and water hose

Firehouse (Lincoln & Sedgwick)

At present, Millvale’s downtown community is at a real high point of healthy livability. Its storefronts are occupied with businesses from the mundane to the sublime: there are a couple fancy things, a lot of nice-to-haves, and plenty of nuts-and-bolts. Those of us looking at (and regularly walking across the bridge to) Millvale from across the river in Lawrenceville can tell you all about the slippery slope from this zenith of sensible sustainability to drowning in condos, Thai rolled ice cream, and weekend partiers arriving by the Uber-load.

The crosswalk murals that celebrate Millvale’s community point all this out beautifully, without ever needing to rub your face in it. This little borough with its candy shops and laundromat, diners, dive bars, and videotape rental, church-turned-concert hall and ex-Moose Lodge to trattoria Sprezzatura, has so much to offer right now–even in the depths of Covid-induced ghost towns everywhere–that we should appreciate what we’ve got and how we can keep it just like it is.

street crosswalk mural reading "Millvale"

Gateway to Millvale (North Ave.)

details from murals painted in street crosswalks

Happy kids! Beer-making icons! (Grant & Sedgwick; Grant & Sherman)

Taco town! (Grant & North)

street crosswalk mural of stack of pancakes

That is a LARGE stack (detail) (North & Lincoln)

Tiny bubbles (Grant & North)

Garden scene (detail) (Grant & Butler)

Walk This Way: Jeremy Raymer’s One-Man Arts District

March 29, 2020March 29, 2020Leave a comment

mural of Andy Warhol and peeled pink banana by artist Jeremy Raymer

Peel slowly. Warhol/electric banana mural by Jeremy Raymer, Mulberry Way, Lawrenceville

We can still go for a walk.

These are–take your pick—strange, scary, stressful, uncertain, even apocalyptic times. But we all know a daily dose of leg-stretching and fresh-air-breathing is crucial to both our physical and mental health during even the best of days. Make no exception now; you need those things more than ever.

The daily constitutional also happens to be one of the few things we can still do–outside of the home–that is just as freely available now as it was a month ago, before the plague set in.

mural of cartoon horse wearing suit by artist Jeremy Raymer

Log! Mulberry Way

Don’t look for any streets signs marking Raymer Way; you won’t find it on any maps. That’s just our name for it. But there exists a three-block stretch of lower Lawrenceville that fully deserves one of those ceremonial placards, like the zoo’s One Wild Place or Amazing Kids Way in Squirrel Hill.

It’s there, on two long stretches of Mulberry Way, an alley running parallel with Butler Street, plus another short block of 35th Street, where rock-and-roll mural artist Jeremy Raymer has created a one-man, open air arts district. It’s yours for the perusing any time there’s enough daylight to read the (often very dark) wall surfaces–and you won’t encounter enough other people to worry about social distancing.

identical brick row houses, one with elaborate mural across the entire front, Pittsburgh, PA

The house that started it all. Chez Ray, 35th Street

Jeremy Raymer, over email, describes the evolving process:

The entire thing started from the previous owner of the warehouse at 35th and Charlotte seeing me painting my house [across the street] and asking if I wanted to paint on his warehouse. I said yes and started covering the [35th Street] side with the heart, eyes, and Hedy Lamarr murals first, then wanting more space and moving into the [Mulberry Way] alley.

Once this was covered I did want more space, so a few months back, I approached the owner of Morcilla and asked about doing a small piece on the alley entry to the restaurant, so I did that and then I wanted to see about more space, so I approached the Perlora warehouse and after a little bit of convincing (from me and some of their employees who are fans), they agreed to give me free reign on the alley portion of their warehouse. The initial intent was just a practice space for me and its just organically grown into what it is now.

mural of man's face on service entry to restaurant

David (?), Morcilla back entrance, Mulberry Way

If you’ve spent any time in Lawrenceville, the Strip District, or central North Side, you know Raymer’s work. Think of the giant image of (super hero) Magneto along AAA Scrap Metal’s Penn Avenue building and fence, the full wall Roberto Clemente on Verdetto’s Bar in Spring Garden, or the big Deutschtown Sasquatch. There are also a ton of smaller pieces–of sports figures, wild animals, and art references–that turn up on commercial storefronts, restaurant interiors, and pocket parks around the city.

If those are the final, big marquee commissioned pieces, Raymer Way is the sketch pad, the studies and scribbles. “I am basically allowed to do whatever I please,” Raymer says of his agreement with the Lawrenceville property owners, “I am given permission, but no sponsorship and it has all been on my accord and at my own cost.”

Mural of human heart on cinderblock wall by Jeremy Raymer, Pittsburgh, PA

Purple heart, 35th Street

Raymer’s murals fall clearly in the world of pop art. They’re big, over-saturated with electric color, using spray paint–the medium of choice for street art–that often has a certain airbrushed quality, and focus on subject matter around celebrity, movie characters, cartoons, and visual puns. He also has a particular affinity for the color purple.

At their best, Raymer has an incredibly deft hand and soft touch with a can of Krylon. He’s got a great color sense for what’s going to pop from a cinderblock wall or read through the roll-up mechanism of a retail security door. His portraits of real people are arresting, vivid, and fill the walls with an obvious holistic vision that treats the space as a broad canvas to be considered in toto. Raymer’s goofier stuff shows that he’s got a sense of humor and doesn’t take any of this too seriously–something altogether missing from so many artists.

Jeremy Raymer mural on cement block wall, Pittsburgh, PA

Purple Hedy Lamarr, 35th Street

mural of large mouth in purple by artist Jeremy Raymer

Big purple mouth, 35th Street

mural of man's face by artist Jeremy Raymer

Purpleish man, Mulberry Way

mural of purple witch painted by artist Jeremy Raymer

Purple witch, Mulberry Way

mural of purple bunny by artist Jeremy Raymer

Big purple bunny, Mulberry Way

mural of block of blue cheese painted by artist Jeremy Raymer

Blue cheese blues, Mulberry Way

Now, I’ll be the first to say I don’t love all of Raymer’s murals. Do we really need wall-sized portraits of the green Ghostbusters slime monster, Simpsons characters, or–sorry, Star Wars fans–Yoda? A matched pair of Buffalo chicken wings with a halo is kind of funny … kind of.

But let me say this: I have tremendous respect for anyone who goes out there and does their thing and gets this much stuff done, over and over again. To spend one’s free time–not to mention money–on materials, in negotiating with landlords, and decorating the alley backsides of anonymous buildings, is a tremendous gift to Lawrenceville and the city at large.

… and that gift is yours, whenever you’re ready to take that walk.

mural of Yoda painted by artist Jeremy Raymer

Hrmmm, on walls he paints. Yoda, Mulberry Way

mural of green monster by artist Jeremy Raymer

Bustin’ makes me feel good! Mulberry Way

mural of chicken wings with an angel's halo painted by artist Jeremy Raymer

Chicken wings/halo, Mulberry Way

mural by Jeremy Raymer including a heart with keyhole and key

The key to your heart, Mulberry Way

mural of multicolor skull by artist Jeremy Raymer

Skull, Mulberry Way

Getting there: The Raymer Way murals are on Mulberry Way, lower Lawrenceville, between 34th and 36th Streets, as well as 35th Street, between Mulberry Way and Charlotte Street. There are plenty of other Raymer murals in near walking distance throughout Lawrenceville and The Strip District. There’s even a map of locations on his web site.

Follow Jeremy Raymer on Instagram at @jeremyMraymer or @raymerarttours. For contact information and a map of his Pittsburgh murals, see jmraymer.com.

Related: see also “An Orbit Obit: Where the Buffalo Roamed,” Pittsburgh Orbit, Dec. 12, 2015.

A High Five for the Skyline

January 5, 20204 Comments

mural by Baron Batch depicting cartoonish, colorful version of downtown Pittsburgh skyline

Real skyline above, fantasy skyline below. Dirty Franky’s Laundromat, Beltzhoover. [mural by Baron Batch]

You’d think the city would eventually run out of artist depictions and graphically deconstructed interpretations of the downtown Pittsburgh skyline. But … you’d be wrong.

No, four years on and five posts into the series, it feels like we’re just getting started cataloging every time we see clustered renderings of PPG Place, US Steel tower, the Highmark needle, bridges on either side, etc. That first story, from January, 2016, had a mere five examples in it. Looking back, our editors hang their heads low at this naively pathetic early offering–nowadays, we can bag that many skylines in a good weekend!

P*Town Bar sign including the Pittsburgh skyline

Silhouette city. P*Town Bar, North Oakland.

We must have walked/driven past the provocatively-named P*Town Bar on Baum Blvd. a zillion times, but have you ever really looked at the backlit, multicolor sign out front? It’s a perfect silhouette of downtown Pittsburgh’s tallest buildings forming an artful lineup against a pure white background. While it’s questionable that you’d get a vantage point to see these tall buildings in this exact arrangement, P*Town clearly gets an A+ for showing off city skyscrapers in all their glory.

It’s not alone. From Tow-tegrity’s giant hauling hook about to decapitate PPG Tower to the ambitious cyclist scaling the roof of Gateway Center for Bike the Burgh Tours, this batch of Pittsburgh city-scapes is almost entirely commercial in nature. Hey–it still took a (graphic) artist to put them together.

Hooked on the skyline. Tow-Tegrity, Inc. “Towing with Integrity,” New Brighton.

If you’re going to include skyline imagery and call your business or organization Pittsburgh this or Steel City that or River City the other, you might as well go all-in with a patriotic color scheme.

This time around, there are plenty of signs rendered in Pittsburgh no-brainer black-and-gold.

Skylines N’At. Pittsburgh Sheds N’At, Gibsonia

Pixelated Picksburgh^[1]. Steel City Cutting & Coring.

Skyline reduced to three buildings. River City Church, Swissvale.

412 Properties, Lawrenceville

sign for Bike the Burgh Tours with a bicycle rider on a silhouette of the Pittsburgh skyline

If you thought the complaining about bicycle lanes was bad now, check out this new plan. Bike the Burgh Tours, downtown.

waste bin plaque including the Pittsburgh skyline

A most livable skyline. City waste bin plaque.

Pittsburgh skyline on side of Ford truck with the message "the Official Truck of the Pittsburgh Penguins"

Pucks over Pittsburgh! Ford, the Official Truck of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Skyline looking south. Northside Community Development Fund, Deutschtown.

Of course, not every establishment felt the need to go with the de rigueur color scheme. Pittsburgh skyline logos also come in green and white; red, white, and blue; teal and violet; and green and blue.

No judgement here. These businesses are staking their claim as hometown products of Pittsburgh and should be rewarded for their effort. Hats–and in the case of The Cricket, lots of other garments–off to all of these places. This fifth time around, they all get a high five for the skyline.

painted sign for Cricket Lounge including skyline of downtown Pittsburgh

Even naked ladies like the Pittsburgh skyline. Cricket Lounge, North Oakland.

sign for Pittsburgh Community Services including the Pittsburgh skyline

Sci-Fi Sky. Skyline meets triangle + boomerang modern astral ring. Pittsburgh Community Services, Inc., Oakland.

Skyline as helping hand. Pittsburgh Cares, Lawrenceville.

Skyline as bar chart. Greater Pittsburgh Real Estate Services.

painting of downtown Pittsburgh at night

Skyline as public art. Irwin.

sticker on urinal with image of downtown Pittsburgh skyline

Hygiene City. Enviro-Master Total Hygiene Systems^[2]. [photo: Lee Floyd]

neon sign for Welcome Pittsburgh including part of the downtown skyline

Neon skyline. Welcome Pittsburgh, downtown.

[1] While Steel City Cutting & Coring wears their hometown bona fides right in the company name and color scheme, this heavily-abstracted graphic may be a true Pittsburgh skyline, but it could also just be some generic city-like thing. We have to include it, though.
[2] Enviro-Master is a national company, based in Charlotte, NC. It’s unclear whether the small logo, featuring three buildings and an angled gesture, are part of the corporate identity or local branding. [I couldn’t locate the same image–or any company logo–on their web site.] Regardless, it looks enough like a nod to downtown Pittsburgh and the Point that we’re counting it.

A Fourth Time for the Skyline

April 28, 2019April 28, 20192 Comments

mural, A Silver Fox Limousine Service, Neville Island

Let’s start with the obvious: there are a lot of representations of the Pittsburgh skyline out there. They show up anywhere and everywhere when you start looking–in street art and sponsored neighborhood murals, small business advertising and, of course, official city-branded vehicles and equipment. There are so many that this–The Orbit‘s fourth foray into collecting them–bags the biggest haul yet. Heck, we didn’t even bother with the newish emblems on city trash cans.

When looking at these, it’s best not to get too critical of the exact layout of downtown buildings or specific geographic features. So what if the A Silver Fox Limousine Service mural sneaks in the Empire State Building just to the left of PPG tower? That painting is undeniably downtown Pittsburgh. The same with Thai Gourmet Express’ vague set of spiky buildings behind a suspension that is very clearly not The West End Bridge–the east-facing river perspective and tight arrangement of tall buildings on a relatively small piece of land is good enough for us.

We’ll keep the blah-blah-blah short this week and get you right to the photos. Happy skylining!

mural including the Pittsburgh skyline along bicycle trail

mural, Jail Trail

handmade puppet stage decorated with Pittsburgh skyline

puppet stage, Pittsburgh Puppet Guild

news box with artwork of Pittsburgh skyline and pigeon

artist-created Pittsburgh City Paper news box, Squirrel Hill

mural of downtown Pittsburgh skyline by artist Baron Batch

Baron Batch mural, South Side Slopes

mural for Guys and Dolls hair salon featuring Pittsburgh skyline, Bellevue, PA

mural, Guys and Dolls hair salon, Bellevue

mural, Spak Brothers Pizza, Garfield

colorful mural featuring the Pittsburgh skyline

mural, Millie’s Ice Cream, Shadyside

mural, Iron Lung vape shop, Bloomfield

Thai Gourmet Express food truck, Oakland

The Three Ps. Specials board, Patron Mexican Grill, East Liberty

logo, The Construction Company

Healthy Ride bicycle share kiosk

bus shelter advertisement

chalk board, Delanie’s Coffee, Southside

Steeltown Marketing, Bloomfield

line drawing of Pittsburgh skyline on police van

City of Pittsburgh police van

Incisor Edition: Dental Art

August 5, 2018August 8, 20183 Comments

mural on brick wall of large tooth with crossed toothbrushes and the sign "Dentistry", Pittsburgh, PA

tooth & cross-brushes: Jeffries, Smith & Associates, North Oakland

Holy molars! Big teeth. Monster teeth. Heck–we’re in Pittsburgh–dinosaur-sized teeth dangle from storefront awnings, appear painted in exaggerated scale on wall advertisements, and light up the night in window-sized neon displays. The teeth often come to life in bizarre anthropomorphized versions of the real thing, complete with goofy smiles [a tooth with teeth!] and little arms bizarrely clutching their own teeth-cleaning tools.

Dental Art is genre you’ll likely not find represented at this year’s upcoming Carnegie International–and that’s a shame. Don’t let its everywhere and everyone populism lull you into thinking a happy, glowing, purple neon molar is anything less than the noblest of public-private art partnerships. Anyone may go in for the crown, but whether you make a bee line for the canines or you’re just bicuspid-curious, we’re all royalty in a realm this rich with tooth display.

neon sign of large tooth with smiley face advertising dentist, Ambridge, PA

Walko Family Denistry, Ambridge

Northside Dental

Why is dentistry unique among medical fields in advertising via super-sized versions of the body part being treated? We don’t find an equivalent mass of enormous feet outside podiatrists’ offices or giant schnozes at the ear, nose, and throat specialist. Sure, you’ll see some see a pair of big eyeglasses here or there, but optometrists don’t tend to lay out for sculpted, disembodied eyeballs. What gives?

Why, if every neighborhood gastroenterologist and gynecologist had massive public art-sized scale models of the digestive and reproductive systems in front of their buildings, we’d all learn something with a stroll down the sidewalk or drive-by trip to the grocery store. Cardiologists could light up terrific neon hearts, the stop/start blinking lights crudely simulating blood pumping through ventricles. Why is this kind of action only acceptable for dentists? To all the doctors in the Orbit’s readership: how can we make this happen?

large plastic tooth painted gold hanging in front of dentist's office, Pittsburgh, PA

gold tooth with big cavity: Affordable Dentistry, Shadyside

large 3-D sign with large mouth and toothbrush for Select Dental, Millvale, PA

pop-art dentist: Select Dental, Millvale

We can probably answer our own question here. Kids start out terrified of the dentist, and it only goes downhill from there. You think braces are bad? Try getting a double root canal!

As intimidating as a visit to the doctor’s office or hospital clinic can be, there is something about the dentist’s chair that inspires a level a dread like no other (routine) medical procedure. The forced-open mouth, novocaine injected straight into the gums, instruments of torture clinically laid out to aggressively scratch the enamel from our defenseless chompers. And then there’s Hobson’s choice, incisor edition: wintergreen or tutti-fruitti?

Oh, and how about that squeal when the drill is engaged–changing from ear-piercing ultra-high pitch to an oppressive grind as we helplessly watch smoldering tooth shrapnel spray on the protective lenses of all present. The whole experience gives this sometimes sweet tooth the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

anthropomorphized smiling tooth with toothbrush and toothpaste from a sign for McKees Rocks Dental, McKees Rocks, PA

this tooth could use a cleaning: McKees Rocks Dental

dental office sign with anthropomorphized tooth holding giant toothbrush, Clairton, PA

David S. Shoaf, DDS, Clairton

So it makes sense in a profession that invokes sheer terror in the minds of a significant portion of its clientele that the conscientious dental professional would do everything in her or his power to lighten the mood. These are not cruel people; we just perceive them that way. Bring on the bright colors, the big smiles, the pop art oversized toothbrush, lips, and pearly whites.

My Oakland-based dentist [no tooth sign, but she gets a pass because the office is in a big building] has some kind of custom, ad-free music channel clearly designed to be as inoffensive and restful as possible. While a doped-up hour with James Taylor, Enya, and John Mayer could be considered its own version of Hell, no one will actually be driven to rage.

What lies ahead may not be fun, these accommodations all seem to say, but we’ll do our best to make it all right. Much respect to all the dentists and all their big teeth.

wooden dentist's sign in the shape of a tooth, Pittsburgh, PA

wooden tooth: South Side Dental Pavilion, Southside

wooden sign for Dr. Petraglia & Associates dentist office, Pittsburgh, PA

ye olde toothe: Dr. Petraglia & Associates, Bloomfield

hanging sign with silver tooth in circle advertising dentist's office, Ambridge, PA

no words needed: Dr. Sooky Arpad, Ambridge

large tooth-shaped sign reading "Premier Family Dentistry welcomes Dr. Broring", Baldwin Borough, PA

Premier Family Dentistry, Baldwin Borough

Munhall Dental [photo: Lee Floyd]

bridge work, Pittsburgh Oral Surgery, East Liberty

neon sign with tooth shape in dentist's office window, Bridgeville, PA

David Regine, DMD, Bridgeville

Art Opening: Garage Door Murals

April 8, 2018April 8, 20181 Comment

garage door murals of giant cat head and abstract lines and stars, Pittsburgh, PA

Lawrenceville

Garages, man. The mythological backyard birthplaces of great art and invention–from Thomas Edison making light bulbs to The Kingsmen banging out those three chords to Steve Jobs and “The Woz” inventing Pac-Man (or whatever they did).

While little structures to park your car in exist everywhere, there is something quintessentially and uniquely American about the garage. Our obsession with the automobile, along with the affluence to afford the extra real estate–let alone, the sport SUV–and America’s young history, unencumbered by precious Medieval ruins, ancient bazaars, or sacred bones–makes all land fallow ground for building home for our cars.

While the three-bedroom split-level house with its integrated two-car garage has become synonymous with twentieth-century suburbia, there are plenty of interesting alleyway garages serving retail storefronts, row houses, and gingerbread Victorians all over the city. It is this collision of circumstances that, uh, opens the door (sorry) to great garage murals.

garage door covered with plywood painted with colorful bridge and hills, Pittsburgh, PA

Garfield

Mural painted on garage door of man on motorcycle with the Pittsburgh skyline behind him and a banner reading "Gone but not Forgotten"

Gone but not forgotten, Homewood

Some of these many retractable, roll-up doors have been gloriously decorated with large-form artwork. That makes perfect sense–the garage door is such a nice, big canvas–sixty square feet at the minimum; much much more when you get into two-car widths and double-door arrangements. Plus, the street- (or, more often, alley-) facing arrangement guarantees an audience of neighbors, scavengers, and garbage collectors as they trundle down the hill, possibly to or from their own garages.

garage door mural of heart and flowers with text "Bienvenidos a Brookline", Pittsburgh, PA

Bienvenidos a Brookline, Brookline

colorful abstract mural on garage, Pittsburgh, PA

Friendship

It’s an interesting opportunity. Most property owners don’t paint such wild, loose scenes on the exterior brick and stucco walls of the main house. But the garage seems to have a different set of rules–no one considers it sacred space, crucial to the visual integrity of the home. The neighborhood may look like Peyton Place from the street, but it’s Dazed and Confused in the back alley.

mural of colorful furry cartoon character painted on garage door, Pittsburgh, PA

Lawrenceville

garage door painted with crowd of people, Pittsburgh, PA

Garfield

garage door opening covered in plywood and stenciled with birds and birdcages, Pittsburgh, PA

Friendship ^[1]

brick wall over former garage painted with elaborate tag, Pittsburgh, PA

Garfield

An interesting sub-genre of the garage door mural shows up in these artifacts from a long-over radio station contest around pop group ‘N Sync. I was unable to locate any mentions of this on the computer Internet, but from our small sample size, it looks like participants were required to paint a garage door in tribute to both the singers and [defunct radio station] B-94, with the names of on-air personalities John, Dave, Bubba, Shelley and band members spelled-out. The one from Aliquippa (below) is particularly great for its crude renderings of Justin, Lance, J.C., and the gang.

garage door painted by fans of N*Sync for radio contest, Aliquippa, PA

B-94 ‘N Sync mural, Aliquippa ^[2]

The B-94/’N Sync murals would make a great subject for its own post, but we have no confidence we’ll ever see any more of these. [If you know of any, hook us up!] The contest probably ran right around 2001 at the height of ‘N Sync’s popularity and while it may have had many teenagers decorating the family car park back then, turn-of-the-millennia middle/high school students are now in their 30s and should have moved out of the house by now. We imagine even the most supportive and/or nostalgic parents took the opportunity to whitewash over these alley-facing memories.

garage door painted for radio station content as tribute to N*Sync, Munhall, PA

B-94 ‘N Sync mural, Munhall [photo: Lee Floyd]

[1] Given the quantity of both the stenciled bird and birdcage images around town, this particular artwork was likely not created by the property owner–nor is it a full mural. Regardless, it’s still garage door art, so we included it here.
[2] Shelley’s name is partially-covered in plywood and otherwise faded/worn away in the bottom row of panels.

The Over-the-Wall Club: A Winter Meeting

February 4, 20181 Comment

weathered brick and sheet metal factory wall, Etna, PA

factory, Etna

Every inch of the wall tells a story. Consider just the thick steel doors, rusted so far that a firey red is bleeding through the darker brown surface as if the earth’s crust was finally giving way to its molten core. Miscreants have scratched their tags and in-jokes into its surface and an off-the-shelf safety placard warns us about what we already know–DANGER lies on the other side.

Surrounding this lone entry point are a patchwork of industrial building materials: brick of a couple shades, cinderblock, concrete, sheet metal, corrugated fiberglass, PVC pipe, blue light bulbs suspended in a strand, and thick, high-voltage electrical wire.

There is but a single design detail committed for its aesthetics. Within one of the red brick surfaces, the mason has crafted an off-bias diamond that interrupts the stacked pattern in the gentlest of ways. Otherwise, this place is all business.

roofline with several commercial buildings, Charleroi, PA

roofline, Charleroi

If you’re tired of writing, the old wisdom goes, then you’re tired of living.

For The Over-the-Wall Club, there’s a similar mantra: if you’re tired of walls, then you’re really just tired of seeing. Put those eyes away–into a box in the bottom drawer, or send them off to the thrift shop so someone else can use them at a cut-rate price.

When last we met, the Over-the-Wall Club was pondering that old stand-by of the Dumpty clan, what’s on the other side? But let’s not ignore the trees for the forest. What’s right here in front of us may actually be the more interesting subject. Just because it’s blocking the view of those other things we think we’d rather be looking at doesn’t make it any less fascinating.

brick wall painted green and aqua with homemade address sign, Pittsburgh, PA

row house apartments, Oakland

Walls. America loves talking about them, and–gosh darn it–Mexico loves building them…at least, that’s what we’re told. But try to convince the federal government to put up a two-tone, aqua-on-lime green splotchy brick wall along the Rio Grande and see how far it gets you. In fairness, it’s a color scheme that maybe even Enrique Peña Nieto might get behind–but we still doubt he’s going to pull out the nation’s wallet any time soon.

alley wall with ghost signs and many materials, Butler, PA

ghost signs, ghost windows, ghost paint job, Butler

Another entry in the wall-as-modern art category. This geometric bricolage of styles and materials in a Butler alleyway competes with Etna’s factory row (above) in sheer density of visual stimuli. Two different mid-century Firestone Tires ads have ghosted themselves almost out of readability against a field of brick and stone, tin and particle board, paint and ash. If you can’t imagine a century’s worth of narratives playing out against this scenery, you’re not trying very hard.

tiled wall with cross and mountain, Pittsburgh, PA

ex-church, West End

If these walls could talk, they say–but some do! How does a former house of worship manage to preserve its midcentury terra cotta Jetsons cross and mount with but a few cracks and crumbles and still shed the loose bricks around it like tears at a funeral? I know, I know–it’s God’s way, or something like that, but there may be an equally fascinating or boringly prosaic reason. No matter how much church we go–or skip–we’ll probably never know.

facade of building with shadows of telephone pole and wires, Pittsburgh, PA

Industri l Engi & S p ly, Homewood

It’s the stories, man–the stories. The letters probably just fell off all on their own, but someone made a very conscious decision to block in those windows and repaint just one section in a warm, sun-baked yellow-orange that makes the whole mundane façade look like a poor man’s Mark Rothko. The criss-crossing shadows of a strong wooden utility pole and warped telephone lines decorate in the most abstract of ways.

interior of cinderblock warehouse with shadows of roof structure, Pittsburgh, PA

roofless warehouse, Strip District

Maybe there’s a set of parallel shadows that dance across the suddenly-exposed wall surfaces and make the whole scene light up like special effects at a discotheque or fancy lighting in a theatrical production. How many precious moments do we have before this old warehouse either gets a new roof or has the cinderblock walls felled to clear the lot? We can only wonder.

mural on outside retaining wall of fish and sunset, Penn Hills, PA

retaining wall mural, Penn Hills

…But that’s what The Over-the-Wall Club does best, wonder. What’s on the other side? Sure. But also how did we get right where we are? And how can we stay just like this forever? If only it were that easy.

Until next time, we’ll see you over-, under-, roundabout-, and upside-the-wall.

See also:“The Over-the-Wall Club” (Pittsburgh Orbit, April 12, 2015)

Go On and Take a Free Ride: The Tarentum History Mural

June 30, 2017Leave a comment

mural of rail car with famous natives of Tarentum, PA

famous Tarentum natives: Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, Henry Marie Brackenridge, Capt. J.B. Ford, “Uncle Billy” Smith, Sam Kier, and J.W. Hemphill

A rearing horse bucks at the sight of a beautiful woman through a rail car’s passenger window. High school sports fans celebrate championships of the Tarentum Redcats and Highland Rams. A pair of bonnet-wearing homesteaders share an emotional goodbye with a departing Union soldier headed off to war. Mercantile goods are unloaded from a flat-bottom riverboat to the R. McAyeal General Store. A Vietnam veteran dances with a mysterious one-armed monochrome man^[1].

These very public Norman Rockwell by-way-of David Lynch scenes come to us from the dedicated hands–and seriously overworked paintbrush–of one Wally Sommer. They all play out upriver, over the bridge, and downtown, in Tarentum.

mural detail of high school students with banner reading "Redcats basketball champs '67 '68", Tarentum, PA

Redcats basketball fans

mural detail of Vietnam War veterans dancing and "Welcome to RAM LAND" sign, Tarentum, PA

Welcome to RAM LAND, dancing vets

The history of Tarentum–from the native Shawnee Indians on undeveloped Allegheny River banks to present-day football fans tailgating before a Steelers game–is chronicled in an amazing right-to-left time-traveling mural spanning the equivalent of an entire city block in the Allegheny Valley borough’s downtown.

The long concrete retaining wall has been painted in one epic, continuous 180-foot scene that takes the spectator through more than two hundred years of borough history. Starting with native Americans in unspoiled lush summer lea, the viewer is taken on a multi-century journey through colonial-era mercantile settlement, Tarentum’s industrial heyday^[2], connections to U.S. war efforts, social change, famous natives, leisure, and business.

mural of army tank on train car with soldiers, sailors, and WACs on train station platform, Tarentum, PA

Tarentum’s contribution toward World War II

WACs

That this magnum opus was created by just one person–an unpaid, 61-year-old (at the time) volunteer who “runs a family-owned auto repair shop” at that–is pretty incredible. A 2010 TribLive article profiles the work of Sommer as he was still currently one year into the painting process. At that point, the artist estimated he’d already put 500 hours into the massive work, hoping to finish another six months later. [No word on when the piece was actually completed.]

Sommer may be an amateur painter, but he’s clearly got both talent and technique. Sure, there are some funny proportions and odd angles, the backgrounds get a little splotchy when you get in close and there’s a John Kane-like flatness to some of the larger scenes. Overall, though, it’s really quite an impressive feat that stands up against similar pieces by “real” artists and rewards close looks at the many tiny details Sommer has included.

mural of native Americans with land that would become Tarentum, PA

(Shawnee?) natives of lower Allegheny River

mural detail of two men in Pittsburgh Steelers team jerseys, Tarentum, PA

Steelers fans

The thematic device of a single multi-use train spanning a couple hundred years of local history was not without its bearing in immediate reality. Tarentum Borough, twenty miles northeast of downtown Pittsburgh, is bisected by prominent east-west train tracks that parallel the river and separate the town into distinct sections. Below are river flats with most of the commercial and industrial buildings. Above the tracks are largely residential slopes full of single-family detached homes, schools, and churches. The retaining wall-turned-history mural is just below East 6th Ave. and directly behind the old 1913 downtown depot, now home to JG’s Tarentum Station Grille.

rail worker and draft horse

mural detail of soldier reading letter and sailor waiting at Tarentum, PA train station

soldier and sailor at Tarentum station

You won’t find a passenger train that stops in Tarentum anymore (sigh), but as a freight route, the tracks that parallel the Allegheny River still get plenty of daily use. Tarentum, like many of its sister riverfront (ex-)factory towns, has “seen better days”. According to Wikipedia, the town’s current population of 4,500 is less than half its peak in the 1940s^[3]. So it’s easy to see why a large public artwork that celebrates a history of making things, winning wars, and establishing a nation would be appealing. But it’s also encouraging that this spirit still persists in the work of Wally Sommer. There’s no comparable mural project in, say, Clairton or Ambridge or right across the river in New Kensington.

mural of early American settlement with general store, farmers, and river boat, Tarentum, PA

early mercantile Tarentum general store and river boat

mural detail of Pittsburgh Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins logos, Tarentum, PA

Pittsburgh sports and the hardhat-wearing fans who love them

This blogger has opined on both the virtues and perils of large, public artworks in these virtual pages before. Unlike the Sewickley Speakeasy or Images or Rankin, however, Tarentum’s mural really feels built to last. It won’t take the daily roadside abuse of the former and we imagine a more invested maintenance plan than the latter. It also has the feel of a real we’re-all-in-this-together town centerpiece that will be watched-over, respected, and loved. Seven years on, the painting still looks fresh, vibrant, and as alive as the day Sommer finally laid down his brush. So far, no teenager with a can of spray paint has defiled the piece. Let’s hope it stays that way.

mural detail of Union army soldier with two women in Victorian dress at Tarentum, PA train station

Union soldier leaving from Tarentum Station

mural detail of train car windows showing man with A-1 Rental equipment, Highlands High School students, fraternal organization logos, Tarentum, PA

(present-day) mural sponsors, businesses, and civic groups are well-represented: A-1 Rental, Highlands High School, fraternal organizations

[1] We suspect the dancing partner is a fellow veteran of a more recent desert war–Kuwait, Iraq, or Afghanistan–but it is unclear from the painted depiction.
[2] The Big Steel era of the mural was sadly in heavy shade on the super sunny day we visited, so we chose not to include any of the substandard photos from this section.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarentum,_Pennsylvania#Demographics

Water’s Gone Cold: An Elegy for Tea Bags

February 12, 2017February 12, 20177 Comments

Side wall of Tea Bags with logo/mural (and painted-over tag line), Lawrenceville

Once, I’m told by my lifelong Lawrenceville neighbor, Butler Street included a bar whose sign advertised No TV, but a fight every night. Mark claims the message was no exaggeration–just pure statement of fact. That space is now V3 personal (fancy) pizzas. There’s still no television, but it’s doubtful there’s an equal amount of trouble.

Another friend talks about a saloon in Michigan called The Home Bar, so named because “no matter what you did, you can always come back”. The Home Bar is apparently still around, allowing Kalamazoo’s citizenry back in some thirty years on.

Advertising one’s establishment as a source of a certain amount of calamity seems like a strange business model, but it obviously works…enough.

Always in hot water has been Tea Bags goofy salacious tag line for at least a couple decades. It used to be featured in big scrolling letters under the rest of the bar’s alley side mural, but was sadly painted over a few years ago*. The slogan remains etched into the custom behind-the-bar mirrors, but they won’t last long…and you probably can’t get in to see them anyway.

The Main Street Lawrenceville/Bloomfield corner bar has yelled its final last call, packed up its Cherry Master machine, green bar stools, large jars of alcohol-soaked cherries, and loaded them into a box truck directed to who-knows-where. The process to transfer Tea Bags liquor license to new owners is well underway.

A well-stocked bar: soaked cherries, potato chips, Handi-wipes, paper plates.

The new, yet-to-be-named business taking over the space [assuming all the paperwork goes through] will be a fair departure from Tea Bags’ nuts-and-bolts no-frills corner bar. From Bloomfield Development Corp.’s posting of the business plan:

“The bar/restaurant is a price friendly location for those who seek educated bar-man ship (sic.) and well crafted cocktails, with an approachable yet notable beer selection, and easy yet technique driven menu items. Pop culture, art, music and skateboarding nuances will account for the subtle design details to create an easy feeling atmosphere that is appreciated by the local 25-35 age range.”

man and woman at bar with bartender looking on, Tea Bags, Pittsburgh, PA

Looks like somebody’s in hot water! The kind of typical skateboarding Millenials who will inevitably gravitate to the new bar’s “easy-feeling atmosphere”.

Call this blogger an old, non-skateboarding fuddy duddy**, but it’s painful to see oneself demographically excluded from a new place in the neighborhood before they’ve even selected a name.

It’s becoming a sad, repeated refrain–even right here in the virtual pages of Pittsburgh Orbit. The old place catering to every(wo)man closes from declining business or gets bought-out or someone just retires. The new owners want to get them some of that Google and Uber dough. Why eke out a living on dollar Jello shots when you charge six bucks for an I.P.A. and ten for a hamburger? It makes economic sense–if you can sell it–but feels like a little part of the city is dying with every one of these upsell transitions.

3-story brick building with Tea Bags bar on first floor, Pittsburgh, PA

Not an optical illusion: Tea Bags trapezoidal shape

This blogger won’t claim to have been a regular at the bar [so maybe I’m part of the problem!] but he’s slanted a few in its smoky, natural light-defying confines over the years. Along with Wilson’s Pharmacy, Sunoco, and the 54C, Tea Bags has been the most constant presence in the general Penn & Main crossroads for the last twenty years. I must have walked, ridden, and driven past the bar thousands of times by now–pretty much every single day. Even with that frequency, seeing the big-toothed grin on the sunglasses-wearing anthropomorphized tea bag never fails to bring a smile.

If it were up to Pittsburgh Orbit, we’d extract the entire Woolslayer Way mural wall and preserve it forever in a sacred, public place–just like Romare Bearden’s glorious “Pittsburgh Memories” mosaic in the Gateway Plaza T station.

That probably won’t happen, though. So take a little advice from us and get thee over to Main Street to check out Tea Bags’ smiling tea bags while you still can. The water’s cooling down mighty fast.

mural detail of anthropomorphized tea bag wearing sunglasses and with wide toothy grin, Tea Bags bar, Pittsburgh, PA

Grinning tea bag logo (detail)

* The reason is unknown, but we assume graffiti cover-up as the likely explanation.
** Not to mention grammar snob. Whoever wrote this business plan needs to learn how to deploy a hyphen correctly!

Art/Work: Big Industry Art

July 17, 2016Leave a comment

mural of abstract steel mills on brick wall, Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA

Mural, Hill District

They’re striking images. Tall stacks belching a blanket of smoke that blacks out the sky. Grim men with lunch pails and work shirts. A cauldron of molten metal is poured against a skyline of towering steel vessels. The tools and symbols of power generation: hydroelectric, relay tower, a key struck by lightening. Three ironworkers team up to hammer a bar of hot steel on an anvil as beams of radiant energy stream out, ostensibly the only light source in an otherwise unlit workshop.

tile mosaic depicting various industry and innovation from commercial building in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh, PA

Mosaic, Bloomfield

Mural of steelworker, downtown Pittsburgh, PA

(light-up) Mural, Downtown

Somewhere between social realism and folk art lies the realm of steel town tributes to the workers and industries that built them. The mills are (almost) all gone–as are the coke plants, glass and aluminum producers, bridge builders and pipe rollers. But you wouldn’t know it from the public art that still exists–and continues to get created anew–all over the place.

The depictions are of landscapes and people that many Americans wouldn’t choose to decorate with: rusting blast furnaces, smoke-spewing chimney stacks, utility infrastructure, big men–and they are almost always men–working hard.

Mural depicting workers with lunch pails emerging through the pedestrian tunnel to PPG's Ford City, PA plant

Mural, Pittsburgh Plate Glass workers, Ford City

Painting of steel mill and workers with metal and neon lights mounted to brick wall, Braddock, PA

Mixed (mural with neon lights and metal sign), Braddock

Much of “new” Pittsburgh would rather not talk about the steel industry. The air has been cleaned-up (sort of*), there’s a workforce teeming in eds, meds, and….TEDs (?) over yesteryears’ union laborers, and–amazingly–we’re getting some amount of national attention on things like quality of life, affordability, and fancy food. Famously down-on-itself Pittsburgh is even starting to believe some of the hype. Civic boosters and young urbanites want to put those big smokestacks and ginormous rolling mills as far as they can in the rearview mirror.

Thankfully, though, there’s a great reverence for the people and industries that built the region. In fairness, there’s also just a lot more visual power and romance to it. It’s hard to imagine similar wall-sized tributes to tech workers, robot engineers, bankers, heart surgeons, or academics. That said, The Orbit has long considered itself the Joe Magarac of blogs**–so if you’ve got some bare bricks, give us a call. Like Norma Desmond, we’re ready for our close-up.

Mural painted on cinderblock wall of iron workers hammering hot steel on an anvil, Red Star Iron Works, Millvale, PA

Mural, Red Star Iron Works, Millvale

* The actual quality of the air is still a mess–you just can’t see the problem quite so obviously any more.
** Or at least the Joe Pesci of blogs. You think this blogger is a clown?

Pittsburgh Orbit

Around every corner, a new phenomenon

Tag: murals

Walk This Way: Millvale’s Art Crosswalks

Walk This Way: Jeremy Raymer’s One-Man Arts District

A High Five for the Skyline

A Fourth Time for the Skyline

Incisor Edition: Dental Art

Art Opening: Garage Door Murals

The Over-the-Wall Club: A Winter Meeting

Go On and Take a Free Ride: The Tarentum History Mural

Water’s Gone Cold: An Elegy for Tea Bags

Art/Work: Big Industry Art