Earlier this month, Philadelphia YIMBY published two write-ups revisiting various street murals that we noted in our work over the years; today we share a third installment in the series. The City of Brotherly love is notable for its astounding amount of mural artwork, which number in the thousands. As such, it is only expected that such artwork regularly surfaces in our coverage of the city’s construction and real estate development, whether they are situated adjacent to planned projects, endangered by obstruction or demolition from new development, or proposed to beautify new buildings. Today we look at three very distinct murals, one representing an abstraction of the city’s textile industry, another memorializing a local community member, and a third celebrating the city’s Puerto Rican heritage.
Mural name: Folding the Prism
Mural artists: Jessica Unterhalter, Katey Truhn
Mural location: 1217 Spring Garden St, Poplar, North Philadelphia
Year painted: 2019
Associated development: 1200 Ridge Avenue
Original coverage by YIMBY: December 2020
Mural status: Existing
1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. June 2022
In December 2020, YIMBY reported that permits were filed for the construction of a six-story, 46-unit development at 1200 Ridge Avenue at the junction of the Poplar and Callowhill neighborhoods in lower North Philadelphia. Designed by Coscia Moos Architecture, the 89-foot-tall, 60,404-square-foot building was to offer features such as ground-floor commercial space at the ground floor and parking for 13 cars and 24 bicycles.
A sizable roof deck, elevated 74 feet above the ground, would have offered dramatic views of the Center City skyline core, sited just two-thirds of a mile to the southwest.
1200 Ridge Avenue. Site conditions prior to redevelopment. Credit: Google Maps
1200 Ridge Avenue. Site conditions prior to redevelopment. Credit: Google Maps
The single-story modernist bank building at the site has since been cleared; however, five years on, brick rubble remains strewn upon the still-undeveloped wedge-shaped site formed by the junction of Spring Garden Street, a major local arterial, and diagonal Ridge Avenue.
While the lack of development is clearly unfortunate for such a centrally-located, transit-proximate property, there remains a consolation factor in the form of continued public exposure of Folding the Prism, a six-story-tall contemporary mural emblazoned in 2019 upon the side of a prewar loft building that stands at 1217 Spring Garden Street, just to the north of the proposal site.
Painted by Jessica Unterhalter and Katey Truhn in 2019 (you may visit the Public Art Archive page to view the full project team), the artwork is an abstract tapestry wrought in a dazzling, colorful array of interlocking shapes, capped by a dramatic sunburst at the upper left corner. The Public Art Archive, as well as Mural Arts Philadelphia, describe the work as follows:
This bold, bright mural in the Spring Garden area north of Callowhill responds to the neighborhood’s rich history of textile production. With curator Ryan Strand Greenberg, artists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn developed a design drawing on urban topography, patterns found in nature, and woven textiles. Folding the Prism sits at the intersection of history, ecology, and contemporary painting practices. It stands out in the landscape, reminding us of the city’s history in the textile industry, and the way that visual language can evolve over time.
Composed of ambiguous geometric forms, Folding the Prism is decidedly more formalist than smaller, “homespun” murals (such as the “We Have the Gold!!” work covered in the previous installment of the series), and open to interpretation in comparison to artwork with well-defined historic and progressive allegories, such as A People’s Progression Toward Equality, the Lincoln-themed mural also covered in the above-mentioned article. However, the Prism‘s abstraction offers its own brand of open-ended appeal, where the work leaves more up to the viewer to make their own interpretation.
1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. January 2023
1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. January 2023
1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. July 2024.
On our end, likely coming from our development-minded bend of journalistic coverage, we see in this artwork a certain kind of dynamic optimism inherent in the urban fabric. The reviving city’s seemingly inevitable “Manifest Density” (please re-read the prior statement if you misread it as “Manifest Destiny“) heralds not only eventual construction upon the adjacent vacant lot, but also general betterment of our communities though equitable, sustainable, and mutually beneficial urban development, with diverse elements interweaving into a vibrant and, against all odds, cohesive whole. Just as depicted on the mural, we believe that the sun will rise above the chaos and confusion and will shine brightly upon better horizons for us all.
For more concrete steps toward achieving this brighter future, we urge the city to reopen the Spring Garden subway station, which sits underground at the intersection of Spring Garden Street and Ridge Avenue beside the mural and the proposed 1200 Ridge Avenue development. The station, which opened its two platforms to riders in December 1932, sat upon the three-station Broad Ridge Spur, which branches diagonally off the main Broad Street trunk line. The station served the neighborhood for nearly 57 years until its closure in September 1989 due to declining ridership.
1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. June 2022. The abandoned Spring Garden Station sits directly underneath the intersection.
An entrance to the abandoned Spring Garden Station on the Broad Ridge Spur outside of 1200 Ridge Avenue in 2019. Credit: Ii2nmd on Wikipedia
At this time, however, the city is in the midst of a population growth not seen in 70 years (an increase of more than five percent over the past decade), particularly in its centrally located districts such as Poplar and Callowhill. A reopening of the Spring Garden station would come at a fraction of the price of new subway construction, and would do wonders for both residential and commercial growth in the neighborhood.
Situated just half a mile to the southeast of the shuttered Spring Garden Station, the Franklin Square station on the PATCO line reopened in April 2025, less than a year ago, after a 46-year period of closure. As such, it offers as good a precedent as possible for the latter station to open its doors to riders next.
Mural name: Tribute to Derrick Rowland
Mural artist: Ivben Taqiy
Mural location:: 627 North 52nd Street, Mill Creek, West Philadelphia
Year painted: 2017
Associated development: 623 North 52nd Street
Original coverage by YIMBY: March 2021
Mural status: Obscured from view
Memorial mural at 627 North 52nd Street, which will be obstructed by new construction. Credit: Google
Contrasting with the enormous yet abstract Folding the Prism mural covered above is a much more humble yet highly personal artwork, which once graced a blank wall of a two-story prewar rowhouse at 627 North 52nd Street in West Philly. Measuring around 12-by-12 feet, the work was a memorial to Derrick Rowland, who was born on May 5, 1969 and passed away on November 3, 2016, at a still rather young age of 47.
The formal-styled portrait, which depicts Rowland’s bespectacled, bearded, smiling visage, was painted by Ivben Taqiy, a native West Philly portraitist. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Taqiy had worked on more than 35 memorial paintings and murals in 2017 alone, which include the above-depicted commission by Rowland’s family. “It’s giving a conversation to the people without having to have a conversation with the person,” the Inquirer quotes the artist’s sentiment regarding his commemorative work.
The existence of Derrick Rowland’s memorial mural spanned only a fleeting period, lasting somewhere between four to seven years from being painted in November 2017 until its obstruction by a new three-story multi-family residential building constructed at the adjacent vacant lot by mid-2024. The artistry of the painting was commendable, with well-crafted glare and shading on the portrait and elaborate floral scrollwork on the ersatz image frame.
623 and 625 North 52nd Street. Looking east. Credit: Google
Derrick, we may not have known you personally, but the fact that your loved ones took such effort to memorialize you speaks volumes about the kind of person you were. The mural may be gone from view, but at least its digital form will live on.
623 North 52nd Street. Looking northeast. June 2025. Credit: Google Street View via Google Maps
Mural name: Tribute to Puerto Rican Culture
Mural artist: Samuel Lind
Mural location: 2124 North 2nd Street, Norris Square, North Philadelphia
Year painted: 2002
Original coverage by YIMBY: March 2021
Associated development: 2130 North 2nd Street and 2132 North 2nd Street
Mural status: Existing
Mural at 2124 North 2nd Street: Tribute to Puerto Rican Culture, by Samuel Lind, 2002. Photo by Jack Ramsdale via the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
On these cold January days (the temperature in Philly hovers around 20 degrees Fahrenheit at the time of this writing), most of us, unless the cold is your thing, can use a sojourn to warmer lands. Tribute to Puerto Rican Culture, a vibrant mural at 2124 North 2nd Street in the Norris Square neighborhood in North Philadelphia, takes us on a visceral visit to the sunny isle of Puerto Rico, where the thermometer reading currently hovers in the balmy mid-80s.
Painted by artist Samuel Lind in 2002 (see the Public Art Archive page for the full project team), the tropical-tinged mural flaunts feisty Flamenco flair, where palm trees and aged fortress walls juxtapose against a young couple tripping the light fantastic to the rhythm of a festive band banging out a rhythm on a pair of traditional conga drums in the background. A mysterious dancer sporting a spiky vejigante mask adds a further touch of inimitable Caribbean charm to the composition.
The mural at 2124 North 2nd Street, with 2130 North 2nd Street on the right and The Gotham in the background in center left. Looking southwest. Credit: Google Maps
The mural celebrates Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community, which, at a 2017 census estimate, counts nearly 135,000 members and thus makes up the second-largest diaspora for the US territory of any mainland locale outside of New York City. The Public Art Archive and Mural Arts Philadelphia describe the work as follows:
Tribute to Puerto Rican Culture by artist Samuel Lind is located in the Norris Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This mural began with a meeting between Jane Golden, founder of Mural Arts Philadelphia and accomplished artists, and members of the Norris Square community. They wanted a Puerto Rican artist to paint a mural celebrating the Puerto Rican heritage shared by many members of the community. Lind’s work in this mural celebrates that heritage by invoking the people, culture and the landscape itself that the mural brings into the city.
In March 2021, YIMBY reported upon an issuance of permits for the construction of a conjoined multi-family building spanning the adjacent properties at 2130, 2132, 2134, and 2136 North 2nd Street. The three-story, red-brick-faced, wood-framed structures stood complete by early 2023.
2130, 2132, 2134, and 2136 North 2nd Street. Looking southwest. June 2025. Credit: Google Street View via Google Maps
Fortunately, the double-sized lot at 2126 and 2128 North 2nd Street remains vacant, preserving the mural in public view, although, given the ongoing surge of development in Norris Square, we are not certain how long this advantageously sited lot (situated two short blocks west of Norris Square Park and within a ten-minute walk of the Berks station on the Market-Frankford subway line) would remain undeveloped. If, or, rather, when, a building eventually rises at the site, we hope the future project team finds a way to either preserve the mural in public view, or at least to reproduce a replica on the new structure.
You may read the previous article in the series here.
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