1200 Ridge Avenue. Photo by Jamie Meller. June 2022

Murals and Development Part 3: Tapestries, Memorials, and Puerto Rican Heritage

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.

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1340 Earl Street Section

Four-Story Single-Family Residence Approved at 1340 Earl Street in Fishtown

Permits have been issued for the construction of a four-story single-family residence at 1340 Earl Street in Fishtown. The semi-detached structure will include a roof deck accessible via a pilot house, along with two off-street accessory parking spaces accessed from a shared driveway, according to zoning and building permit records. The total floor area is listed at 3,636 square feet. The property owner is identified as Fishtown Realty LLC, with Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture listed as the architect and 6 Star Construction Inc. as the contractor.

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Mural: A People’s Progression Toward Equality, facing toward 19-27 South 8th Street. Credit: Mural Arts Philadelphia

Murals and Development Part 2: YIMBY Looks Back at More Street Murals in Philadelphia

In the 1980s, faced with mass demolitions and urban blight marring its storied streetscape, the city of Philadelphia responded with a sustained campaign of mural-painting. Over the course of the next half-century or son, the community, both mobilized into organizations such as Mural Arts Philadelphia and with the help of independent local artists, many of whom were virtuosos that sharpened their skills in the city’s budding graffiti scene, has wrought thousands of pieces of street art, earning the city the moniker of the “Mural Capital of the World.” Such works range from dazzling tour-de-force masterpieces stretching many stories high to humble art pieces that may be easy to overlook at first glance yet were nevertheless crafted with just as much love and care. Over the years of Philly YIMBY’s coverage of urban development, we have come upon many murals large and small. Below we have collected a few mural exemplars as part of our second installment of our ongoing retrospective series.

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5650 Bloyd Street Isometric View

Permits Issued for Residential Construction at 5650 Bloyd Street in East Germantown, Northwest Philadelphia

Permits have been issued for the construction of a residential redevelopment at 5650 Bloyd Street in the East Germantown area of Philadelphia, where an existing attached structure is approved for a rear and vertical addition that will expand the property into a three-story, four-unit building with a basement.  RAM Phila Community 15 LLC is listed as the property owner, with Parallel Architecture Studio LLC responsible for the designs and Loan Construction LLC serving as the contractor.

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