Kensington Avenue, which spends much of the day shaded by the overhead tracks of the Market-Frankford Line, just got a bit brighter and a whole lot more colorful.
A “sprawling community art gallery,” as Mat Tomezsko of Mural Arts put it, was completed this week, with designs adorning the L’s steel infrastructure from Kensington into neighboring Harrowgate.
Murals, painted by neighborhood residents over the past year, have been plastered onto triangular gusset plates that connect the columns and beams holding up the overhead rail.
In conjunction with City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada’s office and Impact Services, Mural Arts held 30 free painting sessions. More than 500 people contributed to the 434 designs that have now been installed along a 1.2-mile stretch of the avenue between SEPTA’s Huntingdon and Tioga stations.
“We had a deck of cards and stencils to help get the gears turning, but most people just launched into it with little more than an invitation,” said Tomezsko, an artist and project manager for Mural Arts.
The Gusset Plate Project, as the effort is known, was led by the arts organization’s same day work-and-pay program, which hires homeless individuals and other vulnerable residents to create public art.
On Tuesday afternoon, the final piece, a “Tree of Life” design created by Lozada, was glued onto a gusset across the street from Harrowgate Park.
“They carry a message of hope and resilience in places where others might only see challenges,” Lozada said. “The gusset painting project is a bold commitment to a community that never gave up.”
The project is part of a larger arts initiative called Heart of Kensington Creates that also includes, among other things, curated street signs with affirmative messages crafted by Black artists.
“The fuller story of Kensington is still being written,” Lozada added. “This project helps us tell part of that whole, fuller story.
“I hope that as you travel through Kensington and look up at each gusset, you remember that hope lives here.”
MORE: Philadelphia rolls out public dashboard to monitor Kensington services
