ART ON THE AVENUE
West Reading Elm Street presents the
Cherry Street Mural Tour
During West Reading’s Art on the Avenue, the West Reading Elm Street program will be hosting a walking tour of public art in the older residential neighborhood adjacent to Penn Avenue. At 2 p.m., meet Dean L. Rohrbach, Elm Street Manager, and Mike Miller, Berks Community Murals, who will be your tour hosts! Beginning at St. James Church, located on the corner of 7th and Penn, the tour route includes six blocks of cheerful, brightly painted homes among the latest mural installations.
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ltimately the Cherry Street Mural Corridor will be an outdoor art gallery representing a variety of styles stretching from 4th to 7th Avenue. Three more murals are planned for the Cherry Street Mural Corridor in 2015. Additionally, a completed mural will be installed during the tour so people can see the processes used in their creation.
Many of our existing murals and mosaics pay homage to West Reading in hidden and subtle ways. Others are based on well-known works such as Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh or Marc Chagall’s I and the Village. Tour guides will point out these hidden mosaics and explain obscure mural connections. During the tour, you’ll also pass by blocks of brightly painted brick, trim and accent that was painted on select blocks during the Elm Street program’s Let’s Paint the Town event. Additionally, the tour group will have the opportunity to visit one of the homes Elm Street is fixing up through their Property Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resell (P.A.R.R.) program that takes blighted properties and turns them into neighborhood assets.
Off the tour path, but for you to find. . . To date, there are completed six murals on the 200 block of Kline Street, otherwise known as the Kline Street Mural Corridor. Featuring the works of area artists Michele Byrne and Daryl Szajek, among the featured artwork are images that depict West Reading landmarks, such as Third and Spruce Café, the Reading Hospital and VF Outlet. . . . We believe public art is important to a community. To compete in the marketplace, neighborhoods need to be unique and distinctive places to live. Details such as murals provide competitive advantages unmatched by suburbs. Public art adds vitality and liveliness to a community. It encourages creativity and engages residents in a civic dialogue about community values. Beauty and design are among the ways we make our neighborhood distinct. Over the years we have completed a number of murals and mosaics in neglected areas previously targeted by graffiti vandals that are now graffiti free. We hope you appreciate and will support our efforts to create an outdoor gallery and stimulating visual arts environment in West Reading.
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Avenues Summer 2015