Mural
“The town seemed like it was inmourning,” she said. “The steel company was no longer alive and well, and half the stores in the downtown were empty.”
The empty corner lot at Bridge and Main was a place for cars to park illegally, she said, signalling to residents something needed to be done there. They came together to try to decide how best to reinvent the space in the borough’s historic district that would “represent and symbolize it’s wonderful heritage,” Cohen said.
With financial support from Phoenixville’s Chamber of Commerce, of which Cohen was president, Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation purchased the empty corner lot for $50,000 in 1993. The total cost of the project was $140,000.
Thanks to grants from the federally-funded National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and several private donors, artist Michael Webb, a professor of art at Drexel University, and his assistant Meg Saligman, an active participant in Philadelphia’s Mural Arts program, were enlisted to do the job. The duo held meetings to hear what the community wanted to see represented in the mural and heavily researched the borough itself before beginning its design.
“With their skills, they brought together imagery that truly represented Phoenixville’s incredible heritage,” Cohen said.
While the mural itself was critically important, Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation also sponsored the plan to create a small park-like setting on the ground adjacent to the mural. Named Renaissance Park, the inscribed bricks are laid in the shape of Phoenixville as it appears on a map. The pebbles surrounding the bricks symbolize the Schuylkill River, flowing around Phoenixville, and the French Creek, which flows though it and bisects the borough.
The mural stood at the corner for 21 years before it was covered over. The mural wall needed to be fortified and repaired. The inscribed bricks in Renaissance Park were conserved while the mural wall repair work took place. Since then, Cohen and others have been steadily gaining support to see the mural return.
Gaining support
Last June, the effort to recreate the mural, using a digital wallpaper hit a bit of a snag. The Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation, which currently owns the property, wasn’t interested in recreating the mural. Kurt Kunsch, the organization’s president, said at the time the plan was to keep Renaissance Park as open space and that there was some “cool ideas for downtown” in the pipeline.
“We’re not selling the park,” he said at the time. “That’s not happening. We’re keeping it as open space and looking at some pretty great ideas from pretty creative minds. It would create quite a buzz both regionally and nationally downtown in Phoenixville.”
Cohen went before borough council to try to gain its support to recreate the mural instead using photos she’d taken in 1994. Council members voiced their support but held off on drafting an official resolution until a question of the property’s ownership was resolved.
Meanwhile, mural supporters gained over 3,000 petition signatures from community members last year at the Dogwood Festival, on primary election day and in groups including the Phoenixville Jaycees and students in the Phoenixville Area School District and at Renaissance Academy.
Fundraising begins
It appears those efforts forced the Phoenix ville Area Economic Development Corporation to rethink its plans. In mid-March, the heritage center and the development corporation reached a tentative sales agreement for the Renaissance Park plot, which is expected to settle April 28. The price tag for the property is $80,000, Cohen said.
Kunsch was unavailable for comment by press time Monday.
“(The development corporation’s) strategic direction has changed,” Cohen said. “We’re grateful (it) offered Schuylkill River Heritage Center the opportunity to reinvent Renaissance Park and bring back the mural. The sales agreement reflects that.”
Now with council’s support, and the property nearly purchased, Cohen said the heritage center has turned its attention to the approximately $50,000 production cost to recreate the mural using a digital wall paper. That figure includes the cost of the artist and the installation, which is expected to begin this summer.
Bob Heck, of Steel City Displays, took Cohen’s 1994 photos from the mural and digitally recreated it. It will be reprinted and applied to the wall as a digital wall paper.
The fundraising effort to collect the $130,000 needed for the property and production is set to begin in early May, Cohen said. She felt it wasn’t appropriate to begin asking for money until borough council had signed off on the project. Those interested in donating can send a check to: Schuylkill River Heritage Center P.O. Box 427 Phoenixville, PA 19460.
At last week’s meeting, Cohen and four mural supporters stood before council to ask for its blessing. She said residents and business owners including the Steel City Cafe and Molly Maguire’s have thrown their weight behind the project.
“(Let’s) make that corner come alive again as it once did back in the 1990s,” she said. Mural supporters agreed. “We have an obligation to bring the mural back to commemorate the borough’s renaissance,” said Ethan Bilson, a Schuylkill River-Heritage Center board member.
Supporter Marilyn Michalski collected signatures for the mural.
“There can only be benefits to have the mural back,” she said.
George Mansur, of Schuylkill Township, said he collected 148 of the 3,500 total signatures in support of mural.
“Everyone wants this back,” he said.
“People took for granted how great that mural was,” said supporter Adam Supplee. “It told the story of the borough’s heritage.”