McElderry Park

My focal point for Wednesday 5/20 was McElderry Park, but I did manage to stray some. The neighborhood is bound by Fayette Street in the south, Monument Street in the north, and Patterson Park Avenue in the west. Some familiar sights in the surrounding area are the Hopkins Medical Center, Northeast Market, and the famous Dunbar School, which has consistently produced many of basketball's finest.
I am slightly familiar with the area, but not as much as I am with Pigtown. Two summers ago I volunteered at a HFH house about 5 or 6 blocks from Northeast market and my mother and I would head over there for our lunch break. And who would have knew, just right around the corner from the house I worked on there's, drum roll please, a mural!

That summer was also the summer I was learning to drive and I distinctly remember being ambushed by a flight of tweenaged boys on bikes. I also remember many blocks of low income housing that have now been re-placed by more gentrified, up-scale co-ops. And I don't know if it was because of this new higher priced housing, but to my delight, I found a row of colorfully boarded up houses painted by kids from the local community center.

One of the main reasons I choose to go to McElderry park when I did was because my mom was volunteering at another HFH house just a block from Northeast market that day. So mid-day my dad (who has been accompanying me) and I met her for lunch at the market and had her and her HFH buddies show us some murals not listed by the Office for the Promotion of the Arts. My favorite part about this first picture is that if you look in the bottom right hand corner, you can see part of the mural that is right next to Northeast market. (And yes, those are bird houses).

This second mural was painted on the side of a parenting & life skills center:

Below is my mom's personal favorite.

After my mom went back to her construction work, my dad and I went back to the map and, to our surprise, stumbled upon a mural in progress. The said mural was being painted by two MICA students (one of whom is pictured) at the PACA elementary school.