Painted on five 4 X 8 foot plywood panels, this mural was funded by public money and created by community middle school youth. Designed to represent the history of the Umojafest parade, the images depicted past and present parade participants. For several months, it was mounted on the current “Neighbor Lady” building near 23rd and Union. Recently, the mural was removed. Please let us know if you have seen this mural, it belongs to the community and we’d like to install it in a new, visible Central District location.
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I think it would be good to find the CD News story about the creation of the mural and get it as reference to this story,
Here is the story from 2011.
http://www.centraldistrictnews.com/2011/08/umoja-fest-parade-begins-with-youth-mural-recognition-event/
Cheeda1:
Ian Eisenberg told me at a 23rd ACT Meeting that he took them down and threw them in the garbage!! When I inquired as to why he didn’t allow Umoja Fest the option to get them he said that he didn’t know that we were interested/connected to them because he didn’t see us painting them with the youth o_O
I was shocked by the blatant disregard and disrespect of the artwork the youth created to honor the legacy of the parade. Plus because we all coordinated together, Ian, his operations manager & Derryl Durden (CD Association), yourself, drill teams and others to make the ceremony unveiling the mural to the community happen at the start of parade in 2011. Furthermore Umoja Fest Mardi Gras parade was clearly depicted on the mural so of course we would have interest.
Some of this stuff really amazes me.
This is pretty much the same as what Ian told me two or three days ago when I asked where the mural had been moved to.
I am rarely speechless, but this was one of those few occasions!
Everyone, The mural has been FOUND! We are going to get it and install it in a visible CD location near 23rd and Union. Stay tuned….
The history of the mural is that it was paid for by Seattle Schools’ and King County’s Drug-Free Communities and Prevention Intervention initiatives. It was painted by youth from Madrona K-8. We will honor these youth and display their work soon!
Yay-y-y! Good work! Looking forward to seeing it displayed again.
Could you please clarify “found”? Where was the mural? How did it get there?
so they werent in the trash? i do like that mural!
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Wyking, you said:
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Some of this stuff really amazes me.
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This is amazing to anyone who cares about the well being of the neighborhood. On second thought, coming from someone who is comfortable in a milieu that includes nine hundred number operations and a bar theme of an Amsterdam brothel drug bar, I suppose that a delightful mural made by school age kids might be disturbing.
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I respect both Ian and Wyking and have found their statements to have balance and value.
But Ian has said the murals went down prior to his take over of the building and has also said that the building had to be re-sided. Now Wyking says Ian claims to have thrown the murals out. There could be a miscommunication about which mural was tossed. Obviously anything on the demolished brick siding would have been tossed. It sounds like the mural was salvaged prior to this.
Slow down on the judgements and let the facts come out.