It`s all right,” said a taxi driver southbound on Michigan Avenue. ”I noticed it the other day. It`s all right.”
”I like that it`s not about struggle,” an observer said.
They were talking about Chicago`s new birthday card/mural, 60 feet high and 44 feet wide, on the north wall of Grant View Apartments, 1229 S. Michigan Ave.
The mural, created by Chicago artist Romano Maschietto in vivid acrylic, depicts bicyclists in Chicago parks. Buckingham Fountain is featured, and a giant arm, superimposed over the work, wields a paintbrush. The artist has titled the work ”Happy 150 Chicago.”
Building co-owner Colleen Grosz, who commissioned the mural and dedicated it to the City of Chicago in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 23, thanked the city for helping support the project through its facade rebate program.
”The whole idea of this mural is to say something positive on this wall about Chicago and to let people know there is life south of Roosevelt Boulevard,” Grosz said.
Grosz, president of Mortgage and Equity Resources Ltd., bought the former Townhouse Hotel in 1986 with two partners. As she told friends about her new rehab, she was amazed at the reactions.
”I could see that there was an image problem with this neighborhood. This building was so run down and plain when we bought it, we asked ourselves what we could do to give it a more positive feeling. About a year ago we decided to do a mural.”
Then Grosz heard about the facade rebate program in the city`s Office of Economic Development.
Rodrigo del Canto, deputy commissioner of economic development, directs the program.
”Under HUD (Housing and Urban Development) rules,” Del Canto said,
”the city can provide up to one-third the cost of exterior refurbishing to building owners in commercially designated areas. To qualify, the project must be in a commercial neighborhood where 51 percent of the population is of low or moderate income. The city gave $11,000 to this project because our staff and in particular our architect, Anthony Burnett, felt it was highly deserving.”
Grosz sought an artist who would want to make a happy statement on the six-story brick canvas.
”We obtained names of muralists from Chicago Artists` Coalition,” said Nancy Davis, who helped coordinate the project and the dedication.
”Several good painters applied for the job. But Romano had the most enthusiastic reaction to this wall. He spontaneously took possession of it. He got excited. He made sketches. His attitude was that this wall was for him.” Maschietto`s murals live under such diverse roofs as the Carnival Grocery, City Tavern, the Limelight Dome Room (his penguins and elephants have been painted over), the St. Tropez Restaurant in the Hotel Belmont, and Shaw`s Crab House in Deerfield.
Elsewhere in the country his murals have been on the move.
”In the early `80s, I painted about 25 truck trailers for Clipper Express,” he said. ”They are mostly animal paintings, but that was the first time I really painted big. Each was 45 feet long. I painted all four sides. It was a lot of fun.
”Thirteen or 14 of the trailers were shipped at one time on the Santa Fe Railroad. That was pretty exciting. All these porpoises and whales and penguins were moving down the rails. People called it the world`s longest moving mural, but I`m not sure if anything like that has been done before.
”Colleen (Grosz) liked my portfolio. But it wasn`t until after I was hired that we began to come up with a design.”
The wall is enviably visible at the wide intersection.
”We knew we had a highly visible wall with a lot of possibilities,”
Grosz said. A parking lot next door expands the view for southbound Michigan Avenue traffic.
”We could have painted 1229 on it in huge letters. Or we could have rented it (to an advertiser) for another sexy-lady picture. But we said no. We wanted something joyful for this neighborhood.”
In August of 1986, landlord and artist went to work developing a theme. By December, drawings were fairly complete. In February of this year, drawings were submitted to the city. In April the facade rebate program approved one-third funding of the mural.
”Colleen had the idea for the bicycles” featured in the mural, the painter said. ”But I wasn`t convinced. I wanted to leave it open, to find the best idea for the wall.
”I didn`t want to be locked into any one idea. But I did start looking at pictures of bicycles from different periods and working the parks into the drawings. Eventually, I came around to loving the bicycle idea.
”I grew up in a small Austrian town where the mailman, the mayor and maybe the school principal had cars. Everyone else had a bicycle or they walked.”
What better way to represent the city, the artist and the sponsor asked, than to show people having fun in the city`s parks?
”The bicycle theme allowed a broader vocabulary for the work,”
Maschietto said. ”I could show the diversity of Chicago`s people. Anybody in the city can use the parks any day for free. Bicycling along the lakefront is beautiful. It`s a healthy activity that brings together all kinds of people who might not otherwise meet.”
The people pictured are a mix-Oriental, Hispanic, white and black. They are all ages. To the side where the building drops to one story, a child rides alone.
”This little boy was hanging around the site while we were painting,”
Maschietto said, ”so I painted him in.”
The first paint touched the wall in early June, with artists David Huebner and Bob Schmeltzer assisting. By the end of July the mural was complete.
A man rides an old-fashioned bicycle with a large front wheel; another cyclist zooms on a 10-speed toward the viewer. Slashes of green indicate grass.
”The final design was somewhat realistic,” the artist said.
”I combined Expressionism, Impressionism, photo realism and a couple other things.
”I wanted to make a contemporary painting, and I wanted to use a variety of painting styles to enhance the idea. I achieved what I wanted.”
At the dedication, Margaret Burroughs, parks department commissioner, congratulated the artist and the owners for contributing to the revitalization of the Near South Side. Also at the dedication was Bill Walker, who in 1967 painted the city`s first large public mural, ”The Wall of Respect,” at 43d Street and Langley Avenue.
Walker had few words. Mostly, he looked at the younger artist and looked at the mural and smiled. In a heartfelt tone, he said:
”This is a beautiful work of art. Artists will copy this style. This is a great birthday present to the City of Chicago. Thank you, Romano.”
