Philly Walls

Day before yesterday, I met with a friend, and we walked through a large chunk of center city Philadelphia, taking pictures as we went. A few of them –

Some walls in Philadelphia have murals painted (or otherwise constructed) on them, like this one  – the “Lincoln Legacy Project” – in the 700 block of Chestnut Street.

I couldn’t get all of this mural in one photo. It faces into a narrow parking lot…

…and if I had stepped back any farther, the mural would be hidden by the building on the other side of the lot. (Or else I’d have been standing in the middle of Chestnut Street, which isn’t a good idea.) You’d need a wide-angle lens to photograph the whole thing, and I didn’t have one.

(I’d give you more information about the mural, but the mural project website doesn’t discuss its meaning – I suppose it speaks for itself. I can tell you that it’s partly a mosaic made of more than a million glass tiles, and that the left side was painted by inmates at Graterford Prison.)

Then there are walls that are artwork in themselves –

Carved stone on 5th street near Market.

Beside the stairsteps in Independence Hall.

The stair landing in Independence Hall. We often think of eighteenth-century architecture as fairly austere, and compared with what the Victorians built, it is. But builders in the 1700s were perfectly happy to include a bit of ornament, as long as it didn’t compromise the classical proportions of their work.