"Boy this is beautiful!"

Nancy, Jane, Greg (artist), and Jill all gathered early on the day of the Historic Southwest street mural to chalk out the design.

This story was adapted from a submission from Jane Townsend, Historic Southwest Neighbor and member of the RColorful Corners planning committee. She sent it the evening after this street mural was completed. For additional information about this project check our website.

I returned to the paint site several times from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm, while walking my dog, Leon Redbone, because I was concerned about the street closing signs. Since I didn't see anyone else of our group around, I decided not to move them out of the street myself because in fact, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Historic Southwest neighborhood leaders and others look over the almost finished mural, right before the big thunder storm.

First of all, I witnessed three cars come through the outer barriers but then stop when they saw the mural and turn around. You could tell they were impressed and while they probably would have driven over and through some kind of road construction, they really didn't want to drive over this mural. The second and best thing was having a jogger come along while Leon and I were standing there and stop almost in his tracks. It was still raining lightly, but he just looked and said, "Boy this is beautiful. Who did this?"

I explained that our neighborhood association had been brought together by a larger professional group (RNeighbors) to create this and that we had just finished it today before the rain. He just looked at me as though I had done the whole thing myself (which, of course, I couldn't quite resist) and said with such genuine feeling, "Thank you for doing this!" I could have stood on that corner by that mural all night.

Thank you forever for the EFFORT you all put into the success of our neighborhood mural. I also want to commend my neighbor, Nancy Berkman and her granddaughter, Abigail LeQuia, who came early and stayed late and did everyone of the tasks involved. Two more of the best people I know for staying the course through thick and thin are Tammy Greenwood and Wayne Norrie. And if you ever need anyone to give her all on any size project, then you call Nancy Slocumb. I was just proud to be in such good company for a whole day.

We welcome other stories from Neighbors and reactions to the Street Mural, if you have one, e-mail RNeighbors.