PHOENIXVILLE, OCTOBER 26
The Phoenix Steel Company closed in 1987. A national recession happened in 1991. Many businesses on Bridge Street were shuttered and empty. Although the Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation (PAEDCO) had created Phoenixville’s nationally registered Historic District in 1989, the downtown seemed as though it was still in mourning for the passing of the steel company in 1992.
At Bridge and Main Streets, Phoenixville’s major downtown intersection, where the building on the corner had burnt down in 1971, there was still an empty lot. Cars would park there illegally, and there were rust marks running down the walls.
A creative spark was needed to revitalize the downtown. The idea of packaging history and art for economic revitalization was the motivating force for PAEDCO to initiate the concept of a mural to be created that would tell Phoenixville’s historic story. With financial support from Phoenixville’s Chamber of Commerce, PAEDCO purchased the empty corner property.
Michael Webb, a respected professor of art at Drexel University, and Meg Saligman, an active participant in Philadelphia’s Mural Arts program, became involved in PAEDCO’s initiative to paint a mural that would cover the entire 40’ by 80’ wall. The artists met with community leaders and held public meetings at the Phoenixville Area Historical Society to gain input about what the people in the Phoenixville community would like to see portrayed on the mural wall. By 1994, PAEDCO had received grants from the federally-funded National Endowment for the Arts, the PA Council for the Arts and several private donors.
While the mural itself was critically important, PAEDCO also sponsored the plan to create a small park-like setting on the ground adjacent to the mural. Named Renaissance Park, the inscribed bricks are laid in the shape of Phoenixville as it appears on a map. The pebbles surrounding the bricks symbolize the Schuylkill River, flowing around Phoenixville, and the French Creek, which flows though it and bisects the Borough.
There was tremendous community support for this project. All of the inscribed bricks laid in Renaissance Park were purchased by people living in the greater Phoenixville area.
Now, twenty-one years later, the mural wall is being fortified and repaired and the wall will be repainted. The bricks in Renaissance Park will be conserved while the mural wall repair work takes place.
The Phoenixville Cultural Investment Project is sponsoring a public meeting at The Foundry on Thursday, November, 12, 2015 at 7:00 PM. Everyone is invited to attend this meeting to share their thoughts and ideas for reinventing and replicating the mural.
