New Kensington residents can help paint mural that will brighten gateway to city

A three-story mural will grace a gateway to New Kensington, and residents have one last chance this weekend to take part in creating it.

A third and likely final “paint day” for the community mural will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday outside of Voodoo Brewery, 956 Fifth Ave.

When complete, the mural will cover the Fourth Avenue side of the former Walt’s Deli building at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street.

Participants will be painting panels measuring five-feet by five-feet. No artistic ability is needed — it’s paint-by-number, with the design traced onto the panels, said Tim Holler, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and director of the Community Arts & Reintegration Project.

Anyone interested in participating can just show up, Holler said.

“That’s what’s nice about this process, anybody can do it,” Holler said. “We let anybody paint.”

Holler said his project is a “restorative justice-based mural arts program” built on community building, community revitalization, and reintegration of youth.

He started it three-to-four years ago, modeled after a mural program he had seen in Philadelphia. While that program involved adults coming out of jail in Philadelphia, Holler built his program around helping kids on probation.

“Rather than shaming them for being part of the system and getting in trouble, we want to show we want them to be part of the community, that we still care about them and want to see them succeed,” he said.

The New Kensington mural is the project’s second. The first was dedicated in Mt. Pleasant in October 2018.

That mural is 15 feet by 40 feet. New Kensington’s will be bigger, at 30 feet by 60 feet, Holler said.

While three juvenile offenders had been involved in the New Kensington mural early on, Holler said they were not allowed to participate in it for their community service because of the covid-19 pandemic. That also meant that the design process with the community this summer was done virtually online.

The mural will feature a mix of images of New Kensington’s past and present, with hope for the future.

Two previous paint days were held, the last on Oct. 3.

After finishing the first mural in Mt. Pleasant, Holler said they started thinking of a location for the next. They started meeting with people in New Kensington in August 2019, looking for a location. That’s where Michelle Thom came in.

Thom, of Export, is operations manager for Olde Town Overhaul, which owns about 20 buildings in New Kensington, including the former Walt’s Deli building and others along Fifth Avenue that they are renovating and finding tenants to occupy.

Voodoo Brewery is in one of their buildings, where Thom said they had a mural contest for the wall outside Voodoo. It was based on that, she said, that Holler’s program reached out to her.

Walt’s Deli closed after a fire in the building next to it in September 2018. While the building sustained water damage, Thom said the shell is solid and the roof is good. They’re working to find a tenant.

“We decided to choose a building in New Kensington this would work for,” she said. “We chose it because it is the gateway to the city.”

With the panels painted by residents, artist Bernie Wilke will finish the mural, Holler said. If the weather is warm enough, at least 55 degrees, Holler said the mural could be up in early November. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, it may have to wait until early next year.

While not yet in talks with any communities for the third mural, Holler said Jeannette and Monessen have come up as possible locations.

“The process is as important as the product — the fact that this is all built, designed and painted with community input. We hope to build that sense of pride again in New Kensington and the community’s we go into,” he said. “We’re so divided in this day and age. We forget the commonalities that exist in our community. We’re trying to build that sense of pride back up again.”