Tucson murals, spring 2000

Our previous post showed a long-gone mural on South 6th Avenue. One of the photos came from a collection of Tucson mural photos taken sometime around March/April 2000 by Bangbay Siboliban and Bettina Shzu. Bangbay gave me the OK to re-post the photos here, along with links to more recent photos that we already had here. Thanks to both of them for sharing these Tucson murals from 12 years ago!

Christ for Life church

Bangbay wrote “A church sports a mural-in-progress which shows destruction, paradise, and graffiti.” It was somewhere in South Tucson.

Greyhound bus station

Back then, the station was at 2 South 4th Avenue in downtown Tucson.

Update (February 20, 2021): Jenny Kilb emailed to say “I was the painter, in the early 90s. It was meant to be up for 1 year, but I believe it stayed until the end of the building.”

Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl

Here are three photos of a mural on South 6th Avenue in Tucson. The first shows a long view; the others show details. It's “Illustrating the Aztec myth of the two lovers Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, this mural exemplifies the strong influence of indigenous Mexica religion still present today.”

The bottom two photos are versions in Spanish and English. You can click on them for a larger view.

Memorial at a tattoo parlor

Bangbay wrote “This mural, on the corner of a tattoo parlor, commemorates the death of the small child under the Virgin Mary.”

The business here has changed, but the mural was the same — on our August 11, 2011 post In Memory of Crystal — though the color of the wall is different and there's now a “Parking in back” sign above the mural. It’s Rosy’s Beauty Salon, 4453 S. 6th.

 

Mi Casita

That’s Mi Casita Restaurant at 4439 South 6th Avenue, Tucson.

Fast-forward to January, 2011, the wall was yellow, but the two windows in the middle still had what looked like soot over them. Maybe what I thought was a fire inside the building was just everyday smoke coming out of those two windows?

Two Virgin Videos?

This photo shows Virgin Videos on West Niagara Street.

Seven years later — December, 2007 — Erik S. sent Randy photos of a building and a mural that look a lot like this one. Erik wrote, “The Virgin of Guadalupe is on a video store on the southeast corner of Grande and Congress.” At the end of 2010, Melodi King and I found the mural at Grande and Congress being repainted.

San Judas

Yerberia San Judas Tadeo, 4107 South 6th Avenue, Tucson: “A South Tucson shop advertises its religious amulets and medicines with a portrait of San Judas.”

By December, 2010, the store here was named La Orquidea... it had been selling floral arrangements and handling special events... was available for rent... and still had a mural showing San Judas.

More...

Thanks again, Bangbay and Bettina, for those photos! If you have info about or photos of these murals — or any other murals that used to be in Tucson — please leave a comment below or send me email.