Murals being made, part 72: Scrub this street!

One side of the Union on 6th student apartments runs along Herbert Street, an alley between 4th and 5th Avenues. (The official address for Union on 6th is 316 East 6th Street.) I took the photo above at sunrise on August 23, 2022. The patterns from dancer's dress stretch into the distance.

Unfortunately, trash containers obscure parts of the beautiful mural. I watched for months, hoping they'd be taken away. But I finally gave up after noticing that at least one was labeled with the name of a 4th Avenue business, Drunken Chicken. (I guess that there's really no other place to put a trash bin… it couldn't be on 4th Avenue itself.)

In the summer of 2021, Joe Pagac was painting this mural-in-pieces along with Nolan Patterson (@basik__art, with two “_” characters) and Dixie Vonne (who has a private account, @dixievonne). Here are three photos from Joe's Instagram account @joepagac:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Pagac (@joepagac)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Pagac (@joepagac)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Pagac (@joepagac)

(If you'd like to see the original posts with comments, here are links…

• Joe painting the black background before there's color, on July 26
• the dancer taking shape, on July 27
• Joe climbing a grate that opens from the parking lot inside onto the alley, on August 1

…)

I snapped photos on August 10, 2021, showing the stripes and bubbles finished (?) and the dancer almost done:

David Aber took this photo on September 19, 2021:

Lighting was difficult around sunrise on August 23, 2022. But, later in the day, there might also have been trucks parked here and other stuff that obscured the mural even more. So here are photos from right (stripes starting, from near the dancer's dress) to left (bubbles):

It's so sad that such a creative and cheerful mural is hidden along an alley lined with trash bins. When Joe, Nolan and Dixie painted it, I wonder if they knew…?