Every Little Bit Helps
Come fall the community is expected to unveil a mosaic pathway made by 11 local teenagers on a pedestrian mall near the college.
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“I’m old enough to remember the fight over Truman College,” says Pat Murphy, director of the Beacon Street Gallery, which helped supervise the project. “At the time I was against Truman. I didn’t think they should displace all those people. But most of that’s forgotten. In retrospect it’s clear we needed a center for the community.”
“This place is a great place to hang out,” says Sonia Cosby, a 19-year-old Uptown resident who’s working on the project. “We bring radios out on nice days and listen to the music. You’ll hear it all: James Brown, Puerto Rican music, Mexican. We’re like family. All the kids went to school together. We call it the Uptown shuffle: from Stockton elementary, to Arai [middle school], and then Senn High School.”
The artists traced their designs on paper and then cut the mosaic pieces from long sheets of tile. “This is my chance to say, ‘I did that–that’s my work,’” says Teman Coger, a 16-year-old junior at Amundsen High School.
