Title
Recognizing the Mantua community in West Philadelphia as the birthplace of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network and Mural Arts Program, now known as Mural Arts Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Mantua is a community in West Philadelphia that is located north of Spring Garden Street, east of 40th Street, south of Mantua Avenue, and west of 31st Street, which was given its name in 1809 after the city in Italy; and
WHEREAS, Despite the presence of gang crime in the 1960s, Mantua has remained a proud community with strong homegrown organizations such as Young Great Society led by Herman Wrice and Mantua Community Planners led by Rev. Dr. Andrew Jenkins; and
WHEREAS, These transformational leaders worked tirelessly to bring new assets and opportunities to Mantua and thought creatively about how to empower young people to see that they had other options besides gangs and drugs; and
WHEREAS, Jenkins, who later became a Deputy Mayor, saw teenagers in West Philadelphia expressing themselves through graffiti and developed a blight removal initiative of his own in Mantua; and
WHEREAS, This ingenuity would spark then-Mayor Wilson Goode to appoint Tim Spencer in 1984 to lead the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network, which Spencer did up until his death in 1996; and
WHEREAS, The goal of the program was to reduce graffiti by providing job opportunities and life skills to the "wall writers," and with the guidance of a young artist named Jane Golden, channeling their creative energy into murals that replaced the graffiti with public art that reflected the community; and
WHEREAS, One of its most significant early achievements was the transformation of the Spring Garden Bridge in Mantua. Led by Golden and a team of young artists, this project was more than a beautification effort; it was a symbolic act of reclaiming public space and altering perceptions of the young people involved; and
WHEREAS, After Spencer's passing in 1996, Golden became Executive Director and led t...
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