On a sunny Saturday in early September, when neighboring Read Street is abuzz with the sounds of acid jazz and animated voices, the 900 block of Tyson Street remains tranquil.
The brick facades of the houses tucked away on the street are decorated with lime green shutters and window planters teeming with little yellow flowers. Even the sidewalk patio tables are colorful.
A new mural on the corner of Tyson Street adds additional color. The approximately 1,200-square-foot mural, which appears on homeowner Andrew Wesley’s south-facing facade, was painted by renowned muralist Gaia and depicts a detail of a fruiting olive tree and the text “Every bombed village is my hometown” in stylized Arabic lettering and, underneath, in smaller English text.
The mural is part of Baltimore’s regional participation in a global, grassroots public art campaign called 78 Acts of Witness, which endeavors to connect Palestinian resistance with international struggles against state violence and colonization.
The artist and the mural’s commissioners, Baltimore Artists Against Apartheid and NoMüNoMü, announced at the beginning of September that the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association had called for its removal, citing the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation’s regulation that murals should not be placed on the primary facades of historic buildings or on secondary elevations if they disrupt the sight lines in historic districts. A hearing with CHAP was imminent.
“Although the wall at 902 Tyson Street may technically be a secondary elevation, its location makes the mural exceptionally prominent,” says a letter addressed to CHAP from the MVBA, urging CHAP to decline retroactive approval of the mural. “The mural occupies a substantial portion of the view along the Tyson and Read Streets, and these structures have been identified by CHAP as contributing to the historical district and take on special historic context and significance.” The letter goes on to express concern about the mural’s “prominent lettering” and the precedent the installation sets for future homeowners who may be considering making a “major, highly visible alteration without authorization or neighborhood consultation.”
When asked to comment on the MVBA’s letter, Gaia was adamant that the project followed CHAP’s mural guidelines. Additionally, he said, “The green that we used and the nature of the foliage involved in the composition, the arrangement of the olive leaves, creates a kind of camouflage, in addition to two large trees that during the summer and spring almost completely block the view of the mural from a long distance.”
There are two aspects of CHAP’s provision on murals that aren’t entirely transparent. The first is practical: How prominent does the view of a mural need to be in order to disrupt the sight line of a historic district? The second is a bit more philosophical: What might reasonably be considered “historically significant”?
It’s true that the 900 block of Tyson Street has a storied history. In the early 1940s, most of the houses along Tyson Street were rented by working-class African Americans and had fallen into disrepair due to municipal neglect. The homes lacked modern heating and plumbing, and made the neighborhood a target of what was referred to by officials and developers as “slum clearance.” The city planned to build the inner ring of the Jones Falls Expressway right over it. But by the 1950s when plans were nearly underway, a group of white artists had moved onto Tyson Street and renovated the block, bringing a flashy and eccentric aesthetic. The new residents began painting their standard red housefronts in “giddy color patterns,” wrote a columnist in the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1948. Photos of the homes’ artful interiors were often printed in the “Women’s Pages” and in 1950, the Encyclopedia Britannica even cited the block as a city landmark — an example of “private urban renewal” in a “reclaimed slum.” The Black families who had originally lived on the block had effectively been priced out by the sudden influx of middle-to-upper-class white buyers. While city planners were more than happy to raze a street populated with Black residents, they quickly reassessed when the residents were white and affluent.
It’s worth asking, then, which era of historic record the MVBA aimed to preserve by challenging the mural on 902 Tyson Street — the perspective of the African American people who lived on Tyson Street without gas, hot water, or heat, or the white residents whose artsy urban living stopped the Jones Falls Expressway’s developers in their tracks?
It’s worth asking, then, which era of historic record the MVBA aimed to preserve by challenging the mural on 902 Tyson Street — the perspective of the African American people who lived on Tyson Street without gas, hot water, or heat, or the white residents whose artsy urban living stopped the Jones Falls Expressway’s developers in their tracks?
The 78 Acts of Witness mural is not the first mural in Mount Vernon to battle CHAP and the MVBA. In 2018, Mount Vernon residents Jesse Salazar and Tom Williams ran into similar issues with the city when they commissioned Gaia to paint a mural of Divine, the drag icon most famous for her roles in John Waters movies, on the side of their rowhome. They were told by former head of CHAP Eric Holcomb that the mural was in violation of several of CHAP’s rules, including exterior changes in a historic district without prior approval and painting over previously unpainted historic masonry. Letters of support poured in for the mural, including statements from Noah Brodie, the CEO of Divine’s estate; Christian Larsen, the associate curator of modern and contemporary art at the Met; and John Waters himself. Ultimately, the Divine mural was retroactively approved because of a loophole: the commission determined that their guidance on “exterior changes” had been vague enough to imply that it might only apply to general painting and not to public artworks.
“Somehow our rules with respect for murals are ambiguous or uncertain,” said then-Commissioner Larry Gibson during the November 2018 CHAP hearing regarding the mural’s status. “There’s some distinction between just painting and changing color and an artistic work of art. But going forward, there should no longer be that ambiguity.”
Today, the Divine mural is sandwiched between two brick facades on Preston Street. It faces away from the flow of traffic on a one-way street and opposes two large dumpsters. Fitting, perhaps, for the Queen of Filth.
Despite its modest visibility, the Divine mural seemed to be an exception. When a 2024 memorial mural of local artist and art therapist Sarah “Danger” Underhill was underway on Park Avenue, the MVBA and CHAP quickly ordered its removal using the same reasoning. Despite public outcry, and testimony from Sherwin Williams about the exterior-grade quality of the mural’s paint products, the city decreed that the mural, by artists Nether and Alex Fine, be removed at the personal cost of the project’s commissioners. The project was recently completed in Station North.
“They fell back really hard on protecting the architecture. Like they want Mount Vernon to look like this movie set,” said Alyssa Forsythe, one of the project’s leads, about the MVBA’s ruling. “They want it to look like this preserved space. It doesn’t feel, in my opinion, that it is as much political motivation, but it does feel ignorant. Like very out of touch with what the community wants.”
“They want Mount Vernon to look like this movie set…It doesn’t feel, in my opinion, that it is as much political motivation, but it does feel ignorant.”
Alyssa Forsythe, one of the project’s leads, about the MVBA’s ruling
Underhill and Divine may have had some things in common — memorial tributes from Underhill’s friends and bandmates remember her as a “beautiful freak,” an “unrepentant rocknroller,” and “a tireless supporter of local music.” In Waters’ letter of support for the Divine mural, he wrote, “I know it’s a crazy world out there, but like it or not, Divine is historical now, and I think most of Mount Vernon is proud of Divine’s history here.” It’s reasonable to argue that these are the traits that the Mount Vernon community has grown to revere, and that figures like Divine and Underhill represent a new generation of Baltimore’s historical figures.
The content of the mural at 902 Tyson Street is unquestionably different from both of the aforementioned murals. It doesn’t portray a Baltimore icon, but rather an olive tree, a symbol of ongoing conflict and genocide in Palestine. It also includes an anti-war statement written in a non-native language. At first glance, such a mural may not seem to be a representation of local interests, but a closer inspection reveals a network of connections between the content of the mural at 902 Tyson Street and its current location.
Activists in Palestine’s resistance movement have long stood in solidarity with Americans against racial oppression, and specifically with Black Americans protesting police brutality. During the 2015 uprising in Baltimore following the killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police, Palestinians responded to social media posts with practical protest advice, such as how to remove tear gas from your eyes, while organizers on the ground here often carried signs reading “From Baltimore to Palestine.”
The phrase that appears on the mural — “EVERY BOMBED VILLAGE IS MY HOMETOWN” — can originally be attributed to James Baldwin, who made the statement in 1968 in radical solidarity with Southeast Asian victims of the Vietnam War. Baldwin, who was not a Baltimore native but maintained ties to the city through his sister, was immensely critical of America’s foreign interventions because, as a Black man, he felt a kinship with people whose homes were being destroyed by military bombardment thousands of miles away. He understood what it felt like to have his community structurally devalued, policed, and occupied.
There’s an echo of Tyson Street’s history in his statement if we remember its connection to the “urban renewal” plans that Baldwin called “Negro Removal,” the “slum clearance” process that demolished nearly 1,000 homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods and forced over 2,800 residents to move.
“This is the time you need to give artists the opportunity to express their political beliefs,” said Joseph Orzal, a D.C.-based artist and curator and one of the leaders of the 78 Acts of Witness campaign, in a phone interview. “I think that’s what’s really good about this project is when you’re dealing with the issues of art in public — the apparatus of power will be exposed.”
At the CHAP hearing on September 8, Orzal and Gaia applied for retroactive approval of the mural on 902 Tyson Street, citing that the wall had previously been painted and graffitied and that the mural doesn’t conceal significant historic architectural features. The commission also acknowledged that the facade on which the mural was painted was originally an interior wall, until a mid-20th century demolition of the original 900 block corner home.
Andrew Wesley, the homeowner of 902 Tyson Street, said that they were unaware of CHAP’s guidelines and that they wish they could have had a conversation with the commission before starting work on the mural. “I’ve always thought it was just an ugly wall with patches of mortar and graffiti on it, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to beautify the neighborhood,” they said, when asked by CHAP about their motivations for commissioning the mural.
Several community members issued statements at the hearing in support of the mural. Megan Lizambri stated that she often feels powerless and isolated thinking about the Palestinian families who have lost their lives and homes in the ongoing conflict in Gaza. “This mural serves as a reminder that others in the community are feeling that same grief,” she said.
William Hicks, the owner of Mount Vernon Records on Read Street, attested that the mural has helped to beautify the neighborhood and has already brought more business to the shops on Read Street.
Scott Ponemone, a representative of the MVBA, took issue with the inclusion of a written message in the mural’s design. “When words are added to the painting, to the south facing facade of Tyson Street, they transformed the painting into a billboard,” he said. Ponemone also expressed concern that, if the mural was allowed to remain, it might set the precedent that prior approval is not necessary to make exterior changes in historic districts. He was the only member of the MVBA to speak against the mural at the hearing.
Ultimately, CHAP voted unanimously to retroactively approve the mural. In her statement on the commission’s approval, CHAP Executive Director Lauren Schiszik asserted that CHAP does not review the content of art and that CHAP reviews are limited to how proposed art installations impact historic architecture and landscapes. The commission approved the mural simply because it complied with their design guidelines.
“While the Commission determined that the mural complies with the guidelines, it is not a tacit approval of completing the mural without going through the CHAP review process, which incorporates community engagement and input,” wrote Schiszik in response to the Beat’s request for comment. “CHAP encourages public art in local historic districts as a way to engage residents and create neighborhood identity, and urges artists and property owners to be proactive in gaining CHAP review and community engagement before undertaking art installations.”
CHAP has historically been involved in the protection of local landmarks such as Read’s Drug Store, the site of one of the nation’s first successful student-led Civil Rights sit-ins. In 2017, CHAP approved Baltimore Heritage’s proposal to grant the five-and-dime stores along the 200 block of W. Lexington Street protected status and designate the area as the Five and Dime Historic District.
Not only does the Five and Dime Historic District’s designation preserve the architecture of the buildings in the area, it also brings attention to the stories of the people who worked there. In 2023, when designating the Sarah Ann Street Historic District in the Poppleton neighborhood of Southwest Baltimore, CHAP noted that the alley houses, constructed in the 1870s, “represent an increasingly rare building type” that “provided housing for Baltimore’s working-class residents,” while the Sarah Ann Street houses specifically “provided affordable housing for African-Americans after the Civil War.” The architecture is significant because of the people who lived their lives there.
The architecture is significant because of the people who lived their lives there.
Now the mural at 902 Tyson Street has an opportunity to bring attention to stories of Palestinian resistance and encourage dialogue about how it’s connected to the struggles and legacy of people here in Baltimore. In their testimonies at the hearing, community members highlighted that the residents of Tyson Street today are artists and activists. Between the variegated exterior decorations in front of their houses are signs illustrated with watermelons expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and posters decreeing “MAGA is a Fascist Cult.” Part of the work of historical preservation is acknowledging that there’s no changing the past — we can’t undo the city’s displacement of Black residents during the midcentury, nor can we undo 78 years of Palestinian displacement and dispossession. But now that the Tyson Street mural is a part of Mount Vernon’s complex and nuanced history, its presence makes clear the importance of architectural preservation as a symbolic gesture: not in preserving a building for its own sake, but in preserving what, and who, it represents.