North Square Murals

If you pay attention, you'll notice murals all over Waterbury. The North Square area seems to have the largest concentration, varying in subject and age, but mostly connected to the PRIDE Cultural Center and New Opportunities.











(Gabe's United Tyre is next door to PRIDE, and the mural on the tire shop is really a continuation of the PRIDE murals.)

This pair of murals (above and below) surround the parking lot at the corner of North Elm and Cherry Streets, near the New Opportunities building.

Many of the North Square murals are fairly old, remnants of efforts to revitalize a neighborhood that was devastated first by riots in the late '60s and then by poverty and neglect throughout the 1970s. There are pocket neighborhoods throughout the city that have yet to recover from the loss of the factory jobs that helped build those neighborhoods.

This last bit of outdoor art is in the same neighborhood (Cherry Street), but it's more recent and much more light-hearted--since it was created for Bender Plumbing Supply (in the former Benrus watch case factory), there is a toilet, tub and bathroom sink scattered about the undersea design.