I saw it from the bus - a pocket park where before had been a decrepit old building . And more! On the back wall there was a mural that incorporated the scar of the now departed building, and 3 dimensional workers, and a ladder.




I jumped off at the next stop and ran back to this new little park.

It was wonderful! Like none I'd ever seen before, art I could walk through, make a part of my life.

I returned again and again, summer and winter, with friends, with my husband, or by myself, with camera or without.


I did not know who had put it there, or why, or for how long. I enjoyed it for the brief year it was there, and silently thanked the anonymous painter who put it there.

And then it was gone. Went under the wrecking ball again, to make way for a parking lot. Pocket park to Parking lot - the way of modern cities.

With its going, I learned all the details, because the newspaper recorded the passing with an article.



The mural was painted by Pittsburgh artist Robert Qualters with the help of some of his students, on a commission by the President of Oxford Development Corp. and was called (while it lasted) "Pillars of Pittsburgh - For Thomas Cole".

In it were depicted the County Courthouse and the City County Building -- two Pittsburgh landmarks -- and Oxford Center under construction. Thomas Cole was a 19th century painter of the Hudson River School and an inspiration for Robert Qualters and this mural.

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Click here for more work by Qualters

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