Puerto Rican Statue of Liberty
The “Puerto Rican Statue of Liberty” stands out for its depiction of the unfurled Puerto Rican flag covering the brow of the Statue of Liberty. My research has revealed that the mural was originally painted (presumably sometime in the early 1980s) by an anonymous graffiti artist honoring the 1977 independence activist takeover of the Statue of Liberty, making it a kind of documentary mural. When it was covered up by HUD workers in 1984, the largely Puerto Rican neighborhood called then-Mayor Wilson Goode to repaint the original image. Goode deployed the newly created Anti-Graffiti Network to repaint the mural, though they had to consult photographs and used wall paint instead of spray paint due to their position in a graffiti-diversion program. This led to the mural entering routine maintenance and restoration as part of the organization’s permanent collection.
Thirty years later “Puerto Rican Statue of Liberty” still stands in the Fairmount neighborhood despite the fact that the Puerto Rican community has largely shifted to another neighborhood. The mural has since become a site of convergence for the former residents, both displaced and those who moved voluntarily, at annual homecoming picnics. Every time a developer threatens to paint over the mural the word spreads, a protest takes place, and calls come flooding into MAP. Jane Golden, MAP’s Executive Director, said in an interview that there is a predominantly white group of homeowners that have made their own noise about the mural: “They have managed to bully their way into this position that there will be no new murals in this neighborhood because they just hate murals… I love the fact that it is there. In their hearts, they don’t want to be seen as politically racist. They are much more subtle. I love the fact that after we fixed it up there was a ceremony.”
The mural was restored in 2001.
