Murals bring color to Lehigh Valley downtowns. Can they bring lasting change?

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Children tend a garden. Mature fruits are harvested from a tree. An older couple embraces as a white dove spreads its wings above them. Flowers bloom across a brick wall at Second and Hamilton streets, surrounding scenes of work, family and connection.

The mural, Grow in Peace, by artist Hector Castro, depicts hope, serenity and healthy aging across generations. For Lehigh County Commissioner Geoff Brace, it captured something both ordinary and easy to overlook.

“[It] may have brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw it,” Brace said. “It felt like a love story, common, but overlooked.”

The artwork prompted Brace to reflect on the everyday moments that shape community life and deserve greater recognition.

“It stirred some emotions about what happens in our communities everyday and how it’s worth seeing it in big, bold, beautiful colors on a big wall at a prominent intersection,” he said.

Throughout the Lehigh Valley, murals are becoming a more noticeable part of the streetscape. They cover building facades and parking garages, bring color to overlooked spaces and offer residents new ways to see their neighborhoods reflected in public.

In Bethlehem, artists Matt Halm and Jermel Fountain recently created a tribute to the South Side informed by conversations with residents.

In Allentown, artist Kyle Edwards sees public art as a way to help the city develop a stronger identity.

In Easton, chamber of commerce representatives describe murals as a way to make downtown streets more welcoming and encourage people to explore beyond familiar corridors.

But the projects all raise a common question: What happens when art becomes part of how a community presents itself and how people experience it?

More than a blank wall

The mural on Bethlehem’s Polk Street Garage grew out of community meetings where residents shared what they wanted the artwork to celebrate. The artists drew inspiration from the festivals, local restaurants and cultural diversity that help define the South Side.

“When you’re doing something on this scale, it just has a lot of impact,” Fountain told PBS39 senior videographer Jeff Frederick. “It really has the ability to sort of transform an area and transform a space, which is what we’re hoping to do here.”

Edwards, founder of the Inkwell artist incubator in Allentown, has installed about 50 murals, including projects in schools. When he works with young people, he breaks down the process of creating a large-scale mural into smaller steps.

“It opens up possibilities in their minds once they understand that they can take a small image and blow it up to a large scale,” he said.

For Edwards, the lessons extend beyond painting. Murals can help young people see their own creative potential and give them reasons to feel invested in their city.

“They don’t need more flashy buildings,” he said. “They need more reasons to be proud of the city, and murals do that.”

Edwards believes Allentown could build a stronger identity around arts and entertainment, much as Easton is known for its food scene and Bethlehem for its Christmas City identity and Musikfest.

“We do things in silos, and I think art is the path of least resistance,” he said. “Art and entertainment is our identity, and it’s great to see more and more people and institutions leaning into that truth.”

One of his largest projects in downtown Allentown covers about 9,700 square feet with oversized flowers inspired by the city’s old street lamps.

“Initially we were contracted to focus on just the front end of the wall,” he said. “Without any additional budget, we decided let's expand this thing, make it really incorporate the neighborhood in the back, so they don't feel forgotten.” 

He still receives photographs from people posing in front of his murals, reminders that the artwork can become meaningful to people who live and work nearby.

“A beautiful work of art is better than a drab wall, right?” Edwards said. “It beautifies a space in a relatively cost-effective manner, and it gives the community and surrounding area an opportunity to take pride in their neighborhood and take pride in their city.”

Art that opens doors

Andrew Ward has seen the connection between art and community from both sides, first as an art teacher and now as the owner of Room & Ward Vintage on Allentown’s ArtsWalk.

Ward taught for 12 years, including a decade in downtown Allentown. He took students to see art at places such as the Allentown Art Museum and involved them in community projects, including downtown window displays and painting. He also connected students with other artists.

Now, some of those former students visit his shop and see how his own work in the arts has developed into a business.

“They see that things are possible,” Ward said.

Ward wants to extend those opportunities to other artists and students. He is looking to collaborate with creatives, offer his shop as a place to show work and host events, and help build activity along the Arts Walk.

He described welcoming an author who was having trouble arranging a book signing elsewhere and offering to host the event at his shop. The connection grew into an ongoing relationship.

“It happens one by one, day at a time, one connection at a time,” Ward said. “Before you know it, people say, ‘Oh, what’s going on down there?’”

Ward sees murals and other public art working alongside new shops, coffee businesses, parks and sculptures to give Allentown a more vibrant feel.

“It’s all kind of working together to kind of build the new identity of Allentown,” he said.

The artwork may catch someone’s attention, but a stronger creative community also depends on whether artists have places to share their work, young people have opportunities to participate and local businesses make room for cultural activity.

Finding a city’s identity

Ward said he does not often hear people explicitly discuss how murals are changing their perceptions of Allentown. More often, he sees people photograph the artwork, attend unveilings and enjoy the spaces.

“I think people just take it in. I think people just enjoy it and they live it. They engage with it,” he said.

In Easton, chamber of commerce representatives have seen murals spread beyond the central downtown corridor. Projects on the South Side are intended to draw people into areas they might not otherwise explore and extend the vibrancy of the city’s more familiar streets.

The chamber also helps municipalities and nonprofits pursue mural grants. In Nazareth, businesses have identified walls where they would like to see more murals and are working with property owners to make projects possible.

These projects often require coordination among artists, businesses, property owners, community organizations and local government.

Anne Gadwa Nicodemus, founder of Easton-based Metris Arts Consulting, studies how arts and culture intersect with community development. She co-authored a 2010 white paper on creative placemaking, which describes how public, private, nonprofit and community partners can use arts and cultural activities to shape the physical and social character of a place.

The concept goes beyond beautifying a wall. It involves bringing people with different interests together to determine how arts and culture might help shape a community’s future.

Nicodemus said the possible outcomes vary widely, depending on the project’s goals and approach.

“It’s hard to generalize because what you might be trying to do is so dependent on both the strategy and the goals,” she said.

A mural might be intended simply to make a space more beautiful. Another project might aim to improve public health, encourage participation or help residents feel more connected to their neighborhood. The evidence for those outcomes varies, in part because communities do not always evaluate projects after they are completed.

What does success look like?

Murals can add color to a street and give a neighborhood a recognizable landmark. Whether that visual change translates into broader economic or societal gains is harder to measure.

Nicodemus said creative placemaking can take many forms, including making public spaces more inviting, fostering connections among residents and creating opportunities for local businesses. The results depend on the project’s design, the people involved and the needs it is meant to address.

A mural alone cannot guarantee more business activity, reduce crime or solve a downtown’s challenges. Those outcomes are shaped by many factors, including public safety, investment, housing, transportation and the availability of places where people want to spend time.

Nicodemus also cautioned that efforts to reshape a place can overlook the culture and history already there. The term creative placemaking itself has drawn criticism because it can imply that a place needs to be made meaningful, even when residents already have deep connections to it.

“Some people found the term placemaking problematic because it sort of implies that there wasn’t a place there before,” she said.

The concern is that projects can favor outside visions of a neighborhood or contribute to gentrification and displacement if residents do not have a meaningful role in shaping them.

That makes community involvement more than a courtesy. It can help determine whose stories appear on a wall, what a project celebrates and whether residents feel represented by the changes around them.

The Polk Street Garage mural began with conversations about what the South Side means to the people who live there. Edwards has worked to include neighboring residents in his projects, while Ward is trying to make his shop a resource for artists and emerging creatives.

Those examples suggest that success is about more than the finished artwork. It can also mean building relationships, creating opportunities and giving residents a role in shaping their community.

For Edwards, art can help Allentown show a different side of itself to people who may still hold outdated impressions of the city.

“When you’re walking through downtown Allentown, you see all these murals. It’s hard to deny how they make you feel,” he said. “It’s hard to deny how they beautify a space, how they create that sense of community, how they ultimately create that sense of pride.”