Murals Bring Downtown Crosswalks To Life

The Hill’s right down the street. Wooster Square? East Rock? Right down those other streets.

Thanks to a community art project, New Haveners and visitors get that clear message when they stop at Chapel and State streets.

A crew has painted murals in the crosswalks to encourage people to walk or bike to the neighborhoods and connect parts of the city to each other.

“All I can say is: Wow! This is really good,” project manager Elizabeth Bickley (pictured above) declared at an event held Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the crosswalk murals.

The Downtown Special Services District organized the project along with the city, CT Next, and the New Haven Innovation Collaborative. Working with Fair Haven design studio Atelier Cue, they organized volunteers to paint the murals as part of an ongoing ​“Intersection to Connection” project.

The new State-Chapel intersection muraling is part two of phase one of the project. The first part of phase one involved two crosswalk murals on the other side of the State/Chapel Street bridge, where two separate apartment complexes are arising near the corner of Union Street. (Read about that first crosswalk mural phase here.) Fifty volunteers painted the total of six murals at the two intersections.

New Haven Innovation Collaborative’s Mike Harris (pictured) spoke of how the project fits into broader efforts to develop a ​“more pedestrian-connected, human-scale downtown.”

Mayor Justin Elicker (pictured at the event) tied the project into the Bradley Street Coop’s painting of a highway underpass a few blocks north up State Street and plans to brighten and decorate the forbidding underpass near the train station. ​“New Haven is increasingly becoming a bikeable and walkable city,” he said.

“Our big announcement today is: We’re not done,” said Town Green Director Win Davis (at right in above photo at event with Doug Hausladen, the city’s transit chief).

The next phase includes painting panels on the Chapel bridge entering Wooster Square …

… and lighting it at night to boost pedestrian safety, and perceptions of pedestrian safety.

That will take more money. The entire project will end up costing $130,000, according to Bickley, the Town Green District’s manager of public space planning and development. So far the organization has raised about 40 percent of the money, including $10,000 from Beacon Properties and $35,000 from the Houston-based Hines development firm, builders of a 230-apartment complex (“The Whit”) rising on two sides of the Chapel-Olive intersection (including at the former Comcast site). Sean Sacks (pictured at Tuesday’s gathering) said his company has contributed that amount ​“so far” and will work to solicit donations from other area companies.

Elm City Market provided the water and healthful snacks for Tuesday’s event, held on a patio by its State Street entrance.

Learn more about the project and how to donate here.