The Rite Aid Mural: Another Great Example of South Pasadena Public Art

Walking into Rite Aid is great.  For the last few years, patrons of the drug store have been greeted with this gorgeous mural painted by Carolee Merrill.

I still remember when the dark walkway felt distinctly more noir:

It's a Jungle Out There...

When you think about it, jungles are colorful, exciting and strange. I'll take that over boring, ordinary and bleak any day.

Mural Hipstamatic

One of these days I'm going to research the story behind this mural. For now, I'll happily use it as a subject for my favorite iPhone app.

Kind Art

I've featured this mural before. It was painted by girl scouts many years ago and still brightens the small tunnel under the overpass near lower Arroyo Park. "It is not enough to give signals," Enzo Cucchi once said about art. "Things can only ever last if they have functioned as signs."

View from the Post Office

The South Pasadena Post Office exists in large part because of the New Deal programs instituted by FDR in the 1930s. Federal Relief Agencies put many South Pasadenans to work on projects ranging from building the Arroyo Seco control channel to adding terraces and walkways to Eddie Park. In fact, during this decade, most stores and businesses in South Pas hung up National Relief Administration Blue Eagle placards with the slogan, "We Do Our Part."

Since the city's incorporation, the post office bounced around from temporary place to place. It operated for a while out of a hotel, for a few years out of the Alexander Building. At one point it was a branch of the post office in Los Angeles and at another point it belonged to Pasadena. But in 1936 -- after some bickering with the federal government on architectural design standards -- South Pasadena finally got its very own post office building: the grand white structure still in operation today at the corner of Fremont and El Centro.

And who says big government programs can't work well! Not only did the city get a large, functional building, but it got beautiful art to adorn it. The Treasury Relief Art Project commissioned artist and former postal clerk John Law Walker to paint the mural in the new post office lobby. The scene represents a Concord mail coach -- a subject familiar to the brand new South Pasadena postmaster, George Hugh Banning. He had written all about the mail vehicle in his book Six Horses.

It gives me great inspiration to buy stamps here and think about how so much utility and beauty came from using governmental ingenuity as well as the talent and labor of the citizenry to demolish the chains of the Great Depression. We could learn a lot from our recent past.

Everyday Art...

I am all for museums and masterpieces, and I appreciate the impressive works donated to public spaces by the luminaries whose names grace the pages of Art in America. But I also appreciate unsung creators of public art like this whimsical palm tree mural on the wall behind the G&M Food Mart and gas station. What could have been just another beige building is, instead, a happy canvas. Isn't it fun?

Holy Family Catholic Church

The front of Holy Family Catholic Church is like most cathedral-style places of worship. It's lovely, ornate, traditional and not unusual in any way. But just take a look at what is on the other side of it! When I drove around back and saw this mural beaming into the dark night, I didn't think of the obvious bible quotations. The most famous, of course, is Matthew 19:14, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me." And the most dreaded, oft-repeated quote I recall from my own Lutheran elementary school days was Proverbs 6:20, "Keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother." (I heard that one in the principal's office more than once.)

What lingered in my mind as I drove away was something Gandhi said: "If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children."

I must say, this is the most beautiful back parking lot I've ever seen. If you turn down the street between the high school and the church, you can't miss it. It's a stunning evening view ... this mural on one side of the road, and this glowing column on the other.

Tunnel Vision

At some point a local girl scout troop painted this mural in the tunnel near lower Arroyo Park. During the day, it's a charming little bit of children's art on otherwise drab concrete.

But by night... it's all kinds of creepy.

South Pasadena Post Office

The South Pasadena Post Office looks about the same as when it was built in 1932. With the exception of the handicap-access ramps out front, not much has been added or altered. You can even see the wonderful original mural inside next to the old post office boxes. Located on Freemont Street at El Centro across the street from Calvary Presbyterian Church, it has several of the things I love in a building: a cool deco transom over the door, ridiculously beautiful vintage street lamps along the walkway, and enough contrasting dark and light to, um, simply force me to present this photograph in black and white!