Chicago murals: Grand Crossing organically grows arts corridor

When muralist Pugs Tomz moved to the Park Manor section of Greater Grand Crossing in 2022, one of his first thoughts was, “why doesn’t my neighborhood have a bunch of art?”

Whatever the "why," Tomz decided to do something about it. The result is an organic and growing mural art corridor on East 71st Street between South King Drive and South Cottage Grove Avenue.

Watching the strip come together “felt awesome,” Tomz says. “It was a rough idea — hey, we could use some art — but trying to make it bigger than just 'one time, this thing is happening.' More people can be involved. The community was amazing.”

Tomz, a cofounder of Englewood Arts Collective, recruited fellow cofounder Joe “Cujo Dah” Nelson to add public art to his new neighborhood. They were joined by longtime friend and muralist Damon Lamar Reed, who said he has been painting with Tomz since the ‘90s.

Tomz applied for a public art grant with help from Chicago Public Art Group, and began asking his neighbors what they envisioned and which groups were already doing the work, he says. One of the first requests he received from his neighbors was, “Can you fix the mural we already have?”

The mural at East 71st Street, South Cottage Grove Avenue and South Chicago Avenue covers about 3,000 square feet on a railroad line retaining wall. Nelson helped paint the first iteration more than a decade earlier.

"Chicago is one of these cities, our winters and summers are brutal for murals," Nelson says. "When they’re outside and on these older retaining walls for railroads, there’s a lot of water and the sun, and it gets rough. The temperature changes too, it just deteriorates the paint and the brick."

So in 2023, the three men worked to restore the expansive mural's luster, providing an anchor for the growing art corridor.

One mural panel reads “Welcome to Greater Grand Crossing,” while another shows a train locomotive. Faces of famous Chicagoans with Grand Crossing ties gaze from the wall, including athletes like the Cubs' Ernie Banks and track and field star Jesse Owens, who is buried in nearby Oak Woods Cemetery, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry.

“Those unveilings are the most moving, when you see everyone in their community so delighted to see improvements and investments being made,” says Chantal Healey, executive director of Chicago Public Art Group.

And the murals continued to rise.

The group painted one at 605 E 71st St. the side of Gyrls in the H.O.O.D., which provides social services, reproductive resources and sexual health education to young Black women.

They painted a few more on the side of ChiFresh Kitchen at East 71st Street and South King Drive.

Reed painted multiple murals of children for Park Manor Elementary School, and the group added another under one of the many viaducts crossing East 71st Street.

This isn’t the end, the men say.

“We’re definitely trying to get more done,” says Reed, who would like to add more art at the elementary school.

For Tomz, it’s adding art and community and turning his new neighborhood into a home.

“It was hard to get it started just because of how many businesses were abandoned. Trying to find who is the owner, that took me a good six months of going back and forth,” he says.

The final result, he says, has been welcomed.

“All the art is from community feedback,” he says. "People wanted to see it.”