Baltimore’s Fly is Undone — The Power of Whimsy, Zippers and Hopscotch

Look closely…

 

Photo by Graham Coreil-Allen via Flickr

… and you’ll note a variety of footprints playing the classic game of hopscotch–a worker’s boot, a businessman’s shoe, a bare footprint and, most inspired of all, a bird’s track headed in the direction of Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium.

Two Baltimore intersections have had their standard striped crosswalks replaced, quite literally, by street art—in this case, a game of hopscotch and a super-sized zipper. These new whimsical crosswalks, by Graham Coreil-Allen and Paul Bertholet respectively, were commissioned by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts for the Bromo Tower A&E District.

The hopscotch design can be found at Eutaw and Lombard streets and the zipper at Eutaw and Fayette. A third design will be added in the spring to an intersection adjacent to the Hippodrome and Everyman Theatre.

Seeing images of both crosswalks shared across social media and the surprising degree of media coverage—yes, locally, but also from NPR, Fast Company and The Atlantic—made me think back to interviewing Will Backstrom about PNC’s Transformative Art Project grants. Backstrom acknowledged that PNC’s use of metrics to evaluate those projects was limited mainly to anecdotal data and “buzz.” It’s unclear what role data and analysis had in BOPA’s choice of this project or the winning designs, but if positive buzz for the city was one hoped-for outcome, this project is an early success. It has been amazingly gratifying to read about my city as “Something Cool” and “Fun” in the national press, with nary a mention of “The Wire” (until now, whoops!).

I would love to see some on-the-ground monitoring by BOPA of pedestrian reactions to these installations. Nothing as formal as interviews or surveys, just a method of capturing the reaction folks have when they encounter the unexpected. Regardless, congrats to the artists and BOPA for a project that has already delighted residents and given the city some valuable positive press.