A good thing has happened in the city. Someone has restored something that was destroyed.
A few weeks ago, the city’s anti-graffiti brigade received reports of vandalism on some underpasses in the zoo’s neighborhood. They went out and discovered that this vandalism was pervasive: entire walls had been covered with murals depicting strange animals and places. So they went to work and painted over these murals with the grey paint characteristic of their style.
As it turned out, the murals had been there for more than a decade and had been sponsored by the city. The call had been placed about graffiti on the murals themselves. The caller was mortified, the city said it would do better (though I’ve not heard from the anti-graffiti team), and I wrote something about it.
So a little bit of magic went out of the world. The underpass walls were soon covered with new graffiti, complaining about the attitude and ability of a government that would do something like this. Which was cool enough in and of itself.
However! As of a couple weeks ago, one of the murals - the one most colorful and best-remembered from my youth - has been restored.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
After:
After:
So they’re not all restored. I’m so grateful to whoever restored just the one that I don’t know what to say. Thank you, whoever you are, for returning something that was lost, for restoring something that was destroyed, for taking back something precious from the past and from thoughtless acts. I’m going to smile because these murals exist, and then I’m going to smile again because they came back. Or rather (I should say), they were brought back. Thanks, denizen of the city! Thanks, citizen.