Every day the people of the small neighborhood of Rego Park, Queens, walk down 63rd Drive, the main road which encompasses the neighborhood. This main road is clogged with bazaars, supermarkets and 99 cent stores on either side of the avenue. At the end of the strip is the closest train station that commuters, like myself, take every day. To get to the train station we must first pass through the bustle of morning grocery shoppers and roads condensed with cars. The LIRR which passes over the center of 63rd drive creates a dark underpass in the center of a lively street. To brighten up that specific underpass, the community members of 63rd Drive-Rego Park came together to create a community art project.
Since 1904 this underpass has been left bare until the Rego Park Green Alliance decided to first paint the underpass. The Rego Park Green Alliance created a “Real Good” mural, which is what Rego Park actually stands for. Their main goal was to use this participatory mural, where anyone can volunteer to paint something, to create a community through art. 
For a long time, Rego Park has been a congested and dirty street that the community members rarely noticed because of their focus on the commute to work. The Rego Park Green Alliance opened the community members’ eyes to the shape up needed to be done to this avenue. This initial mural motivated the community members to raise grant money for the mural, organize a community clean up and ask the Department of Transportation for bigger sidewalks, and the Department of Sanitation for new garbage cans. As the Rego Park Green Alliance says, this mural was “a catalyst for change.”
Unfortunately, this initial “Real Good” mural started to fade away and the Alliance decided to create a new mural with installations of photographs taken by the people of the community. What I love about this mural is that the community members essentially became the artists. The community members started to scrape away the “Real Good” mural and within no time created this new beautiful mural and installation. According to the Rego Park Green Alliance it took these community artists almost 400 hours to power wash, prime, base coat and paint this new mural.
Since I pass by this mural every day I have stopped noticing the beauty and meaning of this mural. Similarly to the “Real Good” mural this mural isn’t meant to last forever. It is meant to last until it has worn away and the community can come together again to create another refreshing masterpiece. Because this mural is under the LIRR underpass the best time to notice it is during the day, yet it doesn’t fail to add some color to the late nights coming home from work or school. It’s white background and bright colors for the tree and leaves create a perfect scene for the photographs from 63rd Drive. The white background also makes this mural pop under the dark underpass making it clearly visible and grand under this space. This public art piece reminds the community that when we come together we can create something beautiful that can stand out in the midst of our busy lives.
Sarah Ustoyev
