The first thing you see is a large cement viaduct bisecting the Fulton Market neighborhood. But when you walk closer, it resolves into an explosion of brightly painted murals. One mural shows photo-realistic children while another shows an elephant riding a penny- farthing bicycle.
Hoard, a Fulton Market resident, had spent years walking by the fading murals. Three years ago, he finally decided to look into the history of the neighborhood and discovered that in the 70s, it had been predominantly African-American. At the time, Chicago was experiencing cultural shifts as people were pushing back against racism and power structures.
B Line Murals
Attempts were made to keep the project going but little happened until Hoard decided to revitalize it. Having lived in Miami, he was surprised that Chicago lacked an art district comparable to Miami’s Wynwood Walls, an outdoor area with over 80,000 square feet of murals. “How do we know we are world-class in Chicago?” he asks. “You don’t know that until you benchmark to see what other cities are doing and then you attempt to go above and beyond that. It is my hope to make the B_Line that world-class example for Chicago.”
Hoard has big plans for the B_Line. He wants to make it more of “a world-class street art project” with 200 new and old murals. He aims to permanently seal some of the older murals in place to keep them on display.
