The 50-foot mural of elephants, apes and other wild animals that adorns the underpass walls at Phinney Avenue North at North 57th Street - and which had received media attention this summer because city crews had painted over it and then uncoverd it after public outcry - has been defaced again.This time, large swaths of graffiti have obliterated an otherwise peaceful sunset scene of African elephants of the Savanna. Neighborhood resident Larry McMahon said he's not surprised. A similar mural at the underpass of Dexter Avenue North has also been regularly marred by taggers, he said: "As far as the murals go, neighbors complain but they want somebody else to take care of them."AN ONGOING PROBLEMThe Phinney mural was the subject of public outcry when another local resident, Greg Zuhl, told city officials the mural had been tagged and the city responded by painting over it. When that happened, neighbors lit up the city phones demanding answers.The city then spent $5,000 to hire a company to pressure-wash the mural with a specialized non-chemical spray fortified with volcanic crystals that gently chip away at the surface paint. That task was completed in July. But last week, fresh 4-by-6-feet blocks of tagging have soiled the effort.Russell Bennett, who has lived on 57th Street for nearly 16 years, has seen the mural at its high and low points. He's not surprised by the most recent spate of vandalism."It's been done before," he said. "That's why they put that primer paint in there because there was a lot of tagging." There are similar murals throughout Seattle's underpasses, such as the one at the end of North 65th Street exit of Aurora Avenue North, which features snakes, moles, worms and birds. Another mural of the cityscape adorns the north wall at Bridge Way North in Fremont. But those have little to no graffiti. The Phinney mural was created in 1994 by a group of neighbors through a $2,000 grant as part of the now-defunct Street Smart Art program.Bennett said the mural should be redone completely as there are chipped sections, and the substrate of primer and sealant was never properly applied. CITY RESPONSEWoodland Park Zoo officials were dismayed by the news."We're disappointed to see this treasured mural damaged again after the community, the zoo and the city all came together to restore it so recently," said zoo spokesperson Rebecca Witham. "Woodland Park Zoo will continue to work with community members and the Seattle Department of Transportation to figure out how best to move forward from here and preserve this mural into the future."Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) spokesperson Rick Sheridan was unaware of the recent tagging but said the city really can't do much in terms of controlling it."Our approach for this and other murals are to have interested private groups becoming sponsors," he said. "Both the Department of Neighborhoods and SDOT have been looking for a sponsor, given that the original sponsor no longer exists." He added that SDOT isn't suited for mural upkeep. If the new pressure-wash treatment were to be considered again for this mural and as a way to handle tagging anywhere, that would be a Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) decision, he said. (Calls to SPU were not answered by press time.)The company that etched off the gray paint covering the mural was Surface Cleaning Technologies of Bellevue.[[In-content Ad]]
