MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The fifth mural in the Springfield Avenue Partnership’s public art initiative was unveiled at Maplewood Firehouse 2 on Oct. 19, bringing some color to the township’s business district and the first responders who work there. The initiative has been asking artists to paint the buildings on Springfield Avenue for the last year and a half, and when Maplewood fire Chief Michael Dingelstedt found out about it, he decided he wanted a mural too.
“I wanted to get some sort of fire safety and public safety message here,” Dingelstedt said at the weekend ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We worked with the artists to figure out what we wanted.”
Painted during the course of three weeks by Vitaly Umansky and Elina Rosenblum, the mural depicts Maplewood Fire Engine 32, which is based at Firehouse 2, as a toy truck. A child’s hand is seen playing with the toy, and an adult’s hand guides the child’s. The mural is painted around the building’s windows, which are made to look like the windows of the truck.
“One the one hand, I didn’t want to go too literal and just paint a firetruck,” Umansky said at the event about his design. “On the other hand, it is a fire station. So I thought a good compromise could be a toy firetruck with a child playing and an adult helping, to show safety and security.”
Rosenblum said that, as she and Umansky were painting, pedestrians would stop to watch and ask what they were doing.
“We had a tremendous amount of people walk by and say how grateful they were,” she said at the event. “That was really great. We love working here.”
Mayor Vic DeLuca said the next mural will be painted on Maplewood Memorial Library’s Hilton Branch. Then the SAP will go back to the drawing board to determine which buildings on Springfield Avenue could use a creative coat of paint.
“As it was emerging, the responses we got were more and more excited,” Umansky said of the fire house mural in an interview with the News-Record on Oct. 19. “It makes people happy and that’s exciting for us.”
Photos by Amanda Valentovic
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