OSWEGO – Mayor Billy Barlow announced today the City of Oswego has hired a building mural artist to design and draw a large building mural on the building located at 161 West First Street, bordering the new Water Street Square pocket park in downtown Oswego.
The mural will feature a 1920’s era theme, while highlighting the history of the building as a former music store, owned by Professor Frank Schilling, from 1892 until 1927. The building was built around 1850 and bought by Professor Schilling in 1892. In addition to working as a professor, Frank Schilling was a music teacher and started to sell instruments.
The building, known then as the Schilling Block, became his store, and was used to sell musical instruments including Steinway piano’s. To this day, you can still see the pulley on top of the building used long ago to hoist pianos into the air and into the building.
The building, now owned by Warren Shaw, borders the Water Street Square pocket park, built by the city last year as part of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The park serves as a regular venue for small concerts and activity in the heart of downtown Oswego.
The building mural will face the new park and is designed to match the theme and use of Water Street Square while including the buildings history as the Schilling music store.
“The new Water Street Square Pocket Park has served as a successful new space to hold concerts and other activities,” Barlow said. “As we draw people to the new space, we want to bring more attractions and more interest. Creating fun and unique building murals are known to do just that, so we’ve partnered with Warren Shaw to install a mural that complements the intention and activity of Water Street Square while recognizing and honoring our community’s history. Large murals often serve as a destination point for people as they explore a community. The mural will add to the ambience of our new park and the characteristics of our core downtown area.”
Current owner of 161 West First Street, Shaw, is in the middle of restoring the historic building and has worked with the city to have the mural designed and installed.
“It is a pleasure to work with Mayor Barlow and the City of Oswego to bring this mural to light along the new and beautiful Water Street Square park,” Shaw said. “This is the third commercial building I have undertaken to restore and hopefully it will soon become a beautiful reminder of the rich history that our community can share with visitors and residents alike.”
The mural was designed and will be installed by Syracuse-based artist, Marcus Osmun, who assisted in the famous “A MIGHTY SALT CITY” mural in downtown Syracuse and created several other large murals around Central New York. Osmun has over twenty years of experience in Visual Arts & Media and plans to begin work in Oswego immediately.
Osmun thanked Mayor Barlow and the City of Oswego for the opportunity. “Even though my studio is farther down the road,” Osmun said. “My family has deep roots in Oswego, and I’m honored to contribute a mural in one of the communities I grew up in. They can lend a powerful ambience to a neighborhood. I hope everyone enjoys it.”
The installation of the mural is expected to take approximately two months. To follow progress on the mural, Marcus has a blog on his website that will be updated weekly, and where you can also see his other work at www.MarcusOsmun.com.
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What about our streets??? Pot holes??? They put in that park two blocks away from the river stage because the mayor wanted it it has put many businesses that relied on parking that was taken away by the making of another park to maintain. If he wanted a place to have concerts he had one. That brick park is never used only for college students to puke in after a hard night of drinking. The city never cleans it up after Saturday night… now we tax payers have to pay for a painting on a private building???