Graffiti News
Keith Haring's We the Youth mural is now a Philly landmark
Keith Haring's 1987 mural We the Youth is now a protected historic place in Philadelphia. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Historical Commission voted unanimously at a public meeting on Friday, October 9, 2026, to add the Point Breeze mural to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. It is the only collaborative mural by Haring that still stands where it was first painted.
What the Keith Haring mural's historic designation changes
Any change to the mural now goes through the commission. The building's owner, listed in city records as 2147 Ellsworth LLC, can no longer remove the mural or alter its appearance without the commission's review.
The Inquirer reports that We the Youth is the fifth mural in Philadelphia to receive this official protection and the first outdoor one. The four earlier designations are all indoors: The Dream Garden in the Curtis Center, the New Deal-era murals in the Family Court building, the frescoed ceiling of St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Old City, and Iron Plantation Near Southwark in the Southwark Station Post Office in South Philadelphia.
The story behind We the Youth
Haring painted We the Youth in 1987 with a group of 14 students from Philadelphia and New York to mark the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. Vivid figures dance across the front of a three-bedroom rowhouse at 22nd and Ellsworth Streets. The mural covers a wall shared by 2147 and 2149 Ellsworth Street.
Haring, a native of Reading, Pennsylvania, is counted among the defining artists of the 20th century, known for bold drawings and colorful graffiti-style paintings. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at age 31.
Mural Arts Philadelphia carried out a major restoration of the mural in 2013. Upkeep is now shared by the Keith Haring Foundation, Mural Arts and the Neighborhood Gardens Trust. The three groups spent months pushing for the designation, pointing to the mural's artistic and cultural importance to Point Breeze.
Who spoke for the designation
Most people at the meeting supported it, the Inquirer reports, including Point Breeze residents, some wearing shirts printed with Haring's signature figures. Simon Castets, executive director of the Keith Haring Foundation, said that seeing the community stand up for recognition of "this unique piece of collaborative work" was "particularly meaningful." Jane Golden, the founder and former CEO of Mural Arts, said the outcome "underscores why public art matters."
Why the building's owner objected
The owner's side argued that the wall cannot support preservation as the designation requires. Sean Whalen, an attorney representing 2147 Ellsworth LLC, told the commission that keeping the mural in its current state and location would take extensive preservation work, and that under the designation those efforts are not "logistically capable." He said he supported a "methodology that is feasible."
Whalen and Ori Feibush, the property manager at 2147 Ellsworth LLC, described structural weaknesses in the wall and said the mural has delaminated from the salmon brick underneath. "We are not talking about a wall that is failing. We are talking about a failed wall," Whalen said. Feibush showed a video of the back of the mural that he had recorded the previous week with a scope camera, and said a poor stucco-and-plaster connection has left gaps between the mural and the wall behind it. The two proposed removing the mural and reinstalling it as the best way forward.
Commissioners said preservation is possible
The commissioners said there are workable ways to preserve the mural. Over an hour-and-a-half discussion, commissioners including Zachary Frankel, Emily Cooperman and Robert Thomas agreed that damage like this to a mural and its shared party wall is common in buildings that are decades old, and that viable preservation options exist. "There are many possibilities," Cooperman said.
Emily Mello, the current executive director of Mural Arts, said she and community partners would work to keep the mural a "cultural memory" that does not fade. "It may take a lot of resources," she said, adding that the support of the neighbors most affected by the mural will anchor the effort: "That's our greatest resource."
Why this matters for mural culture
Many murals do not last. A painted wall usually shares the fate of the building it sits on, and when a property is sold, repaired or torn down, the art often goes with it. With this vote, Philadelphia for the first time placed an outdoor mural under the same kind of public review it applies to historic buildings.
The case also shows the hard part. A mural is a layer of paint bonded to a wall, and when that bond weakens, the choice comes down to conserving it in place or detaching and moving it. Either path costs money, and someone has to carry that cost. That is where the two sides split at the hearing: the owner's representatives say the wall has failed and the mural should be taken down and reinstalled, while the commissioners and the mural's caretakers say there are ways to preserve it. Anyone who follows the long-term care of public murals has reason to watch what happens next at 22nd and Ellsworth.
Visiting We the Youth
The mural is on the outside of a privately owned rowhouse on a residential block in Point Breeze. View it from the sidewalk, be considerate of the people who live there when taking photos, and do not touch the painted surface, especially since how well it is attached to the wall is now under debate. Notice how the dancing figures stretch across the wall shared by 2147 and 2149 Ellsworth Street, a reminder that Haring made the work together with students.
You can find other murals on the Wallscape map and share your own photos in the feed.