Graffiti News
Erie Art Trail Follows the 1915 Flood Path With an AR Mural
Erie, Pennsylvania is building a public art trail along the route of the 1915 Mill Creek flood. According to a report by Valerie Myers in the Erie Times-News, the Hidden Creeks Project Art Trail will place artworks at eight locations along the flood's two-mile path, and two of them are nearing completion: an "animated" augmented-reality mural at the FEED Media Art Center and a sculpture on the lawn of Erie Insurance Arena. The other pieces will be installed through 2028.
What is being built
The trail takes its name from the creeks "hidden" beneath the city. The Erie Times-News reports that it will tell the story of the flood and of the Mill Creek Tube, the underground channel built afterwards to carry the creek. The Erie County Conservation District leads the project, with environmental educator Kristen Currier in charge. Erie's Looking Glass Art Project and the artists Tom Ferraro, Ed Grout and Steve Mik are leading the design and creation of the works.
Interpretive signs are already in place at the two ends of the route: near Headwaters Park along Wager Road in Millcreek, where the flood began, and along the East Bayfront Parkway, where the water emptied into Presque Isle Bay.
A mural that moves when you scan it
The first mural is the 32-foot "Carving the Path to Commerce" on the French Street side of the FEED Media Art Center at 1307 State St. According to the Erie Times-News, a sign carrying a QR code is expected at the site within days; scanning it plays an animated video of the scene on the viewer's smartphone.
"Hold your phone to the mural and it becomes a movie through augmented reality," Currier told the Erie Times-News. "To my knowledge, there isn't anything else like this in Erie."
The first piece is a sculpture at the arena
The first artwork placed on the trail is the "Hidden Creek" sculpture on the lawn of Erie Insurance Arena. It shows the path of the flood and is expected to be finished soon.
Gus Pine, executive director of Erie Events, which operates the arena, told the Erie Times-News: "The flood of 1915 and the subsequent underground tube created to mitigate the chances of another flood occurring is a compelling historical story. The tube actually runs underneath the ballpark and arena, so hosting an art installation on our site made tremendous sense."
What comes next
According to the Erie Times-News, a third artwork will be installed by Thanksgiving along State Street near Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy: a textured mural on Plexiglas attached to the chain-link fence between the school and Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Five more pieces are still to be designed or finalised. Their planned sites are the Erie Zoo, East 23rd and State streets, East Fourth and Parade streets, the Wallace Street playground, and one location yet to be chosen. "All eight pieces have been or will be designed after community engagement," Currier said. "We have at least three meetings before each piece is designed, and the public is welcome to come and share ideas." Local contractors handle the metal, concrete and installation work, and grants and sponsorships cover the costs.
What happened in 1915
The Erie Times-News reports that a wall of water swept through Erie on August 3, 1915 after almost six inches of rain fell in six hours, swelling Mill Creek. As many as 40 people died in the flood and its aftermath, and an estimated 550 homes and other buildings were destroyed or damaged. The Mill Creek Tube, a 12,220-foot concrete channel, was begun in 1918 and completed five years later. It now carries the creek safely under the city to Presque Isle Bay.
How a mural becomes a water campaign
The trail's stated goal is water protection. "Because Mill Creek is buried 30 feet beneath the city in its last two miles, we forget that it's there, and whatever flows down the streets and into the storm drains goes directly into Mill Creek and into the lake," Currier told the Erie Times-News. Securing trash and disposing of medications properly, she said, are things everyone can do.
From a street-art point of view, this is a project that uses murals to make something invisible visible. A buried creek and a 111-year-old flood cannot be seen, so the works on walls, fences and lawns redraw the route at street level. The QR-code approach, layering a video onto a static painting, is turning up in more cities, and it changes what a mural photo can carry: the picture and the animation are two different works on the same wall. If you find one of these on your travels, the Wallscape map is the place to pin it, and the feed collects other AR pieces.
Source: Erie Times-News, "New Erie art trail including 'animated' mural traces 1915 flood path"