Reaching for Your Star
This mural depicts a little girl reaching for her dreams. It is painted on 37th and Mount Vernon, in the midst of a largely abandoned and dilapidated neighborhood.
This mural stirred individual action. Inspired by the painting, neighbors started fixing up a nearby playground, fixing the broken swings and mowing the weedy grass. Soon though, many ceased the effort. But not all.
Mr. William Hodges, owner of the house on which the mural is painted, keeps up the sole effort of trying to maintain the park. Though the abandoned surrounding houses mean he has little help, he keeps the lawns neat around the mural and plants a garden around it every spring.
As quoted in More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell: "This is the best corner around here. That mural is the best thing that's happened," Hodges says. "For twenty years, this neighborhood's been going down but when they came and put that mural up there on the wall, it kind of stood still. It stopped it from going down."
