“The Garden,” an iconic and beloved mural of hundreds of birds in flight painted on the monOrchid building on Roosevelt Row was vandalized with graffiti and is beyond repair.
For eight years the mural was a focal point of Roosevelt Row. It depicted a young boy standing on top of a block of words said by the late Mother Teresa. The boy held a watering can with the pouring water turning into a flock of black birds taking flight across the long white brick wall.
The artist Brian Boner took to the Phoenix subreddit page on Tuesday, Oct. 3 to post about his artwork being covered up. In the post, Boner shared screenshots from his personal Facebook page of the graffiti along with his thoughts.
“It’s not my wall. . . at one time this was the most Instagramed mural in downtown Phoenix,” Boner posted. “It was a gathering place for all people. It was a focal point for walking tours of the Arts District and has been in many ads, publications, and wedding photos. I was proud of it and what it stood for.”
Boner continued on to write that the mural was about community and unifying people, caring for one another regardless of color, wealth and in spite of any differences.
“It’s not my wall. . . but it was my first ‘real’ mural, which means there’s also a little piece of my heart that will be swallowed up as well. Just a little piece,” Boner wrote in his post.
The Arizona Republic reached out to the Roosevelt Row board of directors to find out what’s next for the wall, but at the time of writing, they were unavailable for comment.
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Meredith G. White is the entertainment reporter for The Arizona Republic |azcentral.com. You can find her on Facebook as Meredith G. White, on Instagram and Twitter as @meredithgwhite, and email her atmeredith.white@arizonarepublic.com.