(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A giant mural that celebrated the labor movement was threatened by the sale of a union hall on Chicago's Near West Side, but thanks to a large grant, the mural will be preserved.
The “Solidarity” mural was on the walls of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America's hall, which was located at Ashland Avenue and Monroe Street for 50 years.
The union's general president, Carl Rosen, said the building was sold to an owner who couldn't save the mural.
Rosen said that meant the mural had to be cut carefully from the walls and moved elsewhere.
“That is obviously a hugely labor intensive and expensive process,” Rosen said. “So, the next question became funding.”
The needed money came from a grant of more than $450,000 to the Chicago Public Art Group from the Mellon Foundation, Rosen said.
“This is an important part of Chicago's history, of the working people who built this city, who struggled for a better day, who struggled for justice, for peace, for civil rights,” Rosen said. “All of those things are represented in this mural.”
Most of the mural will be at the union's new offices on Carroll Avenue near Damen Avenue.
Small sections of the mural are going to the offices of “In These Times” magazine on Milwaukee Avenue near Armitage Avenue, as well as to a union hall in Erie, Pennsylvania.
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