Western Addition – Blue Wall

This is Geary Street in San Francisco.  On the left is Japantown and on the right is the Western Addition.

The Fillmore street overpass has stretches of blue glass on either side.  This installation is titled 3 Shades of Blue by Mildred Howard.

The piece is a “Tribute to the music the continues to define the Fillmore”  It is 20 blue glass panes inscribed with a poem by poet laureate Quincy Troupe – Shades of Blue for a Blue Bridge for Mildred Howard, Joe Rudolph and Yori Wada.

three shades of blue
evoke minnie’s can do,
soo chow’s, yori wada

jimbo’s bop city
john lee’s boom boom room,
history riffing blue matzoh balls,
fried chicken, soba

the jigoku club inside
j town, bold rebels jamming
cross from black town, udon,
grits, barbecue

cherry blossoms blooming
in lady day’s hair, greens and fat back,
sashimi staining kimonos

you walking filmore,
crossing geary with duke,
street cars running over ghost-tracks,
pigfeet in vinegar

indigo-blue & white
red satin, sticky fingers handling
chop sticks, hot cornbread,
sweet potato pie

Mildred Howard has been in this site before.  She is an artist that best uses words as her medium.  The mixed cultures of this area are well represented in the poem.  The neighborhood has a long history of struggle not only between cultures, but between the city and it’s residents as well as the visions that everyone has versus reality.  There have been books written about this strife, suffice it to say I think the poem sums it up very, very well.

Due to the light, it was almost impossible to get a good shot of the etched words, here is a small sampling.

Walking across the Fillmore overpass.