Murals, Painted in Grittier Days, Are Fading From 125th Street
One of the first pieces Franco Gaskin noticed was missing was his mural of a weeping Martin Luther King Jr. He had painted the work about 18 years ago on the dreary metal gate of an abandoned storefront where Dr. King was said to once have had a book signing. Then his image of a bountiful harvest outside a store called Family Fair Fruit that is now a Starbucks disappeared. Also gone was his vision of a phoenix flying near the sun outside a mom-and-pop store that became a Rite Aid.
Back when Harlem’s 125th Street was a far drearier commercial stretch, Mr. Gaskin, an artist who has gained global acclaim as Franco the Great, painted mural after mural on the storefront security gates, about 200 of tFranco Gaskinhem.
“There was a stigma in Harlem,” said Mr. Gaskin, 82, a barrel-chested man, his hands knotty with arthritis, as he sat in his cluttered apartment near 125th Street. “I was still trying to beautify it. I just wanted to give people the opportunity to see something different.”
Now as new businesses and higher rents remake the strip, much of Mr. Gaskin’s work has disappeared. As businesses have shut down or relocated, the old steel roll-down gates, vestiges of Harlem’s troubled past, along with much of Mr. Gaskin’s brilliant work, have ended up in the garbage. Now only about 25 of the steel gates remain.
“It’s upsetting,” said Mr. Gaskin, flipping through photographs of his murals, amid coffee cans that held paintbrushes, boxes of files, news clippings in various languages about him, and a computer where he conducts his business. Mr. Gaskin is scheduled to travel to Colombia soon to discuss painting a mural in a nightclub.
“All I’ve done in the last 35 years is all for Harlem,” he said. “It’s been forgotten.”
When word spread about what was happening to the murals, Mr. Gaskin’s friends formed a nonprofit group — Team Franco — to save as much of his work as they can. They recently reached out to a few property owners, because store owners and managers don’t hold much sway. In letters written to the property owners, they asked to be allowed to take the gates if they were going to be replaced. So far, there have been no responses.
“If push comes to shove, we’ll go knock on the doors,” said one of Mr. Gaskin’s longtime friends, Dana Harper, a retired police officer. Mr. Harper, who was raised in the Polo Grounds housing project, used to patrol 125th Street. He said that as businesses have changed hands, “people don’t have any community ties, and don’t understand the history of what Franco’s been doing there.”
“It’s unfortunate that Franco’s known throughout the world,” Mr. Harper added, “and people see him in Harlem and it’s kind of taken for granted.”
Part of the preservation push is prompted by a city ordinance that went into effect a year ago requiring certain businesses to replace their solid roll-down gates with ones that are more see-through. “Mainly, they want to make it look like Fifth Avenue, because there’s white people here now,” Mr. Gaskin said, laughing to himself.
Still, the community board that oversees 125th Street issued a resolution in support of efforts to preserve the murals that, the proclamation said, “have lifted the image of Harlem as a community.”
Mr. Gaskin’s friends plan to hold a petition drive to help save the murals and will present the signatures to the City Council. Team Franco is also working with local officials to secure a site in Harlem to open a gallery to display the murals, and will hold fund-raisers.
Mr. Gaskin, a divorced father of two, was born in Panama and eventually moved to Harlem to live with his grandmother. He has used the same fifth-floor apartment as his studio for about 40 years. “I must bloom exactly where I was planted,” he explained.
For a short time, he worked as a magician and honed his skill at painting blindfolded. He also ventured out of his shell after a childhood fall left him virtually mute. Mr. Gaskin became a full-time artist, painting murals in bars and churches. One day a shopkeeper who owned a clothing store on 125th Street asked him to cover his graffiti-mired rollover gate with a mural. Mr. Gaskin left him with an image of a cherry-blossom tree. “And no one touched it,” he said.
Mr. Gaskin painted his storefront murals on Sundays when much of the strip was shuttered. He would leave his apartment at dawn and paint until dark. He did not charge anything for his efforts.
Tour buses in Harlem began to stop to allow passengers to see his murals, and fans begged for his autograph. Mr. Gaskin would greet some of his female fans by hugging them and lifting them up off the ground. Some started calling 125th Street Franco’s Boulevard and the artist the Picasso of Harlem.
“When that strip was abandoned, except for maybe the rats, he saw those gates as a place to create beauty,’’ said State Senator Bill Perkins. “In doing so, he gets credit for helping in the turnaround of Harlem.”
The storefront artwork sparked fame beyond Harlem — Mr. Gaskin has painted murals in Africa, China, France and Japan.
Although time has wrought ruin on his collection of murals, Mr. Gaskin still gets up early on Sundays to greet tourists along 125th Street. He sells his bejeweled shopping bags, Harlem umbrellas, limited-edition prints and remaining posters of Franco the Great.
“He can’t do it like he used to,” said his friend Mr. Harper. “But if he sees a little woman he’ll still try to pick her up.”
Additional murals
By KIA GREGORY