A local nonprofit is working to beautify underpasses throughout Queens.
The Woodhaven Mural Project, led by Woodhaven residents Jennifer Lambert and Neil Giannelli, aims to paint multiple murals throughout underpasses in Queens to bring vibrant art to the borough’s often overlooked pathways. Seven murals will be erected underneath four underpasses between Woodhaven and Richmond Hill.
On Monday, Sept. 8, the Woodhaven Mural Project teamed up with the office of state Sen. Joseph P. Adabbo Jr., the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) and the FDNY Engine 294 and Ladder 143 to kick off cleaning the underpass wall at Myrtle Avenue between Woodhaven Boulevard and Freedom Drive. The FDNY cleaned and primed the wall for the upcoming project entitled “Flora and Fauna of Forest Park,” which will begin in mid-October. Addabbo’s office provided $500 in funding toward supplies for the upcoming project. A class of St. John’s University students will also help to paint the upcoming project.
Addabbo said he supports the vision of the Woodhaven Mural Project.
“Whenever you have a moment to… beautify the community, it brings morale back to the community. It cleans up a site that might have been a blight prior to,” he said.
Lambert said the project was inspired by her daily walk to school with her daughter underneath the underpass at 98-12 Jamaica Ave. Over the past 10 years, that underpass was on their route to PS 254, the Rosa Parks School.
“ One side had a beautiful mural of our essential workers, we call it the bulldog wall, and on the north wall, it’s just been a blank wall,” she said.
As an artist with a background in collage, Lambert said the blank canvas was screaming her name. Years passed, and during the pandemic, Lambert would continue to walk underneath the underpass while pondering the next phase of her life. Lambert met Giannelli at Woodhaven Block Association meetings, and during a meeting last November, she proposed what is now the Woodhaven Mural Project.
“ I felt this was the time, kismet,” she said. Lambert said Giannelli agreed to help her, and from there they ‘hit the ground running.’
The Woodhaven Mural Project has already completed a mural.
This past Memorial Day weekend, the co-creators went to the underpass at Park Lane South and, with the help of local students of P.S. 254, P.S. 60, and P.S. 97, painted “Kids Make Neighborhoods.”
Lambert said she is especially excited about the upcoming Jamaica Ave. Project, which will be located at the underpass she’s walked under for the past decade.
“Trust the Journey in Queens,” which will begin production in the next two weeks. For this particular project, Lambert said the Woodhaven BID received a Small BID Grant that will go towards the upcoming mural. Additionally, the Woodhaven BID will partner with the Woodhaven Mural Project to help paint the wall.
‘Trust the Journey in Queens” draws some inspiration from an artistic wedding gift Lambert gave her husband several years ago.
Lambert’s renderings of the mural depict two hands joined into a heart with the flowers of the Queens flag—a tulip and a double red and white Tudor rose—in the center. The sketch also establishes lines and colors representing the flag’s blue and white, as well as vibrant red, green, and orange.
“ In meaning with this now opportunity of a mural, trusting the journey also resembles trust, the journey in Queens for all,” she said. “Because we all have those similar…fears and relationships and passions. So I wanted to just use what the meaning of the original collage [was] and put it onto the mural with the hands and the Queens flag. Bringing Trust, the Journey to all the Queens residents.”
