Here is another detail long piece on the side wall of Menagerie, of a girl perhaps listening intently to the music been pumped out by from the magical piano (featured previously in The Piano Has Been Smoking).
A dachshund looks quizzically at a bottle of buckie (Buckfast tonic wine – fortified to 15% alcohol) left on the wall. Street art by Verz (Fb | Web), officially entitled “Sausage”, on the wall outside the Crescent Arts Centre, just off University Road.
Another of Verz’s ‘Dogs On The Street’ series: Psychedelic Dog
“To put bread on the table, those days are gone, when we all had to to Willie Allen’s pawn.
We met and we married along time ago; we worked for long hours when wages were low.”
Above and below are boards 3 and 4 of the ‘Sandy Row memories’ at the end of Blythe Street, showing Murray’s Tobacco Factory (in Linfield Road/Sandy Row, which closed in 2005 before being refurbished and opening in 2012 as Murray’s Exchange) and the old Belfast & Ulster Brewing building (unchanged image here), home to the south Belfast Ulster Volunteers (Sandy Row History) and most recently (until 2007) the home of Gilpin’s Furniture.
“There’s a nice wee place in Belfast, they call it Sandy Row. On a Saturday night, that’s where we used to go. A bucket on the stove, boiling all the whites, the big tin bath on Saturday nights.”
Here are two boards at the blind end of Blythe Street which together illustrate a short poem about Sandy Row in days gone by. The first, above, shows dancing and bingo (which took place in the Sandy Row Orange Lodge? – The Row You Know: Memories Of Old Sandy Row (ISBN 0953053504) by Donna McCann and published by Nicholson & Bass contains an image with the caption “Saturday night dance at the Orange Hall – Hector McMillan about to break into song”.)
The second, below, shows scenes from home: clothes in front of the fire, a child in a tin bath, a wireless radio, and a grandmother dandling a child.
Out-of-this-world work by Scottish artist (Mark) Lyken (Twitter | Fb) – signature at the top, in the middle – on the front of Menagerie (Tumblr) on University Street. Wide shot below.
“Weavers To Winners” – Linfield Football And Athletic Club was founded in 1886 by workers at the Ulster Spinning Company’s Linfield mill and they became Irish League champions in the 1890-1891 season. The names of the players in the photograph are given in the shot of the information plaque, below. The work was designed by Ross Wilson.
The corner of College Court and College Street is something of a contested space, as whatever street art appears is painted over in short order. First there was The Sun Will Make You Blind which was followed by Ballex and now there is “graffiti image loading …” with a progress bar – the third piece in under a year.
“Today is yesterday’s tomorrow”. Vintage images of Sandy Row, including the Ulster Spinning Company and the Royal Bar, make up this “Heritage – Culture – Identity” board on Donegall Road. The central image is part of this photo montage.
“Youth has no age – Pablo Picasso”. Above is one of the panels on Donegall Road, just above the City Hospital railway stop, celebrating the Sandy Row community.