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 Under
City Stone
Artist:
Caryl Yasko
Commissioned
by: Unknown
Location:
Lake Park and 55th, in Metra Underpass
Medium:
Mural
Commentary:
Caryl Yasko's fine work has been badly damaged by time
and by the city's "graffiti blasters" who often seem
to do more harm than good. If you look hard you can see that the
work once portrayed working people struggling against the negative
influences of city life--pollution, corporate greed and also militarism.
Like "Alewives and Mercury Fish" across from it, "Under
City Stone" has a harsh message delivered by an artist of
some daring.
Almost illegible now among the figures is the text of the poem
by James Agee from which the mural gets its name:
Rapid Transit
Squealing under city stone
The millions on the millions run,
Every one a life alone,
Every one a soul undone:
There all the poisons of the heart
Branch and abound like whirling brooks
And there through every useless art
Like spoiled meats on a butcher's hooks
Pour forth upon their frightful kind
The faces of each ruined child:
The wrecked demeanors of the mind
That now is tamed, and once was wild.
— James Agee, 1937
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