Downtown Bangor has been alive with beautiful, eye-catching murals springing up over the past several months as storefronts and buildings have been given a colorful face-lift through the Beautify Bangor initiative.
Bangor, a town of about 5,000 people in the area known as the Slate Belt, is a lovely historic community located at the northern end of Lehigh Valley and the foothills of the Poconos. The Beautify Bangor idea was born out of a desire to grow foot traffic year round and enhance the attractiveness of the downtown. It has evolved into a true community effort and a source of pride for local residents and business owners. Even before this recent initiative, Bangor was well-known for other murals depicting the town’s history, including “Our Town” and “Homefront,” which you’ll see in the gallery below.
The Beautify Bangor murals started earlier this year with a small painting sponsored by local realtor Faith Sarisky, who owns Realty Solutions of PA/NJ, and the idea took off from there as more businesses, residents, volunteers and artists joined in the effort to #BeautifyBangor. I recently enjoyed a stroll up, down, and all around town in an attempt to find all the murals myself (pictures below) before giving in and looking the rest up online.
Each of the murals is sponsored by a Bangor business and completed by a local artist with a unique vision in mind. There are now more than 30 paintings completed by various artists. You can find them all listed here along with their locations or take a self-guided walking tour and seek them out yourself.
Scroll through the gallery below to see some of the inspiring murals, but just know that the pictures don’t do the artwork justice.
You’ll need to plan a day to visit and see them firsthand to fully experience this.
According to the Morning Call, the idea is also spreading to the other Slate Belt boroughs of Pen Argyl, Wind Gap, and Portland, where Slate Belt Rising has begun commissioning murals on commercial properties through grant funding.