Philly now has a mural of a squirrel eating a SEPTA token
The mural was installed this week in North Philadelphia.
Murals, squirrels, and SEPTA tokens have long been ubiquitous around Philadelphia.
Now, those three parts of city life are brought together in a new art installation in North Philadelphia.
As highlighted on the Streets Dept. blog, the just-installed mural at 2217 N. Hancock St. depicts a squirrel eating a SEPTA token.
Artist Evan Lovett, who shared an in-progress shot of the mural this week, told the blog: "We wanted to paint something we see every day, and we added the SEPTA token to tie it into the neighborhood and the El."
Lovett and Visual Urban Renewal and Transformation, a public-art nonprofit known as VURT, are also behind a pigeon mural on the Kensington-Fishtown border.
While tokens may be on their way out, thanks to the new SEPTA Key card, the coin is now memorialized in art. If the early response is any indication, the depiction is a hit. A Streets Department Instagram post Thursday previewing the work -- calling it "the best new mural ever" -- has gotten more than 1,800 likes.