Bronzeville Neighbors Demand Answers After Nat King Cole Mural Torn Down Without Warning

Bronzeville residents are asking why a mural of Nat King Cole came down this week with no notice to the community, the artist who made it, or the alderwoman who helped fund it more than a decade ago.

The mural, a black-and-white recreation of a photograph showing Cole at the piano, has stood at the corner of 43rd Street and Martin Luther King Drive since 2014. South Side artist and urban planner Chris Devins painted it as part of his Bronzeville Legends series, a set of murals honoring Black figures with ties to the neighborhood. Cole was born and raised in Bronzeville, went to school there, and started his music career in the neighborhood before becoming one of the best-known singers of the 20th century.

Devins said he spent more than a year gathering input from local businesses and residents before settling on Cole as the subject for the side of the T.K. Lawless building. Ald. Pat Dowell's (3rd) office put up money for the original installation, and neighbors raised roughly $2,000 in 2023 to refurbish the artwork after it had started to fade.

This week, workers took most of it down. William Salaam, who has co-owned Bronzeville Boutique across the street since 2009, said he noticed the demolition while walking to work and stopped to ask the crew what was happening.

"I turned around and looked, and I was like, 'Oh my goodness,'" Salaam said. "I went over and asked the contractor, 'Why ya'll tearing that down?'"

Salaam called Devins over the weekend. By the time Devins found out, he said, about two-thirds of the mural was already gone. He said hundreds of people have messaged him since, upset that the piece disappeared with no discussion.

"I was definitely shocked because it was treated so callously, without any discussion or anything," Devins said.

The now-vacant building was sold earlier this year to Lisa Collins, a local business owner, and her husband, Ryan Wilkins. Collins said the mural had to go because of renovation work and safety concerns tied to deteriorating brick on the building's facade, which had started shedding pieces. She said the building is being converted into a daycare and affordable office space.

Collins said she plans to run a contest inviting Bronzeville artists to submit proposals for new artwork on the site, with a panel of judges choosing the winner. She met with Devins this week to walk him through the plan. No decision has been made yet on what will go up in the mural's place.

Devins said he wants Collins to bring the neighborhood into that process.

"I'm hoping that she will engage with the community and take their concerns into account as she's moving forward with developing the building and what the new art will be," he said.

Dowell said her office is aware of the safety issues Collins cited but wants whatever replaces the mural to keep faith with the neighborhood's history.

"The community's response was surprised and outraged, and I immediately contacted the new owner to find out why the mural was removed," Dowell said. "I hope whatever artwork is put up that it would continue to celebrate the history of Bronzeville."

Sherry Williams, executive director of the Bronzeville Historical Society, attended the mural's unveiling in 2014 and has spent more than four decades working to preserve the neighborhood's Black landmarks. She said the lack of a heads-up before the mural came down bothered her as much as the removal itself.

"It seems to me that it would just be common courtesy to alert us if there was a removal," Williams said. She pointed to the mural's location across from a portrait of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, saying the two pieces were "bookends" for the intersection. "Certainly was a way that the community felt that we were designated by whom we celebrated."

Salaam said what set Devins' murals apart from other neighborhood artwork was their use of actual historical photographs rather than painted likenesses, an approach Devins has described as building a kind of neighborhood family photo album, block by block.

Devins said he wants to see whether Bronzeville residents get a real say in what goes up next. Collins has not set a date for the artist contest or for construction to finish on the daycare and office conversion.