Vandals whitewash mural in alley next to Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater building

Not even vandals can stop the art in Ann Arbor. Local residents are rallying to repaint a mural in a downtown alley after some vandals whitewashed it.

Excerpt:

For Michael Martin, the mural in the alley off East Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor was a source of pride, a place he could take out-of-towners to get a glimpse of the fabric of the community where he lives.

Martin, who works at a nearby restaurant, said he felt “pure disgust” Monday when he realized someone had used white paint to cover a signficant portion of the mural closest to the alley entrance in the 600 block of East Liberty.

Larger portions of the 5,000-square-foot mural, which extends deep into the alley, were not whited out, but that portion already had lots of assorted graffiti added in the years since the original mural was created in 1999.

The richly detailed mural was painted on both walls and the ceiling at the alley entrance, then walls on both sides of the alley, which serves, among other uses, as an exit for the Michigan Theater.

“A lot of people are against graffiti,” said Martin. “But that (original mural) actually had meaning. It was like a statement.”

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