Mural unveiled in Warren’s Garden District

Staff report

WARREN

Warren native Amy Novelli lived long enough in New York City to know that neighborhoods can change dramatically depending on what people want at any given time.

And over the month she’s been painting her mural at the corner of North Park Avenue and Scott Street Northeast, she’s seen enough positive changes to believe more positive changes are coming to that neighborhood.

Next door is a house that has been renovated, and the building on which she painted her mural has also gotten lots of interest from buyers, she said.

“I think it’s going to work,” she said of the efforts by groups such as the nonprofit Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership to turn the area just north of downtown into a “hipster” hangout.

Volunteer and recent mayoral candidate Dennis Blank named the neighborhood the Garden District, and Novelli’s mural embraces the name, using it in large letters.

The mural also features children from the neighborhood who served as models.

Houses from the neighborhood are also included.

Novelli finished the mural Thursday, and she helped to unveil it Friday.

Her design was the winner among 22 submitted to a jury after a public-voting process conducted by TNP.

Novelli, a Warren G. Harding High School graduate, lives in Tucson, Ariz., and is a commercial artist.