P.S. 7’s Art Club and Graffiti Squad

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with the inspiring team behind P.S. 7’s Art Club and Graffiti Squad, whose efforts are transforming Elmhurst into a vibrant, colorful, and welcoming community. This initiative has brought together students, staff, and parents to create stunning murals and clean up graffiti. 

The passionate motivators behind this project are Principal Robert Aiello, Art Teacher Chereane Durante, and Science Teacher LizAnn Lampropoulos. Below is our interview.

So, how did the community art project begin?

Mr: Aiello: When we speak to our families, we say, we want you to experience beauty, not just in the building, but from your house to the school and back. And that’s really where a lot of it came from. When I first came to the school, it was surrounded by large homeless encampments. So, you know, there was a lot of unhoused individuals that were lining the streets in tents, but it was to the point where the children and the community would have to walk in the streets. They wouldn’t be able to be on the sidewalks because there were tons of people, and excrement there, and drug paraphernalia and bags and things like that, and it was one of the major things the community came to me about, saying, “What can we do about this? Our children are literally stepping in human feces on the way to school.”

And, you know, we tried a lot of different things, and in the end, what wound up solving it after a long period of time, was was partnering with the people [on the street], speaking with them, having conversation about the impact that it was having on the community, and they themselves made the the decision to then move a distance away from the school, because they understood. And that wasn’t their desire to have a negative impact on the community. It was to be able to to survive in an area that they thought that they can, at least, you know, get along in, and when we were able to just have real understanding, it led to a positive ending there. And I think that’s really how it began.

Mrs. Durante: And then after they left, that led to Mr. Aiello asking me and Mrs. Lampropoulos to start cleaning up the graffiti. We would go outside, and we would paint all the walls, which led to murals because the upkeep was constant. We were essentially giving taggers a blank canvass, so we knew that we had to put something there to stop them from re-tagging the walls that we just covered up.

Who makes decisions on what murals will go up?

Mrs. Lampropoulos: We work together to decide, always keeping the children in mind. We consider their age group and what they can handle while ensuring feasibility.

What was the first mural you did?

Mrs. Durante: It was the long one along S. Railroad Avenue, under the LIRR tracks. Mrs. Lampropoulos and I would go outside and tape the wall and prepare it for the kids, and they’d come out, and we would just give them paint and say, “get at it!” And they just had a great time painting. I was actually pretty proud of how quickly we painted that wall, because it’s 1000 feet.

Mr. Aiello: They also leveraged help. Mrs. Durante and Mrs. Lampropoulos were able to reach out to local parents, who started joining in. So now you had students, staff and parents all coming together and I think that’s really what allowed it to absolutely go as quick as it did and for it to really have a special meaning behind it, because when you actually do something yourself, it’s different than just somebody else doing it. You have that ownership of it.

Mr. Aiello: The students and parents are also proud to see the text on the wall. We had, “Spread love, it is the P.S.7 way!” painted in several different languages.

Mrs. Lampropoulos: They tell us that they feel like they’re seen. That they’re being included.  Children are now very protective of the wall, that I will have to say. They tell us when they see graffiti on it.

How has the rest of the community reacted?

Mrs: Durante: There’s a lot of stores that have been very generous and kind. They would come out and bring us drinks and let us use the bathroom, they brought us ladders to use. Everyone has been so very supportive.

Mr. Aiello: And I think that’s some of what we’re seeing… When we started to cover up the graffiti, businesses in the area started do the same thing. Many were like, “Alright, that’s what’s happening. We’re cleaning it up, too.” It had a positive, synergistic effect. Like, when you see other people doing something positive, you say, “I’m gonna do something positive myself,” and it can become a flywheel where it just keeps cascading.

You have students from all over the world with different languages and backgrounds. Is that a challenge, academically?

Mr. Aiello: There are dozens of languages spoken at our school, and we’re a little under 40% as an ESL population. So, obviously, if English isn’t your first language, someone who’s a native English speaker is probably going to have an advantage earlier on in grades on some measure. But our school is number two in the district in terms of our ELA scores and number one in terms of math. So even with that obstacle, we still overcome almost every single school in our performance. It’s because the staff here is very, very professional and well trained, and know what they’re doing. We have a really great group of  parents, and our students are really special.

Do you have any other murals planned for the future?

Mrs. Durante: Oh, actually yes. We’re partnering up with Lady pink, who is an artist from Ecuador that started through graffiti and does murals, and students from Frank Sinatra [School of the Arts High School in Astoria] are going to come with her and partner with our kids. We’re looking to paint the academy schoolyard. So that’s in the works right now. The kids are very excited.

What do you love most about Elmhurst?

Mrs. Durante: Well, I love the families here. I’ve worked in other schools. I worked at P.S. 68, I worked at P.S.113, and out of all the schools I’ve been in, this really is my favorite so far, the kids are so sweet and so nice.

Mrs. Lampropoulos: It’s a nice neighborhood to work in. It is a working class neighborhood. Everyone that you see, they are working class, they’re helpful, they’re kind. And I never realized how much so until we started to do this, because all the people that came out, we didn’t seek them. They came to us and were so kind and very appreciative.

Mr. Aiello: The hospitality and the warmness of the people, I think, is something unique here in Elmhurst. I’ve spent most of my career in Corona and Elmhurst, and there’s something unique about the people in this area, where they’re very appreciative and trust that you are doing all you can do to benefit them and to benefit their family. And having that trust, I think, helps build a positive relationship. And the food. The fact that you can walk down a block and go from Southeast Asia to Europe to all around the world, is really wonderful and unique to the district.

Eric

Eric is a 4th-generation native New Yorker and a professional historian, author and educator.