A team of community volunteers recently completed the renovation of the Five Pipes Mural in the Teaneck Creek Conservancy, which had been vandalized with graffiti in November 2014.
The Five Pipes Mural mural is a piece of public art in the 46-acre park of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy created frrom five, 6-foot high concrete sewer pipes that had been abandoned after the construction of Interstate Highway 95 and Route 80. It is an artistic project between the Thomas Jefferson Middle School students and teachers and members of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy.Artist Eduardo Alexander Rabel and art historian Professor Rick Mills were commissioned in 2008 by the Teaneck Creek Conservancy to lead Teaneck students, teachers and community volunteers in transforming the pipes into a representation of five eras of life in the township.
The interiors of the pipes were painted to represent the different historical eras in Teaneck, from the life of Lenape Native American people to Dutch colonization, industrialization, the 20th century and the future while the exteriors were painted with scenes of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy’s flora and fauna.
Unfortunately, all but one of the Five Pipes Murals were vandalized with black spray paint last fall.Every Tuesday from April to July, six volunteers, many of whom were artists from the community, worked to remove the graffiti and restore the mural, which was not such an easy task considering the porous nature of the concrete. Extra care had to be executed to ensure that the paint underneath would not be removed.