Downtown Three Rivers Mural Mall Gets Cleanup Over Weekend

Three Rivers Woman's Club members pose for a photo on Friday, September 18 in the mural mall in downtown Three Rivers. (Photo provided by Mary K. Todd)

The downtown Mural Mall connects Railroad Drive with the intersection of Main Street and Portage Avenue in downtown Three Rivers. It includes a walkway with stairs and ramps, seating, and a mixture of plantings that include ornamental growth, native grasses, and a butterfly garden. Last Friday afternoon, it got some much needed, annual attention from volunteers with the Three Rivers Downtown Development Authority and Main Street Program (TRDDA) and the Three Rivers Woman’s Club (TRWC).

“The Mural Mall is just one of those areas that, you know, needs a lot of love,” TRDDA Executive Director Tricia Meyer said. Over the course of a summer, the native grasses can grow prolifically, as can invasive goldenrod that forms part of the butterfly garden. There are also weeds. Each requires periodic cutting back by removal from the root, which can be labor intensive.

“We made short work of it,” TRWC President Mary K. Todd said. Friday’s work included “trimming back things for winter, you know, getting the butterfly garden in shape, taking out some of the wild growth and encouraging it in some other places, encouraging it in the butterfly garden, like the goldenrod,” Todd said. “We also trimmed back some of the brush that had encroached onto the sidewalk.”

TRDDA’s all-volunteer Design Committee provides oversight of the downtown’s physical assets, including the Mural Mall. It is headed by Jason Ballew, who spearheaded Friday’s work. “He had contacted me a little while back,” Meyer said of Ballew. “He’s fairly new to the area. He’s a Chicago resident who relocated here, and he’s actually part of the (Michigan State University) Master Gardening program, so he reached out and asked if there were any areas where we can use his expertise.”

That expertise has proven extremely helpful, Meyer said. “What some people think is a weed is actually not, you know. He’s been really instrumental in not only the maintenance, but also planting. He replanted some of the rain garden,” she said. “He’s, he’s helped with some of the projects in the East Alley,” which connects Main Street to the parking lots on Joshua Drive.

Longtime Design Committee members Mary Miholer O’Connor and Michal Dobyns were also present Saturday. Other expertise came from among the five TRWC members who assisted with the work. “Several of our members belong to the garden club,” Todd said. “One of our initiatives this year is beautification and horticulture.”

Todd said Meyer “asked for volunteers, and five of us stepped up the plate, because she is one of us, in the Women’s Club, and when she needed help, we grabbed our gloves and donned our masks.” Todd said between the eight volunteers who showed up, along with Meyer, “we filled nine or 10 great, big, huge Home Depot bags packed right to the gills, right up to the top, and did it in about an hour and a half.”

“This was kind of a little community assistance to the downtown,” Todd said. Many downtown projects are collaborative efforts between downtown businesses, the city, TRDDA, and several volunteer-driven organizations. Friday’s Mural Mall work was such a collaboration. Members of the Three Rivers Improvement Movement (TRiM) did some work on a previous weekend, including removing grass and weeds that were growing through the expansion joints in the concrete, Todd said. “I know they had a trailer load they took out of there.”

Meyer said citizens sometimes comment when the Mural Mall appears overgrown. “A lot of it is just a lot of the ornamental native grasses that have just kind of filled out,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of work, it’s just, people aren’t noticing yet, because there’s so much other stuff suffocating things out.” Due to the volume of material removed, work like that which the volunteers performed on Friday helps get the area looking like it is supposed to, Meyer said.

“It was a beautiful, sunny day downtown. It was just awesome to see the collaboration,” Meyer said. “They did a great job.”

Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.


PHOTOS: (Mary K. Todd|Three Rivers Woman’s Club)