Panoply of color and spectacular mural makes this new Tacoma building a must-see
It’s not an official designation, but a new affordable housing building on Tacoma’s Hilltop could be the city’s most colorful edifice. One face of the four story building at Earnest Brazill Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way is covered with orange and purple siding. Another is complementing shades of blue paired with chartreuse.
A mural stretching from sidewalk to rooftop on one side of the building incorporates those colors and more as it presents a galaxy of faces to passers-by.
Tacoma artist Tiffanny Hammonds created the mural and chose the colors for the Tacoma Housing Authority project. The colors not only have meaning for Hammonds but liven up the typical Pacific Northwest color palette of subdued hues.
“I want it to be something that makes people smile ... or have some type of reaction to where it’s not just, oh, this is another building,” she said.
Across the street from the housing unit is the former Rite Aid building, itself painted in eye-popping colors chosen by Hammonds’ Fab-5 collaborator and artist Chris Jordan.
Jordan’s choice of color and patterns for the building was based on “piecing” — a traditional African American aesthetic that appears in everything from quilts to spray-paint art. It’s prevalent on the Hilltop in the form of murals and smaller decorative elements.
Paired together, the buildings create a canyon of color on MLK Way.
“I think it’s really exciting,” said City of Tacoma arts administrator Amy McBride, who called the new building vibrant and celebratory.
Color choices
Hammonds was chosen by the building’s architects to design the color palette. She wanted it to stand apart from the multitude of other apartment and condo buildings going up around the city.
“I knew that a lot of the buildings that were going up were very gray, very boring,” she said.
She drew inspiration from several sources, including a group of youngsters she conducted a workshop with.
“They got to design the buildings with crayons and Crayola markers,” Hammonds said. “Some of them were really purple, orange, pink and just had a whole bunch of different stripes on them.”
The new building eases the pains gentrification sometimes bring, she said.
“It’s traumatic to a lot of the community members to, one, see some of the historic buildings go down, but to constantly see the same type of buildings go up,” Hammonds said.
Mural
Every color on the building and in the mural has a different meaning, Hammonds said.
“The blue is kind of like the healing that’s taking place in the community,” she said. Purple reflects royalty, value and identity. Orange is change and green is peace.
The mural, titled “Who Shall Ascend the Hill,” features stylized faces that are mostly anonymous, but about 15 reflect real people in Tacoma. The reference to Biblical scripture parallels the everyday housing struggle on the Hilltop and elsewhere, she said.
“Now that we have better transportation or better grocery stores or better housing and better health care, are we just going to push everybody else that was here, or are we going to actually make it better for the people who deserve to live here,” Hammonds said.
Mr. Mac
For half a century Mr. Mac sold suits from his Hilltop Tacoma corner store in eye-popping colors. Red, purple, green, orange were standard colors for Morris “Mr. Mac” McCollum’s selection of hats, belts, shoes and accessories.
McCollum died in 2017, and his store, along with nearby Sam and Terry’s Barbershop, were razed to make way for the new Housing Authority building. The businesses, now owned by the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance, relocated down MLK Way in May 2020.
Come Nov. 1 they’ll both be back where they were, albeit in a brand new building.
“It’s going to be good to be back,” said Derrick Curry, Mr. Mac’s manager. Although the space he’ll have is smaller, he likes the outside color scheme that’s as vibrant as the clothes he sells.
“Somebody said it looks like a big bag of Skittles,” Curry said of the building.
Curry has big sales going on so he doesn’t have to move much merchandise to the new location. He’s also making room in the new location for fashions that appeal to younger generations who might not be as interested in dressing in head-to-toe magenta.
“We’re going to try mixing it up with a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new,” he said.
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
