CINCINNATI -- Senate restaurant founder Dan Wright said Monday he couldn't save the 1920s-era home of his new restaurant without destroying parts of a mural on one of its outer walls, but outcry from the Over-the-Rhine community pushed him to search for a compromise between structural and artistic integrity.
"We recently spoke to the artist and his family and we're working together to create a new mural," the restaurant's official Facebook account wrote Thursday. "We think its (sic) really gonna be something special. We will provide details as they become available."
Local artist William Rankins Jr. painted the mural at 1536 Race Street, a former auto shop and laundromat that will soon become a restaurant, in the mid-'90s. Many of its counterparts, which once dotted Cincinnati in profusion, now lie hidden underneath layers of repainting and urban renovation.
Rankins himself can't replace them, he said. He was blinded in a fight with would-be robbers and no longer paints.
Given that information, the process by which Wright intends to "create a new mural" remains somewhat mysterious.
However, his commitment to doing something impressed Facebook commenter Alexandria Barnes, who wrote: "Thank you for listening to the community."
