Wallingford Ladybug Intersection

The Wallingford Ladybug is another example of intersection-painting created when a community comes together to create something interesting and pleasurable to look, and more importantly claim their public space. There is a photo essay with examples of intersection-painting at Coloring Inside the Lines. The ladybug is at the intersection of N 49th Street and Burke Ave N in Wallingford. It was created in 2004.

Intersection-painting is one activity that is part of placemaking. The organization City Repair is a group that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live. They call the ladybug and Bubbles the Turtle an intersection repair with the purpose of creating a public place:

“Intersection Repair is the citizen-led conversion of an urban street intersection into public square. Streets are usually the only public space we have in our neighborhoods. But most all of them have been designed with a single purpose in mind: moving cars around. With an Intersection Repair, that public space is reclaimed for the whole community. The intersection of pathways becomes a place for people to come together. The space becomes a Place – a public square.”

Some additional resources on placemaking included Transform Space Into Place (video) and the Project for Public Spaces webs site: What is Placemaking? After looking at these resources you may not think of an intersection in quite the same way again; this is a good thing.

A Leaf in the Ladybug Intersection, with Person (left), and Without (right)


The Ladybug Theme Repeated in Sewer Hole Covers
 

Bing Map of the Intersection