Our Union at Balmy Alley

About Balmy Alley

Balmy Alley is a one-block-long alley that is home to the most concentrated collection of murals in the city of San Francisco. It is located in the south central portion of the Mission District between 24th Street and Garfield Park. Since 1973, every building on the street has been decorated with a mural. Balmy Alley represents the spirit of the Mission District: Resistant and Cultural.

History

The earliest murals in the alley date to 1972, painted by Maria Galivez and children in a local child care center. Artists Patricia Rodriguez and Graciela Carrillo had rented an apartment on Balmy Alley and painted their first mural in the Alley, a jungle-underwater scene, in 1973. Their two-woman team soon expanded and became known as Las Mujeres Muralistas. Fellow member Irene Perez painted her own mural on the alley in 1973, depicting two back-to-back figures playing flutes. In 1984, Ray Patlan spearheaded the PLACA project to install murals throughout the alley featuring the common theme of a celebration of indigenous Central American cultures and a protest of US intervention in Central America. Topics of the murals included the Nicaraguan Revolution, Oscar Romero, and the Guatemalan Civil War.