As Toynbee Tiles Dwindle, Philadelphia Streets Department Surfaces as Unlikely Hope for Preservation

Jim Saksa:

Streets employees may be the least likely city workers to be found spending Sunday at the Barnes or catching a gallery opening on First Friday. And yet it’s probably the only city department that’s baked an art-preservation clause into its standard, bid-out contracts.

The city’s paving agreements stipulate that paving contractors must halt resurfacing and notify a Streets engineer if they come across a Toynbee Tile, those strange mosaic messages embedded into the pavement across Philadelphia.

The tiles are at once part of our local lore and art known the world over, the purported product of a South Philly man with a tenuous grip on reality and a tremendous amount of creativity. The tiles have inspired imitators and thieves alike, not to mention numerous news pieces and one award-winning documentary. And with all signs suggesting the mysterious tiler has left the city for good, the tiles are becoming ever more rare and in danger of extinction in their native habitat, Philadelphia.

As a Philadelphian whose favorite film is 2001, I’ve always loved these tiles. They’re everywhere in Center City. It’s crazy that there are even a few on I-676, I-95, and the Schuylkill Expressway.

★ Friday, 2 October 2015