8 American Murals Worth the Detour

July 21, 2026

By Vidar

Eight American murals that make architecture part of the picture.

King Kong reaches into a New Rochelle plaza, giant harvestmen crawl across a Seattle roof, and flowers wrap an Atlantic City building. Across eight cities, windows, corners, rooftops, and fire escapes help shape the art.

🦍 “King Kong” — By Carlos Alberto GH in New Rochelle, New York, USA 🇺🇸

Kong’s painted hand reaches onto the pavement, so a visitor standing at the intended viewpoint appears to balance on his palm. The Public Art Archive records King Kong as a 2022 mural at New Roc City Plaza. ArtsWestchester says Carlos Alberto created the interactive work for the New Rochelle Council on the Arts with support from its ReStart the Arts grant. Project curator Street Art for Mankind gives the exact address as 33 LeCount Place in New Roc City Plaza.

💡 Nerd Fact: The subject was site-specific: Carlos Alberto chose King Kong because New Roc City is near a Regal cinema complex. The same source records that he trained as an art restorer and worked on restoring murals in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula before creating his own street art.

More: King Kong in New Rochelle

🔗 Follow Carlos Alberto GH on Instagram

🎩 “Lincoln” — By Eduardo Kobra in Lexington, Kentucky, USA 🇺🇸

Kobra transforms the seated figure of the Lincoln Memorial into a field of geometric color. VisitLEX identifies Lincoln as a 60-foot mural on the back of the Kentucky Theatre, visible from the 200 block of Water Street. LEX 18 dates the work to 2013 and confirms that its subject is the Washington, D.C., memorial.

💡 Nerd Fact: Daniel Chester French designed the Lincoln Memorial figure, and the Piccirilli brothers executed it from 28 separate pieces of Georgia marble; the sculpture took four years to complete. WTVQ reported Kobra’s mural complete on November 13, 2013, six days before the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

More: Abraham Lincoln in Lexington · More by Eduardo Kobra

🔗 Visit Eduardo Kobra’s website

🕷️ “Daddy Long Legs on the Armory” — By Marlin Peterson in Seattle, Washington, USA 🇺🇸

Seattle Center’s public-art inventory says the 2012 roof mural, repainted in 2023, depicts two harvestmen, one male and one female, from the arachnid order Opiliones. Harvestmen are commonly called daddy longlegs, but they are not spiders. Peterson built wire-and-wood models to calculate the painted shadows that create the three-dimensional illusion, visible only from the Space Needle Observation Deck. The work covers the roof of the Seattle Center Armory at 305 Harrison Street.

💡 Nerd Fact: Peterson’s production breakdown lists about two weeks for model-making and digital planning, three days for the lumber-crayon outlines, and two weeks to roll roughly six gallons of house paint in about seven colors. About fifteen four-inch rollers were used; spray paint was bought but abandoned because the roof was too windy.

More: Daddy Long Legs in Seattle

🔗 Visit Marlin Peterson’s website

🌺 “New York Avenue” — By Jenna Morello in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA 🇺🇸

Jenna Morello painted New York Avenue with assistance from Barann Duzgun in 2023 for the Atlantic City Arts Foundation’s Foxx & Friends project. The mural wraps the Bywater Building at 153 S. New York Avenue in oversized blooms, using its real windows as gaps in a painted garden.

💡 Nerd Fact: The surrounding Orange Loop district takes its name from Monopoly’s orange property group: New York Avenue, St. James Place and Tennessee Avenue. Foxx & Friends added six murals to the district during a ten-day installation program.

More: Four Views of Jenna Morello’s Atlantic City Mural

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📷 Photo by Ruben Garcia.

🖼️ From “At the Foot of the Cliff” — By Julien de Casabianca in Memphis, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸

The seated girl comes from Au pied de la falaise (At the Foot of the Cliff), William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting in the Brooks Museum collection. In 2018, de Casabianca enlarged her into a temporary paper installation on the six-story building at 62 E.H. Crump Boulevard as part of the museum’s Brooks Outside series and de Casabianca’s Outings Project. The fire escape and windows cut directly through the figure.

💡 Nerd Fact: Bouguereau’s original oil painting is only 43¼ inches (109.9 cm) tall. For the Memphis enlargement, the figure was printed on large sheets of paper, cut out and wheat-pasted to the vacant United Warehouse; the enlarged toes were reported as roughly one foot wide.

More: Julien de Casabianca in Memphis

🔗 Visit Julien de Casabianca’s website

📷 Photo by Mike Kerr.

🪽 “The Majestic” — By Yanoe and Zoueh in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA 🇺🇸

Completed in 2021, The Majestic covers approximately 15,000 square feet across the east and north sides of the Main Park Plaza parking garage at 410 S. Main Street. The City of Tulsa explains that the central angel represents guidance, protection, and love, while the two children represent Tulsa’s youth. Oklahoma plants and animals fill the Art Deco-inspired frame, and an on-site QR code was installed to activate animation and audio.

💡 Nerd Fact: Yanoe and Zoueh had already set an augmented-reality mural size record in 2019 with the 11,000-square-foot The Journey in Columbus. At approximately 15,000 square feet, The Majestic surpassed the duo’s own earlier mark.

More: Ten Photos of The Majestic

🔗 Follow Yanoe and Zoueh on Instagram

📷 Photo by Chop’em Down Films.

🐊 Alligator Wall — By ROA in Atlanta, Georgia, USA 🇺🇸

The black-and-white alligator lies belly-up across the brick wall, while its tail curls around the corner and climbs beside the fire escape. Living Walls’ official 2011 archive credits the mural to ROA, and Southern Spaces places it on the east side of 209 Mitchell Street, facing Forsyth Street at the Mitchell–Forsyth corner.

💡 Nerd Fact: The mural’s wall belongs to Concordia Hall, an 1892 building and the only structure on its block to survive the Terminal Block fire of 1908. Before later commercial uses, the hall hosted dramatic performances, music, literary gatherings and debates for Atlanta’s Concordia Association.

More: ROA’s Alligator in Atlanta · ROA Collection

📷 Photo by John McNicholas (nickmickolas).

🌿 “Garden of Delight” — By David Guinn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 🇺🇸

Painted trees and foliage extend the real garden onto the wall, with the doorway built into the scene. Mural Arts Philadelphia identifies Garden of Delight as a 2010 mural by David Guinn and lists it as on view at 203 S. Sartain Street. Guinn used transparent colors for a watercolor-like effect; the two central trees lean together like an embrace, while the painted garden appears to continue the real community garden below.

💡 Nerd Fact: Guinn grew up in this neighborhood and returned to it for the commission. Before becoming a muralist, he studied architecture at Columbia University, an education the university credits with developing his eye for urban design.

More: Garden of Delight in Philadelphia

🔗 Follow David Guinn Studio on Instagram

📷 Photo by María Campos Espasa.