The Rock

"The Rock" is a large limestone boulder at the intersection of two major streets in Ann Arbor. It was originally
placed in this small traffic median in 1932, the 200th birthday of George Washington, as a memorial to him.

At some unrecorded date in the 1950s, people started to PAINT THE ROCK.

By now the paint is inches thick, and new designs and messages appear all the time -- as much as several times a week. In the two photo above, taken a few days apart, you can see how earlier messages were painted over.

Messages range from birthday wishes to fraternity and sorority issues
to political statements. Go Michigan! messages are also frequent.

Essentially, the rock is a mural that changes all the time. Therefore, I'm sharing this with the weekly blog event "Mural Monday," hosted by blogger Sami in Perth, Australia. Bloggers from around the world post images of murals they've seen in far-flung places including Australia, France, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, the Philippines, Hong Kong, many states in the US, Canada, Iceland, and more.

In the past, efforts were made to stop people from painting the rock, but now it's entirely tolerated and even expected. So it's no longer necessary to paint it in the dark of night.

The rock in the snow: February, 2017. 

The only time the paint doesn't show!

A photo of the rock in its original form, dated 1932.
Source: The Bentley Historical Library.

This beautifully-painted house faces the rock. In the 1970s it was the headquarters of the "Rainbow People's Party."

For a more detailed history of the Ann Arbor custom of painting the rock, see this article:

The Rock by Grace Shackman