A new international art installation that features multicolored umbrellas hanging above the street will be coming to downtown Bangor this summer.
Bangor city councilors approved a memorandum of understanding Monday with the Downtown Bangor Partnership to install the display, known as the Umbrella Sky Project, over Cross Street.
The display was inspired by Mary Poppins and is intended to bring color to otherwise mundane city streets and shade pedestrians from the blazing summer sun or occasional rain shower.
The Downtown Bangor Partnership hopes placing the “Instagrammable” art display over Cross Street will help draw foot traffic to a frequently overlooked part of downtown Bangor and the small businesses there, Betsy Lundy, the group’s executive director, said.
“Or, if you’re up on Columbia Street frequenting one of the businesses there and take a peek around the block, it entices people to come down into the heart of downtown,” Imke Jandreau, chair of the Downtown Bangor Partnership’s beautification committee, said.
While Main Street or West Market Square may be more centrally located areas to hang the umbrellas, Jandreau said Cross Street is generally more protected from the wind and the umbrellas have a lower chance of getting damaged there.
Cross Street was also selected because it’s across the street from the Maine Discovery Museum, and the multicolored umbrellas would “add to the whimsy of the area,” Lundy said.
The art installation was created by Portuguese art company Impactplan, and first appeared in Portugal in 2012. Since then, iterations have appeared in several major cities across the world including Paris, London and Montreal.
In the United States, however, displays have appeared only in Philadelphia and Miami, according to Imke Jandreau, chair of the Downtown Bangor Partnership’s beautification committee.
The umbrellas will be held aloft by steel cables mounted in the walls of the buildings on either side of Cross Street. The cable anchors will be attached to the mortar of the brick buildings on either side of Cross Street rather than the bricks, so when the installation is eventually removed, the walls can be easily repaired.
Circular planters and benches designed to look like overturned umbrellas would also be scattered along the street as part of the installation.
If all goes as expected, crews will install the umbrellas later this month or in early July, shortly after “Mary Poppins” ends at the Penobscot Theatre down the street.
The project is entirely funded by Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, though Downtown Bangor Partnership may ask the city to help install the display.
The installation will go up in May and be taken down in October every year for three years, as that’s what Downtown Bangor Partnership has received funding for. After three years, the organization can seek additional funding and install new materials to continue the project.