Students from the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design watch employees of Caldwell, Heckles & Egan install fencing with artwork in front of the Amtrak train station in Lancaster. The fencing will remain until station renovations are completed in about a year.
Lancaster's largest display of public art also will be its most fleeting.
Workers of Caldwell, Heckles & Egan construction, who are renovating Lancaster's Amtrak station, recently completed the installation of fencing panels at the station site.
Those panels — totaling 768 square feet — are decorated with the artwork of more than a dozen students of the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.
The artwork includes images of CH&E workers and students, done by college photography students. Images done by college illustration students are as varied as Civil War soldiers, steam locomotives and contemporary children playing with a toy train set.
The decorative fencing is mounted on concrete footers and serves as a protective barrier for pedestrian safety around the construction site.
But, as with the need for the barriers, the artwork is only temporary. It will be displayed for the remainder of the $12 million renovation. That work likely will be completed early next year, a state Department of Transportation official said.
The 24-panel art display is a collaboration of the art college and CH&E. The idea began with CH&E President Peter Egan. Last August, Egan contacted the school and suggested the project.
"The train station is so visible and the construction is so disruptive that I thought that I wanted to do something to lighten it up," said Egan.
Previously, his company has put quilts on construction fencing when renovating the Quilt & Textile Museum and orange banners on structural steel supporting the Watt & Shand façade during construction of the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square.
"A job site can be a piece of art," Egan said.
The first of the art fence sections, the photography panels, were erected earlier this month. The last panels, featuring the illustrations, were put in place last week.
The Amtrak station, at 53 McGovern Ave., is the third-busiest in the state. The renovations, begun in October, include adding parking, improving handicapped accessibility, making space for retails shops and adding air conditioning to the station.
The station, built in 1929, remains open during the renovation.