74Welcome to Downtown Waco East
Hand-painted wall sign by Courtney Lopez, 2019–2020 · commissioned by ABC Flooring for its own storefront at 618 Elm Avenue · the artist files it in her portfolio as her East Waco MuralSIGN
A flooring store painted a mid-century travel poster on its own wall and named the neighbourhood while it was at it.
Green and cream, on a white-painted brick wall that has been patched a dozen times: a banner reading Welcome to the, then WACO in fat sans capitals, then East! in a big optimistic script with a sunburst behind it, and a border of little diamonds top and bottom. It is a 1950s postcard, painted at wall size, on a working flooring shop.
And then, in the same lettering and the same green, the phone number and ABC FLOORING — because the sign is not being nostalgic. It is trying to sell you carpet.
The reason it matters is the word order. Downtown Waco East. Not East Waco, which is what the rest of the city says; not the Eastside, which is what the wall two hundred feet from here says. Downtown — east. Somebody stood on this corner and decided that the middle of town is wherever you happen to be standing, and painted it ten feet tall in the one place where nobody could argue.