The Beautification Of Pittsburgh

Making Pittsburgh beautiful: North Side man follows pathway to his dream.

Randy Gilson is a one-man public relations firm for the Mexican War Streets neighborhood on the North Side.

The self-described street artist and community gardener has made it his mission in life to showcase the location in a positive light. For the past 10 years, the Westin Hotel waiter has been painting murals on the walls of the three-story brick house he calls "Randyland." And since 1982, Gilson has planted more than 800 street gardens and 50 vegetable gardens in a 30-block area.

"I've been given so much love in my life -- I absorbed it like a sponge -- that this is my way of giving back what I've been given," says the gregarious Gilson, 50, who looks like a cross between Drew Carey and Sean Penn. "I'm just a starving street artist. I don't know how to paint, and I painted all this. You just keep trying."

Gilson's 100-year-old house is painted in a bright, exuberant yellow, the color of a summer sun on a hot day. Gilson says that he only buys "oops" paints, or mistakes, to save money. He found a five-gallon bucket of yellow latex paint for $10 and decided to paint a starburst on the outside wall. But when he put the paint on the roller, he says, it wouldn't stop painting.

Here's a video, and here a whole bunch of photos.