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Something Cool: A 'Hopscotch Crosswalk' In Baltimore

The most famous crosswalk in the world has to be Abbey Road. But, today, the city of Baltimore unveiled what could be the most entertaining of crosswalks.

The street crossings adjacent to the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower in downtown are now equipped with four different games of hopscotch. Take a look:

As The Baltimore Sun explains, this is all part of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts' effort to put art in public spaces. In another part of town, for example, another artist designed a crosswalk that "looks like a giant zipper opening."

Naturally, this made us curious about other inventive crosswalks across the country. Turns out there are many that are just as cool: Back in June, Milwaukee transformed one of its crosswalks into piano keys, and in Miami during the world-class Art Basel art fair, one crosswalk was transformed into a piece called "Crosswalks of Additive Color."

Of course in Baltimore, there will undoubtably be those who ask if a hopscotch crosswalk is safe. We've posed that question to the BOP and we'll update this post with their response.

Update at 5:05 p.m. ET. On Safety:

Tracy Baskerville, a spokeswoman for BOP, tells us this about any safety concerns:

"We did work with a review panel including a representative from the Department of Transportation to approve the designs for the Crosswalk Project. We think it is always nice for residents to engage public art; however all pedestrians need to be mindful of the traffic, crosswalk signals and traffic lights."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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