neighborhoods/towns that display mascots?

March 22, 2015 4:08 PM

I live in Fishtown in Philadelphia, and it is very common in the neighborhood to incorporate a fish into the outside of your house. Are there other places that do this kind of thing?

The neighbor's group sells fish address signs you can add your house number to, but much more elaborate versions are also common. I've seen stained glass door transoms with fish, beautiful custom metalwork railings and gates with fish, a huge koi painted on a door, and large fish sculptures.

I know about the contrade of Siena, are there other places where this is common? The mascot doesn't have the be part of the town name. I am much more interested in places where the mascot/town symbol is actually incorporated into the architecture (especially of private houses), rather than just on municipal buildings or a college town where everyone flies the college flag. I'm thinking of a popular, non-sports-related symbol of a location.

posted by sepviva to Society & Culture (19 answers total)

I think there must be some company that goes around convincing towns to adopt something like this. Here in Hattiesburg, MS, many businesses display swans that the business has decorated, say with the colors of the New Orleans Saints or multi-colored handprints or some other nonsense. The flocking of the swans was not at all organic, like the fish in your area seem to be. Swans, to my knowledge, have nothing at all to do with Hattiesburg in any way and sort of grate on me for this reason. I've also seen similar things--carousel horses come to mind--in other nearby towns.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:30 PM on March 22, 2015

It's not exactly what you are looking for but Dallas has a well known historic pegasus sign downtown that's resulted in a lot of pegasus artwork and public sculptures and things.

https://thedallaswhisperer.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/the-red-flying-horse-in-downtownpegasus/
posted by internet!Hannah at 4:41 PM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I grew up in Peach County, GA. The towns of the county are absolutely covered with peach imagery - flags and signs on all kinds of buildings (including private homes), and a lot of businesses work them into their logos and advertising. There's a strip mall in Byron alongside the interstate marked by a massive peach on a pole.

Hand-painted peaches look a lot like butts.
posted by jessicapierce at 4:46 PM on March 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Doo Town!
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:58 PM on March 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

I feel like I saw this in Marblehead, MA. I think it might have also been a fish? (This is an unhelpful comment, I realize.)
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 5:29 PM on March 22, 2015

Also in Philadelphia, but my neighborhood, East Falls, has a catfish as a mascot.
posted by Eddie Mars at 5:58 PM on March 22, 2015

Rayne, Louisiana, is nicknamed "Frog City" -- frog legs were once a major export here, so whimsical frogs in every shape, size, and medium decorate the town ... including murals painted on the exit off I-10.
posted by peakcomm at 7:27 PM on March 22, 2015

White Bear Lake, MN - many residents have white bear statues in their yards or on their homes. It is now also the mascot for the high school but originally comes from an Indian legend that gave the lake its name.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 7:53 PM on March 22, 2015

Not quite the same thing, but in Doo Town, Tasmania, Australia, all the houses have nameplates with 'doo'-related puns.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 8:10 PM on March 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Punxsutawney, PA decorates the downtown with groundhogs.
posted by irisclara at 9:44 PM on March 22, 2015

I've seen this in the medieval city center of Elburg, a former fishing village in the Netherlands. Many of the historic houses are decorated with fishing nets and other traditional fishing implements.
posted by neushoorn at 3:29 AM on March 23, 2015

Local mascots are extremely common in Japan. Here are a few. Kumamon, the mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture, is particularly popular and pretty much ubiquitous. So is Funassyi, who represents a town in Chiba.

Wikipedia.
posted by plep at 5:11 AM on March 23, 2015

Also Japan, Children's Day decorations
posted by ouke at 7:59 AM on March 23, 2015

Wenatchee is the Apple Capital of the World.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:28 AM on March 23, 2015

In Massachusetts whole neighborhoods of homes will be covered with Barnstars from Christmas Tree Shops. Nobody can explain why though.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:37 AM on March 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

You say Hutto, we say Hippo.
posted by jaksemas at 11:51 AM on March 23, 2015

Response by poster: These are all great, thank you!
posted by sepviva at 5:58 PM on March 23, 2015

I live in Coconut Grove, FL. Lots of folks have peacocks incorporated into houses here. There are loads of feral peacocks wandering around.
posted by mrfuga0 at 6:39 PM on March 23, 2015

I grew up 20 minutes from Kimberly, British Columbia, and while it's not a mascot, the town has a bavarian "theme". It's sorta lame but cute. Also they do have a mascot, a german beer drinking man named "Happy Hans" and he's painted and modelled into tons of places in the town. He also walks around as an actual mascot in the winter. just.. a town mascot.
posted by euphoria066 at 8:36 PM on March 23, 2015