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4th Street Pride Mural
Downtown Austin, Texas
June, 2026
"These bullies wanna take a few crosswalks away? Fine. We'll just gay up the whole goddamn block." - Erich (Staff Muralist)
You should know a couple things about Ramirez & Co.: we're pretty rebellious, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the people and communities who experience discrimination every day across our incredible country.
In 2025, the Federal Transportation Secretary and then the State of Texas declared that the City of Austin had to remove certain messaging from crosswalks and roadways. This included a set of rainbow-painted crosswalks in downtown Austin around the intersection of 4th and Colorado Streets, a historically-important neighborhood for Austin's LGBT movement and community.
Enter Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. Mayor Watson. In response to the DoT's and State's new demands, he formed the Mayor's Public Spaces Taskforce. This group, made up of 22 community members appointed by the Mayor and Austin City Council, was charged with creating ways that enhanced the city's demonstrations of pride. Read his take on the story in The Watson Wire newsletter.
One of the decisions made was to enhance the block of West 4th Street/Bettie Naylor Street adjacent to the crosswalks with an appropriate mural.
That's when we got called. The Mayor worked with local property and business owners and we scoped out a way to install a mural the size of a whole city block over just a few days.
See, Ramirez & Co. has a reputation - not only do we always work to Do The Right Thing, we also know how to Go Big.
We painted the whole block and left some room open for the community to help.
Then, we threw a party. The Mayor brought his friends, we brought ours, the LGBT community showed up in full FABULOUS force, we painted hearts and personal messages in between and we all said goodbye to a couple of rainbow crosswalks while saying hello to some new, permanent color, brought to you proudly and loudly Ramirez & Co.
The news came out, too:
It was such an honor to be part of this project! Check out the galleries and social media posts here and relive the day with us. Happy Pride!
“They are taking our little crosswalks away, so we decided let’s paint the walls and make it something beautiful. This is Austin, we’re here to be seen, we’re here to be a community together.” -Des (staff muralist)
Austin's LGBTQIA+ community gathered to inaugurate the 4th Street Pride Mural - June, 2026 "Happy Pride from @ramirezmurals" - June, 2026 Austin Mayor Kirk Watson working on his addition to the mural. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson with Ramirez & Co. Founder Steph and Staff Painter Des. 
@ramirezmurals Founder Steph welcomes everyone to the 4th Street Pride Mural - June, 2026 One of the community-painted panels of the 4th Street Pride Mural - June, 2026 Austin's comunity gathered to complete the 4th Street Pride Mural - June, 2026 One of the community-painted panels of the 4th Street Pride Mural - June, 2026
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