Resurrect Dead - Movie Review

Last month, I wrote up the presence of a Toynbee Tile in downtown Pittsburgh.  Urban mysteries fascinate me, so we rented Resurrect Dead via Netflix.  It's a documentary of these three guys obsessed with solving the mystery of who created the tiles and if he was still alive.

While the text on the Toynbees indicates a potentially mentally unstable person, the lead guy in the documentary also seems to be wrestling with his own demons of obsession too.   The other two guys were a garden variety dork and nerd (my people).  Together this nerd troika pieced together a 1983 Philadelphia Inquirer interview, a snippet from a David Mamet play, a Larry King interview, interviews with ham radio operators, on site viewings of hundreds of tiles across the United States (and sharing views of tiles in Chile and elsewhere in South America) to get to South 9th Street in Philadelphia.

At this specific address, they found evidence of a hermit who walled himself off from society -- literally, he put plywood on his windows and ran a 1 inch diameter metal bar through his door as an extra deadbolt.  Interviews with his neighbors, humorous by themselves, revealed that "Sevy" (short for Severino) used to drive his car around at night and broadcast his manifestos that would come through their TV's.  He also had no floorboards in the passenger side of his car -- perfect for surreptitiously laying tiles in urban settings at night.

But they never interviewed Sevy himself to confirm it, even with all the evidence they had, so it is still technically "unsolved".  Sometimes the people chasing the mystery are as odd as the subject they are chasing.

Toynbee Tiles in Pittsburgh

A few weeks ago at Piratefest, a fellow baseball blogger told me about something called Toynbee Tiles.  Apparently these tiles are a great urban mystery across the United States, but primarily in the East Coast, and have been around for at least 30 years.

The "classic" Toynbee Tile is a piece of linoleum-like substance that is affixed to asphalt in a major downtown city street.  It has tiny pieces of the author's philosophy, albeit one that brings to mind that the creator may brush his hair once a week, have an array of facial tics, and complain about the birds flying overhead acting as spies.

Since DB~ and I are off this week, we went downtown to try and find one located at Sixth Avenue and Smithfield Street.  I was expecting it to be large and adjacent to the sidewalk, but DB~ spotted the tiny 12" x 6" (approximate) tile a few feet into the lane adjacent to the sidewalk on the Mellon Park side of the intersection.

The legend of the Toynbee Tiles is that no one truly knows who is creating and installing them.  They just sort of appear.  And considering the high traffic areas and amount of work that need to be done to affix them, it's safe to say it is done in the dead of night.  A Philadelphia recluse named Severino Verna, using the alias of James Morasco, is the most likely candidate according to those in the know about these items.

Some cities treat these tiles as graffiti, such as Chicago which actively removes them.  They are more likely the garbled ramblings of a crazy person, but they are unique pieces of urban art all throughout major cities that should be seen at least once in person.  There is also a documentary called Resurrect Dead (a popular phrase on the tiles) that I will try and track down through Netflix, as well.