It has stirred rage, brought forth tears and even slowed the strides of Federal Express deliverers who dart in and out of government offices.
``I think it should be taken down,'' said Steve Jackson, who bit his lip, shook his head and sauntered past. ``It's like they're mocking the death of black men. It's a joke. It don't appeal to me.''
``That's real life [stuff],'' countered his friend Pred Grove. ``A mother holding her dead son. You should be able to feel that pain. It's real. I don't like to see it, but we can't sweep it under the rug. It's just like the burning of those black churches. What's happening in black America has to be brought to the surface.''
Since the painting was hung last week, passions have run high. The work - by a white artist - was taken down after six black city employees and other Pittsburghers complained it degraded African American life.
It was rehung the next day and accompanied by an explanation that the mother in the painting had actually lost her son to violence and that the work was inspired by Michelangelo's Pieta, the haunting sculpture of Mary holding the crucified body of Christ.
``Prejudice is shattered,'' the explanation says, ``when the boy, as a victim of our shared human feelings, is clearly seen to be a martyr.''
A spokeswoman for Mayor Tom Murphy said it was ``regrettable'' the explanation didn't appear immediately with the painting, which will hang in the building another week as part of an effort to highlight local artists.
``I don't know anyone who was killed in a drive-by shooting. I don't know anyone who was murdered,'' said the artist, James Douglas Adams, whose portraits of Pennsylvania's political leaders hang in Harrisburg.
