The Leonard Cohen Crescent Street Mural

In tribute to a Montréal icon, a larger-than-life mural commemorating singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen gazes tenderly down upon Crescent Street. The towering image depicts Cohen, sporting his signature fedora with his hand over his heart and, in the background, his highly symbolic Unified Heart icon. 

Led by Montréal artist Gene Pendon and internationally renowned American street portrait artist El Mac, “Tower of Songs” took 2 muralists, 13 assistant artists, 240 cans of paint and thousands of hours of work to replicate a photograph taken by his daughter, Lorca Cohen.

This immense 10,000 square-foot mural rising 21 storeys above the city can easily be admired from the Mount Royal Observatory as well as from the Glass Court of the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. In the evening, the mural lights up with a soft lighting, but no less spectacular, just like the great Leonard.

Commissioned by MU, a non-profit organization whose mission is to beautify the city of Montréal by creating murals that are anchored in local communities, the mural is a part of MU’s Tribute to Montréal’s Great Artists series.