Who is severino verna

The tiler makes mention of events that must have had currency at some point. The unified message in New York City, in Chicago, in Philadelphia remained constant: down with the press! Resurrect dead! You—yes, you—must make and glue tiles! As a result, for all their ubiquity, the tiles show no apparent allegiance to the cities of their origin, and have none of the location-affinity that defines street art. Named artists gladly accept their due, but the buck stops short when the artist is unknown.

One wonders why the tiler clings to anonymity, even after inscribing his address in one of his works. The anonymous creator must have a unique affinity with his craft—enough that he believes that his work will speak, sans brand or label, to a public accustomed to the crutch of brands and labels. Enough, also, that he can allow his own identity to be subsumed by the heft of the message he feels duty-bound to transmit.

There must be some allure to remaining nameless. Some might accuse anonymous artists of irresponsibility—of orphaning their work and leaving it in the hands of a ruthless public. For the Toynbee tiler, anonymity became a one-way mirror. Cities and roads were subject to his project and purpose while he remained essentially unreachable, immune to any kind of feedback. Unadulterated appreciation of the work—what more could an artist ask for?

It is believed he did this in hopes of preserving, or perhaps resurrecting, the birds. This might have stemmed from his parents owning a funeral home, but it was an obsession that carried him throughout his whole life. After hitting many dead ends in their search for an answer, Smith, Duerr and Weinik began getting clues from websites, letters and ordinary people who shared the same curiosity.

Smith said Verna would desperately try to contact the media to share his idea, and they would laugh at him, leaving him embarrassed and bitter. He had to find a way to bring his message to the public and the tiles were the only way he knew how. His resentment from others caused him to become a recluse of sorts, refusing to answer the door, phone calls and neighbors who had claimed he would do his grocery shopping at 2 a.

Then suddenly, kind of magically, these new leads would come in. Just when we would get frustrated, almost unbearably, a new lead would come along. The biggest clue that gave Verna away was his car. The team has sent letters to Verna after the making of the documentary expressing their sincerity, interest and respect for him.

But Smith has a feeling he knows exactly who they are. The theories presented in the film regaring the identity of the Toynbee tiler are entirely consistent with the idea that there exist multiple individuals with the name "Sevy Verna". You are correct. I skimmed the articles and did not consider that councilman Verna was infact councilwoman Verna, and her husband 'Sevy' Verna was infact the grand marshall.

Your 2nd and 3rd points are essentially that it is within reason to consider there are multiple people known as Severino 'Sevy' Verna of notable fame in the Philadelphia area, active in the same period. I say this is a pretty big stretch, but admit it is possible. TWO Sevy Vernas right there. Here is an article in which former councilwoman Anna Verna states that her late husband Severino Verna had a nephew with the same name.

The tiles still in Philly has nothing to do with the film being real or fake. I think it is kinda funny that so many people on here insist the film is fake though. I have no doubt it is very real. I like that the film and obviously Sevy have started this type of underground media.

We as a society need these types media to get messages past the mainstream media. It was an extremely creative and innovative way to go about it. Yes I realize Sevy's tile messages were odd and farfetched but they were altruistic.

He wanted people to live forever. He was trying to save people's lives. Except for the kill journalists one, lol. I thought the documentary was fake while watching it. I happened upon it by chance and didn't read anything about it beforehand, and was surprised at how well the filmmakers were able to make it seem real and factual. I thought to myself, it's such a nice story that I'd almost want it to be real.

First thing I did after the film ended was to look up the Toynbee. One click further and I'm on the Internet Archive's snapshots of the site from , which sure enough contain the exact content shown in the film. I think it would be quite hard for makers of a faux documentary to inject fake websites from supposedly 8 years ago into an automatically built and unmoderated archive