In the Key Food parking lot at 575 Grand St, a headless 35-foot person holds an enormous bouquet of azucenas (white lilies). A flower vendor walking throughout every neighborhood in San Juan, Puerto Rico selling azucenas inspired the main figure of “Olor a Azucenas el Perfume del Barrio.”

Don Rimx, the Puerto Rican artist who created the mural, chose to paint a worker as a way to create a cultural bridge between Puerto Ricans on the island and Puerto Ricans in Brooklyn, many of whom own local businesses in the Grand Street neighborhood. The vendor doesn’t have a face because anybody could be him. “It’s not just about him,” says Rimx. “It’s about the community and the people who work around there.”

To curate murals inspired by the community, the Grand Street Business Improvement District (BID) is working with Brooklyn-based visual art and film collective Owley. With discretionary funding from Council Member Stephen Levin, they commissioned Don Rimx for the first mural because of his style, his enthusiasm for the project, and his connection to the Grand Street neighborhood—in 2009 he moved from Puerto Rico to an apartment just a few blocks away from the location of the mural.