“During the construction phase, we made significant efforts to ensure that they would be preserved and safeguarded. We heard countless stories of folks who spent their childhood coming to the mall and who saw the tiles and painted the tiles, and it was just a real point of local community pride,” Poarch said. “We recognized that there was a lot of history with the tiles and a lot of nostalgia surrounding the tiles as something that was and is a great point of pride with the citizens of Bristol. Children’s art tiles that once adorned the walls of the Bristol Mall have returned to public view with the recent opening of the Bristol Casino and are expected to remain in place for the foreseeable future.Īndy Poarch, the spokesperson for Hard Rock and the Bristol Casino, explained that early into the construction phase of the Bristol Casino, the group recognized the significance of the tiles, which were painted by area children in the late 1990s, to the Bristol community at large and were careful to preserve the art.
