ASHTABULA – The Harbor-Topky Memorial Library has a new addition.
Just look up.
On the wall in the adult audio-visual section of the library, the Paul Tikkanen mural that hung over the lunch counter at the former Lakeway Restaurant in Ashtabula for many years has been installed.
On Thursday, May 28, the library held an open house for the mural, which depicts various people and scenes from around Ashtabula Harbor.
The artwork was commissioned by Dave DeGeorge’s parents, Bruno and Gerri, sometime around 1960.
Bruno and Gerri opened the restaurant in 1952, and following Bruno’s passing in 1995, Gerri and David, her son, continued to operate Lakeway Restaurant, a decades-old favorite in the community.
In 2024, Dave retired and closed the restaurant. However, he wasn’t able to find a place for the mural.
“We really didn’t know what to do with it or where it was to go,” Dave recalled. He said a longtime Lakeway Restaurant customer, Steve Poros, suggested the mural be brought to the library. “I thought, ‘That’s a great idea,’” Dave said.
Dave then decided to lend the mural to the library for permanent display.
Following its removal from the restaurant, Andy Pochatko, the Harbor-Topky Memorial Library reference librarian, hired ICA-Art Conservation of Cleveland so the painting could be professionally cleaned.
The cleaning was finished in mid-2025, having been made possible by grants from the Ashtabula Foundation, the Friends of the Harbor-Topky Library, and various donations.
Dave thought the mural looked great. He was happy to see it on display in the library.
“It’s a good spot for it,” he commented.
Pochatko realized the significance of the mural.
“To be honest, I overlooked the mural each time I was in Lakeway,” he said. “I never thought to look up. As soon as I saw the Tikkanen mural, though, I knew it had to be saved.”
In addition to the mural, the open house featured a mini Tikkanen exhibit by the Ashtabula Arts Center of some of Tikkanen’s other works.
Lori Starling, director of the arts center, said the arts center wanted to bring out more of his work so the community could access it.
“Because he would definitely want it shown and seen,” she said.
She thought it was good to have the Tikkanen mural at the library.
“The mural is all about Ashtabula,” she said. “What better place to put it?”
According to the arts center, Tikkanen was a contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer, who was born in 1926 in Ashtabula.
A graduate of Ashtabula Harbor High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art., his oil painting “Chipped Crystal” won a Special Mention award in the Cleveland Art Museum’s May Show in 1957. “He exhibited pieces in Ohio shows at Topky Memorial Library, the Cleveland Art Museum, the Ashtabula Fine Arts Center, the Ashtabula Arts Association, and the Butler Institute of American Art,” the arts center’s bio of Tikkanen states. “Paul studied, created, and showed art around the world, and worked in the United States as a draftsman, carpenter, boiler operator, sign painter, commercial artist, and portrait painter.”
He left an endowment to the Ashtabula Arts Center for an annual painting competition, the information states.
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