An artist set up a 'boob garden' in an empty Philadelphia lot. Locals come to see 'the titty chairs,' and leave searching for meaning.

• Artist Rose Luardo set up a "boob garden" in an empty lot in South Philadelphia.
• The work is made up of furniture from Luardo's late father's home, covered in boob-shaped plushies.

Rose Luardo had more breast plushies than she knew what to do with after a gallery exhibit.

Then, the Philadelphia artist had the idea to put them somewhere even more public.

Luardo, 50, has lived in the city since 1997 and told Insider she considered installing them on Kelly Drive, a popular running trail, or letting them float down the Schuylkill River. Instead, she landed on an empty lot in her South Philly neighborhood.

Head to the intersection of Washington Avenue, East Passyunk Avenue, and 8th Street, and you can't miss them: a mass of boob plushies in a variety of sizes, shapes, and skin tones, with different kinds of nipples, arranged to cover four chairs and a small table in the middle of an urban wasteland.

The site was the former home of Capt. Jesse G's Crab Shack, a restaurant that's gone except for a giant sign that says "CRABS" in red.

According to a 2019 Curbed article, developers 8th and Passyunk Development and Ambit Architecture plan to build a six-story residential building on the triangular lot. However, a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Stephanie Farr cited city records that say the land was purchased by 1100 Passyunk Partners LLC in 2020, for $2.85 million.

The latter, 1100 Passyunk Partners LLC, could not be reached for comment, while Ambit Architecture and 8th and Passyunk Development did not immediately respond for comment.

Much like Luardo's work, the vacant lot remains a question mark.

'A little bit of glitter' in a gritty place

Luardo likes to think of her installation as "dropping a little bit of glitter where you can," she told me as she stapled an errant boob plushie onto another and fixed them in place on a chair.

The wooden-rattan furniture sags under the weight of the plushies and curious passersby come to see Luardo's creations, often asking to sit on them for photos for their Tinder profiles, Luardo said.

The chairs come from Luardo's late father's home in Wynnewood, the Philadelphia suburb where the artist grew up. After clearing out her father's home, Luardo had the idea to cover the chairs with the breast plushies and exhibited them alongside the work of other artists at the North Philadelphia gallery Space 1026, as the Inquirer reported.

"These chairs would have been trashed," Luardo told me, adding that she wanted to make her art piece — which she described as "a real-life LSD trip" — more accessible.

"Whan you go to a gallery, you're expecting to see a creative piece," she said. "When you're walking in an abandoned lot you're not thinking you're going to see a bunch of chairs with tits on them."

Why breasts? The answer is simple.

"I am fascinated with boobs," she told me, adding that she's always found "there's something so sensual" about them.

'Come for the crabs, stay for the tits'

When I show up to meet Luardo at the site on a sunny June day, there are a couple of parked trucks and police cars nearby. I thought maybe they were taking Luardo's work away, but it was still there — as it had been since May 29, when Luardo said she installed the art while listening to an audiobook.

I asked which book, and she said "a trashy, sexy lady mystery." I suggested that could be a good name for the piece; after all, it's made out of trash, sexy, a testament to ladies, and, to those who come across it, a mystery.

Others on the internet have come up with their own creative names. I asked Luardo for some of her favorites.

She particularly likes "What areola of town is this in?" and "The breast Philadelphia has to offer."

But maybe the best one she's seen so far is, "Come for the crabs, stay for the tits."

But people don't come for the crabs. They show up to see what one passerby described as "the titty chairs."

As Luardo posed in front of her piece in a couple of different outfits, including a sculptural dress complete with boob plushies, more people came over to ask her about the work.

"Is it art?" a construction worker asked her.

"Is it?" Luardo replied with a smile, happy to start a conversation.

Others stopped to take a photo while walking their dog, or on a bike ride. One cyclist asked Luardo to take a picture of her boobs. "I would love it if you could take a picture of all my boobs," she said with a laugh.

At one point, a dad and his kids paused to consider Luardo's art.

While most people smiled and waved at Luardo, a few seemed skeptical. And later, when Luardo and I walked back to our respective homes in the neighborhood, heads turned at the sight of her dress.

'You make it, you let it go'

I asked Luardo the obvious question you're never supposed to ask artists: What does it mean?

Luardo was quick to reply: "Fun. Cuckoo-crazy. Human cartoon. Bonkers. Bananas."

She added that she enjoys people searching for meaning in her work. "I think that art is a feeling," she said. "And I'm really just trying to inspire that feeling of, 'What's going on?'"

As a policeman and policewoman walked across the lot back to their cars, and Luardo waved at them and said hi, I wondered if they'd ask the same question. But they just said hi back, and kept walking, their eyes focused away from Luardo's work. Then they got back in their cars and drove away. (Like anyone else, it seemed they were just trying to find parking in South Philly.)

Luardo joked that this is why she loves Philly, and said she wasn't worried about the fate of her boob garden, even if someone eventually took it down. The elements had strewn some parts of the sculpture across the lot, but Luardo didn't mind.

"You make it, you let it go," she said. "You don't really own it anymore."

A boob garden for the people

While it might not belong to Luardo anymore, the boob garden has become a place of interest — even pride — in the neighborhood.

It's clear that means a lot to Luardo, whose face lit up as she talked about her love of street art.

"It's a way to tickle the taint of people in the neighborhood walking their dog, getting their coffee, going to the bus, getting extra keys, going to the locksmith," she said, pointing to Wilensky Lock and Hardware (a business she's been going to for years), before adding "going to the doctor" to the list.

"Actually that makes me happy," she said, gesturing to the doctor's office across the street. "Because you go to the doctor and don't feel great. Maybe you stumble across this, and it might make you feel a scooch better."