Mural Mile audio tour in Center City has some stories to tell

FOR YEARS NOW, outdoor murals have been big in Philly - 30-by-35-feet big, on average, with the city's Mural Arts Program collection currently numbering a world-record 1,700 painted walls. On Wednesday, they became an even bigger deal as MAP introduced the new Mural Mile.

The mile is a guided walking tour that visits 17 Center City murals and features an audio accompaniment that's available via MP3 player, cell phone, live guide or a combination. Think of it as Philly's edgier, substantially more contemporary answer to Boston's Freedom Trail.

"When I look at the murals, what I see is the autobiography of the city," said Mural Arts Executive Director Jane Golden. "A little over 15,000 people came on mural tours last year, but we felt like we really needed to make the murals even more accessible."

Guided Mural Mile tours embark daily at 11:30 a.m. from the Independence Visitor Center, taking in the 17 murals on a 90-minute walk that covers 2 1/2 miles. (The Mural "Mile" is a literal mile only if you start your pedometer at Mural No. 3 and end at Mural No. 14, skipping five outliers at the farther reaches of the tour route.)

Each participant gets an MP3 player and a funky set of headphones to hear prerecorded stories along the way about how the various murals came to be.

No worries about ear-foot coordination: You listen only when you're standing still.

En route from mural to mural, your guide answers questions, shares Mural Arts history and trivia (the cobalt-blue accent paint that's been custom-engineered for our city's demanding wall environment costs $115 a gallon) and expertly steers you to the next location and away from kamikaze cyclists.

Mural Tour manager Ryan Derfler recommends the guided option for people who don't know their way around Center City, since self-directed MP3 and cell- phone versions of the tour rely on knowing, for example, which way is north.

You might also consider joining a guided tour if you'd be inclined to focus so intently on the audio tracks, with cameo commentaries by Mayor Nutter and renowned chef Marc Vetri, among others, that you'd absentmindedly veer off the sidewalk and collide with a duck boat or something.

Mural Arts personnel are trained to be watchful shepherds. "Honestly, that's another reason we want people to go with guides," Derfler said. The tours cost $17 a person.

The best argument for setting out on your own is the fascinating territory that the Mural Mile passes through.

Apart from one quick leg on Market Street and another on South Street, the route follows Center City's less-traveled numbered streets and side streets (Sartain, anyone?), meandering off the tourist path into fun-'n'-fringy neighborhoods like "Midtown Village," the Gayborhood, Wash West and the unincorporated territories just east of the Avenue of the Arts.

Dashing through on a 90-minute tour barely leaves time for a voyeuristic peek into one of the adorable trinities on picture-perfect Quince Street, let alone a shopping spree in the lively, well-priced Midtown Village boutiques . . . let alone something to eat!

And it seems almost criminal not to eat, since the Mural Mile tour passes directly in front of "Iron Chef" Jose Garces' restaurant Chifa and stops to discuss a tantalizing food mural painted on the wall of Vetri's world-famous Vetri Ristorante. You also pass within drooling distance of the two acclaimed chefs' newest establishments: Garces Trading Company and Amis, respectively.

Including these A-list restaurants, we've compiled 16 extra stops to extend your Mural Mile trek into a leisurely day of urban wandering. Plan to spend a full afternoon (and to reserve far ahead if Vetri is on your wish list, although the servers there say that drop-in diners can often get a table if they try around 8:30 p.m.)

Do-it-yourself Milers have three options. You can:

_ Download a free podcast of the Mural Mile audio commentary for your personal MP3 player at www.muralarts.org/muralmile.

_ Rent an MP3 player and headphones for the day from the Mural Arts kiosk at the Independence Visitor Center at 6th and Market streets ($17, available from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day).

_ Or call in from a cell phone to the Mural Mile hot line (215-525-1577) to hear the individual audio segment for any mural on the route. Handy plaques on each mural list the phone number, mural number and instructions for dial-up access.

Free maps of the Mural Mile route are available at the Mural Arts kiosk at the far north end of the Visitor Center. An accessorized Daily News map of the mural route, including our suggested add-ons, is on Page 58 of today's paper.