Photos of Bill Cosby, Barack Obama, Donnie Simpson and Chuck Brown have adorned the walls of Ben’s Chili Bowl, but soon their faces will also be in full display outside the Washington landmark.

The MuralsDC program was developed in 2007 as a city-wide effort to combat illegal tagging graffiti; since then, 27 murals have been painted across Washington. This morning, Councilmember Jim Graham, who commissioned the program, along with representatives from the Department of Public Works and the Commission on Arts and Humanities gathered at the former Bruce Monroe School to dedicate seven new works of public art created over the summer.

As illegal graffiti continues to appear on D.C.’s streets, the D.C. Council sought a way to do more than paint over it and send the taggers to jail, only to repeat the process again and again. Council member Jim Graham’s office contacted The Midnight Forum, a non-profit with a mission to empower youth through hip-hop, through both the entertainment side as well as teaching business and life skills. These two groups, together with Columbia Heights/Shaw…