Slideshow: our favourite wacky and witty painted utility boxes across the city

First, we saw a trompe d’oeil fireplace on a utility box at Queen and Victoria. Next, a whimsical piano-themed box on Bloor Street West. Then, three more eye-catching designs in the west-end. In the past few months, the city has hired local artists to decorate 20 traffic-signal cabinets across Toronto in an effort to minimize graffiti. The mini-murals, which will all be complete by the end of the October, join dozens of Bell Canada utility boxes that were gussied up as part of a similar program. The idea—to simultaneously celebrate street art and thwart vandals—has already met with success in cities like Calgary and Seattle. It‘s also a heck of a lot cooler than power washers, smartphone apps and other previous anti-graffiti measures. Here, our favourite new works of box-sized art.