Through its creative placemaking initiative, “Our Town,” the National Endowment for the Arts has invested in projects in dozens of cities with grant amounts from $25,000 to $200,000. Our Town funds go to rural areas as well, and in 2013, 59 grants were recommended (out of 254 applications). Here, we’ve collected the why, how and what of four of those projects. You can find more about the program at the NEA’s website.
Gallery: NEA’s Our Town: Boston
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Goal: The Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Design Museum Boston wanted to rally Boston’s community of designers and artists to help shape the character of a post-industrial waterfront as it shifted to what the city now calls the “Innovation District.” Grant: $50,000 (Photo: Design Museum Boston)
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Neighborhood: The area is a mix of longstanding residents, artists, designers, institutions and entrepreneurs. A surge in residential and commercial development can be seen in the 1,100 housing units that are under construction, including 100 “innovation units” (with another 300 soon to be developed.) (Photo: Design Museum Boston)
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Vision: The Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) and the non-traditional Design Museum Boston envisioned an Innovation District where artists and designers would have a central role in transforming the district into a vital and livable community. (Photo: Design Museum Boston)
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Logistics: A first step was to reach out to and connect the district’s cultural organizations, creative businesses and individuals through a series of meetings. The project team then proposed and structured collaborations between different local organizations, making the case for the role of designers in their placemaking efforts. One such outdoor exhibition done by Design Museum Boston was “Street Seats: Reimagining the Public Bench,” which brought various groups together to create a neighborhood identity through public seating. While MassArt oversaw the project and Design Museum Boston conducted the public outreach, the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts and staff from the City of Boston also stepped in to help. (Photo: Design Museum Boston)
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Impact: The project raised the profile of designers and design initiatives already underway in the area. By producing multiple exhibitions and hosting several events, the organizers initiated a civic dialogue about the place of artists in the community. For example, the Street Seats Design Challenge and exhibition included a mobile app, so in the future, organizers will be able to measure the response by tracking visits to the app and website.
The project also exceeded its goals. As Sam Aquillano, executive director of Design Museum Boston, reflects, “you can see the results in other initiatives popping up from within city government and from private entities,” and organizers have seen increased focus on design, urban interventions, community activism, and public realm projects coming directly out of the City of Boston. (Photo: Design Museum Boston)
Gallery: NEA’s Our Town: Baltimore
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Goal: Four local non-profit arts organizations hoped to bolster artistic programming in an area of Baltimore long considered blighted. Grant: $150,000 (Photo by Martha Cooper)
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Neighborhood: Though it is just north of Penn Station and sits at the geographic center of Charm City, the Station North Arts and Entertainment District (SNAED) has long been subjected to high vacancy rates, with abandoned buildings and empty lots dotting the district. (The state of Maryland formally designated the district as SNAED in 2002, aiming to create an identifiable arts district.) (Map from SNAED)
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Vision: Organizers hoped programs, performances and events could entice travelers to stop and spend time in the district. They also wanted to include the district’s DIY and emerging artists in programming, and to reach out to non-artists — but long-time residents of the area — who might be attracted to a free, diverse schedule of events. The four non-profit drivers were Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc. (SNAE), Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP), Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and the design-focused D Center. (Photo by Martha Cooper)
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Logistics: The Baltimore team collaborated on a four-part approach: 1) A conference to discuss best practices and elevate the national discourse on cultural districts. 2) They launched “Open Walls Baltimore,” a street art project that mounted 24 works of public art, each aimed at enlivening vacant and underutilized spaces. 3) “Final Friday” program produced a regularly held public art event on the last Friday of each month. 4) A “Think Big” award program targeted the DIY and emerging artist community within Station North. (Photo by Martha Cooper)
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Impact: The national symposium drew 22 speakers from 13 states, each presenting different approaches to designing, implementing and financing district-wide arts programs. Open Walls Baltimore produced 23 separate murals in the district. The Final Friday program featured 190 artists spread across 11 different venues, and the Think Big award granted $44,600 to different projects that involved 160 different local artists. In a community survey, the majority of residents and business owners said the programs had positively changed their feelings about the neighborhood. Also, several arts organizations and galleries have moved into the area, while others have expressed intent to do the same. (Photo by Theresa Keil)
Gallery: NEA’s Our Town: Phoenix
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Goal: The 2008 bust left a glut of foreclosed properties throughout Phoenix, including the downtown. (Arizona ranked among the top three states in the number of foreclosed properties from 2008 through 2010.) The city sought to use temporary installations to activate vacant lots with art objects and events. Grant: $100,000 (Photo by Todd Photographic Services)
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Neighborhood: Though 2008 saw the completion of an ambitious light rail network in Phoenix, the financial crisis left Roosevelt Row — the city’s cultural district — with many vacant and underutilized properties, creating an inaccurate physical impression of a neighborhood in decline and contributed to an array of other socioeconomic challenges such as decreasing property values and fewer pedestrians. (Photo by Jeff Ambrose)
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Vision: Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture (POAC) proposed an initiative called Cultural Connections to commission temporary public art installations to animate vacant spaces, bolster the developing cultural district, and to enhance the broader public experience of the downtown area. They hoped for art projects that would confront issues of food and housing, and draw attention to the pedestrian links between downtown light rail station stops and art venues. (Photo by Andrew Pielage Photography)
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Logistics: Initiatives such as “Feast on the Street” (a half-mile downtown stretch turned into an outdoor eating and gathering area for a day) and “Ground Cover” (which involved an array of 300 blankets assembled on an empty lot into a floral mosaic) came from a call-for-artists and curatorial efforts. Organizers worked with neighborhood groups and community advisors to determine the best locations for installations. Programming was synced with other events such as the downtown farmers’ market. (Photo by Bill Timmerman)
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Impact: The Cultural Connections project reached its goals, including an increase in pedestrian traffic downtown. “When you have retirees from the outer edges of the city hanging with hipsters at a gallery, something amazing has shifted,” says Rebecca Rothman, POAC public art manager. Though the relationship between art and social is often hard to define, an example can be found in “Ground Cover,” which gave the blankets used in the project to the homeless community. (Photo by Ann Morton)
Gallery: NEA’s Our Town: New Orleans
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Goal: The City of New Orleans wanted a way to comprehensively plan for cultural and economic development across the broad Claiborne Avenue Corridor. Grant: $100,000
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Neighborhood: Claiborne Avenue is perceived by many in the city as a patchwork of different communities rather than as a cohesive landscape, and even though Claiborne is a main thoroughfare, it does not provide equitable access to economic opportunity along its route. As it winds through New Orleans, the Claiborne Corridor passes through 18 census tracts defined as areas of “extreme poverty.”
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Vision: The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Economy developed what it called the Claiborne Corridor Cultural Collaborative, or C4, which was designed to bring the various communities together. By mapping arts initiatives along the corridor, the city would provide important data to city planners, non-profits and developers to integrate arts and culture into development projects along Claiborne Avenue, and clearly communicate opportunities for the arts to become a catalyst of economic activity and new housing options.
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Logistics: The web-based C4 map allowed the community to see the corridor as a unified landscape rather than a patchwork of disparate initiatives. It also included economic data points, which, when coupled with the cultural points, allowed users to make informed decisions about zoning and place-based planning. A survey — conducted online, in hard copy, and as face-to-face interviews — gathered data from locals.
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Impact: The C4 Mapping Tool has been able to counter the notion that cultural activities are somehow secondary to the planning process. Due to the project’s successful outcomes, the C4 Mapping Tool has been expanded to provide information city-wide.
The Equity Factor is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation.
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