“Black Bottom”, Nile Livingston (2019) at The Bank
Lancaster Ave: Gateway to the Arts
Client: People’s Emergency Center CDC (now, HopePHL CDC)
Scope: Project Management
Location: West Philadelphia
LoLa 38 (Lower Lancaster Ave. & 38th St) was a creative placemaking partnership (2016-2017) between The Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation (Drexel University), People’s Emergency Center CDC, & Wexford Science + Technology that centered on rapid neighborhood change and community planning. At the time, collaborations of this scale among institutions of higher education, community organizations, and real estate developers were rare. This project tested how competing interests, varying stakeholders, and contentious neighborhood histories can be navigated using arts and culture to encourage dialogue, build understanding, provide access, and shift narratives within targeted communities.
The project focused on:
- Increasing community awareness of and documenting feelings towards the former site of the University City High School, which had been purchased by Drexel following the school’s closure in 2013, during sweeping school closures in Philadelphia
- Supporting neighborhood placemaking efforts and the execution of a resident-driven planning process for the former United Bank Building, previously located at 3750 Lancaster Ave., across from the former University City High School site.
Through 40+ neighborhood programs & events, 10 public art installations, and one large culminating community festival, the initiative worked at the intersection of culture and place to activate community spaces, hoping to shift assumptions around who the spaces were meant to serve and include. This project served as a predecessor to PEC’s ongoing creative placemaking strategy, and partnerships with the Barnes Foundation & Penn Museum; and Wexford’s activation of their public spaces within uCity Square – all projects that Tabb Management later spearheaded.
Press:
- Learn About Development Plans for Hawthorne Hall and the United Bank Building Tonight
- A West Philly community chose 10 local artists to bring art into their neighborhood
- Ten Local Artists Selected to Beautify Lancaster Avenue this Spring/Summer
- Lindy Institute’s New Project Aims to Connect the Community through Art
- New Community Festival Celebrates the Best of the West Philadelphia Community