16 December 2008

Life in the Neighborhood

Giving People a Sense of Place, Identity

A neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This article is excerpted from the IIP publication Sketchbook USA, a richly illustrated volume that depicts Americans at work, at play, in their communities, and engaging in civic life. View and download the fully formatted Sketchbook.

“People don’t live in cities, they live in neighborhoods … the building blocks of cities.”

The late American civil rights activist Monsignor Geno Baroni believed in those words. He also believed in the importance of community so much that he went on to found the National Neighborhood Commission. As a Roman Catholic priest, his work in support of communities was an extension of church teachings that consider communities a fundamental social unit for the human family.

Neighborhoods give people a sense of place, an identity that extends beyond self and family. Neighborhoods are a mosaic of the country’s ethnic, religious, economic, and technological history.

Americans live in neighborhoods that are urban, suburban, and rural. They live in all sorts of homes — single-family dwellings, townhouse complexes, low-rise apartment buildings, and mixed-use skyscrapers with stores on the lower levels and condominiums above. Their neighbors may be just like them, or they may reflect the great diversity of the U.S. population.

Various community resources enrich a community and provide it with vitality.

WINDOWS ON THE WORLD

The United States has about 17,400 public library facilities supported by local, state, and federal governments and open free of charge. This includes main libraries, branch outlets, and bookmobiles. In 2004, Americans visited libraries 1.3 billion times, an increase of 61 percent in 10 years, and borrowed 2 billion books or library materials. Electronic resources were used 343 million times. Between 2004 and 2006, 550 public libraries were built or renovated.

One of the “Cows on Parade” takes a trip to Missouri.

American libraries are no longer just buildings full of books. They are centers of print materials, electronic data, music, video, and art. Some even have cafés.

In an article in Better Homes and Gardens magazine, Carla Hayden, a library executive in Baltimore, Maryland, noted that “libraries have become vital places, even noisy ones. There’s truly something for everyone.”

Libraries have activities for children and teenagers, classes for seniors and special assistance for job-seekers and entrepreneurs. Anyone who needs information is welcome. They remain a place where people can meet their neighbors, but they are now also a place where people can meet the world.

“WILD” PUBLIC ART

Many Americans take an active part in making their communities better places to live, and art projects have become an increasingly popular way to achieve that goal. A community art project might be as simple as displaying children’s drawings in the library or flying colorful banners from lampposts on Main Street. It might be a little more complicated, such as organizing a Saturday night “art hop” in which local businesses exhibit works of art and people can move around from one place to another enjoying them. Some communities undertake more complex projects: creating a sculpture garden in a vacant lot or turning an empty store into a performing arts center.

American cities have gone “wild” in recent years with some public arts projects. Borrowing on a concept that began in Zurich, Switzerland, they have invited artists to decorate large statues -- usually animals with some connection to the city’s history or economy. The statues are placed around town for everyone to enjoy, and then are auctioned off to raise money for local causes.

Chicago’s “Cows on Parade” in 1999 began the U.S. trend, raising $3.5 million, and dozens of other cities have continued the trend. Some others: “Herd About Buffalo” in Buffalo, New York; “No Moose Left Behind” in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; “Seagull Fest” in Salt Lake City, Utah; “The Ewe Revue” in Rochester, Michigan, and “Gators on the Geaux” in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

A NEIGHBORHOOD’S SECOND ACT

The Lincoln Theatre opened in 1922 to serve the African-American community in Washington, D.C. Laws at that time segregated the races in public venues, and blacks wanted a place of their own to see movies and vaudeville shows. In time, U Street, the theater’s neighborhood, became known as Washington’s “Black Broadway,” and the Lincoln Theatre showcased some of the most talented performers of the era — Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, Sarah Vaughn, and Lionel Hampton among them.

The Lincoln struggled financially after desegregation opened other theaters to African Americans in the 1950s, and the whole area suffered from neglect and decay following race riots in 1968. An initial attempt to renovate the building in the early 1980s failed, but with support from the District of Columbia government, the refurbished, elegant Lincoln Theatre reopened in 1994.

Since then, U Street has regained its place as a cultural crossroads for the city, hosting music and film festivals, dance companies, comedy performances, and even political events.