Posts Tagged ‘Ventura Village’
1st Annual Bridging Festival was a Blast!
By Dallas Johnson Our 12 hour event on 8/13 (two dozen activities moving through 10 sites) exceeded our wildest expectations. The active embodiment of an invitation, the majority of the day was hands-on and interactive. It was well attended and numbers grew with each stop along 24th St. From collecting the water at dawn, bringing the water together (w/ Sandy Spieler), Simone Speer”'s dance workshop at E Philips Park, singing quietly in a circle (with Louis Alemayhu at PCC), decorating parade regalia (w/ Heart of the Beast), marveling at the Somali Mall, the parade up 24th St (with three 12 foot puppets, musicians and our decorated umbrellas), a big crowd and Patrick Nolan”'s original poem at the murals unveiling (w/ artists Elissa Cedarleaf and Greta McLain), neighborhood skit honoring Muriel Simmons that ended in a spiral dance, party at Center for Changing Lives with art activities, seed balls, MPRB”'s kids”' games, live African music, The Alley-hosted [...]
Touchstone Plaza at Peavey Park “Bridges” Generations
By Robert Albee Imagine a public art project that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and is promptly neglected””no, make that abandoned””by the very community that commissioned the work in the first place!. That”'s the legacy of Touchstone Plaza, located on the southwest corner of Chicago Avenue and East Franklin Avenue in Peavey Park. I never knew there was a plaque with a fabulous poem and community challenge called “Thrones” by Louis Alemayahu. Over the years, I”'ve heard friends declare the mosaics to be hideous and a blight to the neighborhood. Some even wanting it moved or bulldozed into oblivion””all 88,000 pounds of concrete that makes up the mosaic-tiled “Thrones.” A group of Ventura Village volunteers led by residents Jim Cook, Dee Henry Williams and me showed up recently with a public address system and a hand-held microphone and offered it to anybody who”'d speak or sing. No advertising or public notice, [...]
“Programs might die, but good ideas and community”¦ live” Phillips”' “Wellness Corridor”
by Robert Albee For the past two years many of us in the Phillips Community have been working to resurrect the Phillips Community Center (PCC) and turn it into a centerpiece for rebuilding the fabric of the neighborhood””this time as Phillips people instead of edifices or individual programs. We want the PCC to become Phillip”'s hub of activity just like the Sabathani Community Center does for the Greater Central neighborhood. If you look below at the map of Phillips, 24th Street is the only street in Phillips that intersects all four Phillips neighborhoods: West Phillips, Ventura Village, Midtown Phillips and East Phillips. It connects LSS”' Center For Changing Lives on the west to Little Earth of the United Tribes on the East. In between is East Phillips Park”'s new building, Holy Rosary Church, AICDC”'s Townhomes, Center School and Open Arms. Then there is the Minnesota Indian Women”'s Resource Center, All Nations Church, 1ra Iglesia [...]
