OCTOBER 9TH, WICK AVE. PARKING/VACANT LOT
across from the Golden Dawn Restaurant and the Wick 6 abandoned car dealerships

 

participants: Elizabeth Buschmann, John Slanina, John Noga, David Gill, Gary Davenport, Jason Cuddy, Natalya Pinchuk, Dana Sperry

 

 

IDEA
Imagine a community compost site on the vacant lot and a communal tool shed in the vacant building across from it.  The tools would be donated by people in the community; they would be visually marked to stand out, signed out and returned after use.  Instead of starting a community garden on the plot, people in the surrounding neighborhoods would be encouraged to garden on their own land, perhaps forming their own clusters of vegetable sharing partnerships.  These people would be the users of the communal shed.  A citywide program for composting would supply organic materials for compost and mulch.  The building could also house a seed swapping area, green thumb teaching center and space where extra produce that is grown by the gardeners in the neighborhood would be available for swapping or donation.

 

(discussion related to the idea)
Where does the impulse for growing food on vacant lots come from? Is this impulse different from the one a banker or an industrialist would have if he or she stood on this plot with us? From the discussion, it was suggested that perhaps yes, it is different. From personal interactions with people who are in the upper strata of the American society, participants noticed that the prevalent mindset is to move away from doing things for oneself and instead have others do things for you in order to gain income.  The impulse that participants discussed and felt, as exemplified by the idea of growing food on vacant lots, was the exact opposite, aligned with a desire to take back the freedom and power over one’s own food destiny and neighborhood.  It is taking back power from the system which one must buy into and in which one must surrender choice.  And yet, it was questioned whether starting a community garden is a lazy way out of the problem of vacancy. There is a perceived easiness attached to throwing seeds onto the ground and letting stuff grow, which, of course, is not the case.  But the default solution for what to do with empty lots is often a community garden.  Is that because it has been done before and is easily replicable? Or is it because it is the lowest hanging fruit that one can get hold of?  After all, gardening is one of a few affordable and cost feasible options.

 

And then, of course, not all community gardens succeed.  Unless there is strong leadership and community atmosphere, members’ interest may thin out, disagreements can occur and the gardens could end up not being cared for.  But when they do work, community gardens are really great because people get together and get to know each other in ways that are rare.  An alternative cousin to the community garden idea worth exploring is to encourage the formation of neighborhood gardening groups whose members utilize their own backyards for growing food and collaborate on learning tricks of the trade, as well as sharing and swapping the outcomes, both in vegetable format as well as experience.

 

IDEA
Imagine these two lots without asphalt.  Instead, imagine a hazelnut and pecan orchard with a bike path and sculptures in the center of it.  Extending this idea to the whole city, wouldn’t it be great if many empty lots scattered throughout the city were turned into fruit orchards and nut groves with bicycle paths running through them.

 

IDEA
In a city that has over 24,000 empty lots, is getting together peacefully like this and occupying one lot the first and most important step towards making a difference?  Imagine if people actually used this space for non-threatening activities frequently.  Would these blighted areas become more desirable?  Would that make a difference in making the neighborhood gain a more positive attitude and self-perception? Maybe there needs to be a citywide campaign that encourages people to utilize empty spaces for barbeques, get-togethers and Sunday hang outs.  Why not a revival?

 

IDEA
Imagine when you drive down Wick Avenue, next to the abandoned Wick 6 buildings, there is a story that is told to you on the sides of the buildings or on the sides of the road through imagery and text.  These stories are from the community and they change once a month--a Burma Shave strategy to reveal opinions and stories that break the apathy. Local artists collaborate with community members to visualize and communicate messages.

 

(discussion related to the idea)
A boarded up building stands across from the meeting location with one of its windows broken.  One of the participants asks why anyone would feel compelled to do that, smash the window? The answer: if no one repairs the damage, those interested in gutting the place will know that it is safe to go in and gut it. Or, someone suggests, maybe it is simply because when you walk by, the simple act of holding a stone and throwing it at the window allows one to experience a small rush of power, a wrong kind of power but power nonetheless. It is clear that in their present condition, these buildings and spaces take away from the neighborhood, but perhaps there are ways to undo these spaces rather than doing something entirely different with them?

 

IDEA
How about creating a nature park around and inside the abandoned buildings.  Rip out the roofs, break some sections to open up buildings and allow plants and trees to grow in a curated, coordinated manner--a sort of ‘controlled’ wild takeover of these buildings and space with strategic visual appeal.  The empty lots could have circular core samples of asphalt taken out with dirt and trees/plants replacing them. Imagine the drilled-out planting areas spaced regularly in a geometric pattern, so that the regularity would bring a sense of control over the unmanned natural space. 

 

IDEA
A campaign of guerilla gardening action where people come in one at a time to rip up a small section of the asphalt and plant something that would further break down the asphalt floor…

 

IDEA
Hold a Sunday lamb roast/fundraiser. Collaborate with Golden Dawn restaurant to sell tickets. Or, how about guerilla grilling with many, many people?

 

IDEA
Imagine that one day this whole empty lot gets filled with benches, chairs, tables.  The furniture gets screwed to the ground, painted and arranged in a manner that leads the eye through the space… Arrangement would be key to make the space feel and look welcoming.

 

IDEA
Catching people’s attention.  A sculpture would be placed in the center of the lot, visible through the fence.  Maybe a giant pinwheel--large, colorful, arresting.  This space needs something that would be worth looking at.   

 

IDEA
Placing a huge sign that invites passersby to come and see what is inside. Nothing in the space would change except the sign. The sign and the clear lack of anything ‘special’ to see prompts those in the space to imagine what they would want to see there. Perhaps shine a strong spotlight every night in the center of the space to attract attention and pose the same question. 

 

IDEA
Imagine the lot with scattered large sculptural forms, larger than human scale, representing seeds of plants growing there now or those that were native to this area of Ohio. The size of the sculptures will maintain the size relationships that actual seeds have to each other in real life.

 

IDEA
Imagine a lush strip of grass, golf course lush, in the middle of the lot about 10 feet by 50 feet in size.  In the middle of this slice of spongy grass sits a slip and slide. It is the idea of stepping off onto a spongy, luscious grass that is exciting.

 

IDEA
Why not a cat park? Plant catnip and cat grass throughout the space with paths running through it and encourage people to bring their cats for a walk.

 

IDEA
Imagine slim walkways zigzagging above the neighborhood 40 feet up in the air. Climb up and see the neighborhood from a different perspective.  Why not connect the city by walkways above?

 

IDEA
Notice resources already on the plot: the two concrete slabs and an unused telephone pole. There is potential in them. Maybe they can be used as a base for something. In Spain there are these guard towers that are 500 years old. The builders built them from materials that were available locally. They did not bring stones from miles and miles away; they used the quarries nearby.  That is elegant. What if the asphalt, the cement, the fence get chopped up, turned into raw materials? These materials become the building blocks for what gets done here.

 

IDEA
Leave it as it is. Invite social service agencies and grass root organizations to hold meetings and events. Publicly display what is being discussed and invite neighbors to participate.  That is one thing that we as a group right now are not doing that should be seriously considered.

 

IDEA
Projecting films or visuals onto trees that would allow people to see past what this space is.

 

IDEA
Dirt bike park for kids with ATVs or perhaps a motorcycle training school. Why not a skateboarding park that reuses old and new concrete to create raised surfaces.

 

IDEA
Surprisingly, this is a noisy place to be in.  When there is traffic, the sound of cars dominates and when they are gone, crickets take over.  Imagine a metal box you can enter and while inside listen to all the sounds.  

 

IDEA
A tower with a crow’s nest on the very top.  Out of the nest appear two big funnels that disperse sounds into the air.  When one climbs into the nest, there sits a hand-cranked record player that allows anyone to play their own records while the people below listen to the music.  

 

IDEA
This is neither a park nor a sculpture but something in between. It is for use and enjoyment rather than sheer visual appeal.  Anyone can climb onto it. Anyone can sit on it. Anyone can enjoy looking at it. As a sculptural form the cross-section of it is a bell curve.  The surface parallel to the ground is comprised of scavenged telephone poles tightly put together following a bell curve outline that rises at its highest 10-20 feet. Underneath sits a simple yet beautiful metal frame structure supporting the horizontally placed telephone poles that form the bell curve.