Turning a 70 year old Park into a Community Cultural Center
Tom Tresser's 1996-97 Work for the Chicago Park District.
The Chicago Park District has 552 parks covering 7,400 acres and containing 259 field houses. One of the largest parks is Douglas Park in North Lawndale.
North Lawndale is a low-income, African-American community. Douglas Park dates back to the 1870's and the field house was built in 1927. There was a fair amount of gang activity in the area, which was experiencing a great deal of new residential building and commercial activity. The level of programming in the park was minimal and many neighbors felt cut off from the park and gave it low marks for service and security.
In September 1996 I was hired by Efè McWorter, the senior culture and arts programmer for the Chicago Park District to create a strategic plan for turning Douglas Park into a community cultural center.
In order to create the type of community arts center that would be attractive to young people, take advantage of the many existing community programs and overcome people's negative perceptions of the park, we had to establish a new sort of dialog with the community and show that there was new direction and spirit at the park. I met with over 70 community leaders, artists, youth service workers and representatives of neighboring organizations.
Over
the first year, we held over 60 community meetings, large forums,
small group planning meetings and special planning meetings
at the park. We established a number of committees to help guide
our new programming efforts. On April 19, 1996 we held
an all-day Renaissance Celebration with performances by a number
of park based ensembles, food, African drumming, speeches by
politicians and community organization leaders and hands-on
arts activities by a team of volunteer artists. The master of
ceremonies was the supervisor of the newly proclaimed Douglas
Park Cultural & Community Center, Roscoe Danzy, a professional
musician with a long history in the recording business and someone
who has been doing innovative music and cultural programming
in Chicago parks for a number of years.
These
include: a 30 member community choir; classes in violin, piano,
drumming, wood working, ceramics, acting, singing, classical
dance, hip-hop dance, crafts and painting; a year-long training
program that taught young people the basics of the recording
industry; a summer gospel festival produced in association with
local churches; a huge "Back To School" festival produced with
Alderman Michael Chandler and WGCI-FM; an artists-in- residence
program; a youth leadership program with Latino Youth, Inc.;
a community gardening program; community theater productions;
Gallery 37 at Douglas Park; Ravinia Music Festival Collaboration
and training program; Concerts in the Park; Caribbean Festival
by the Lagoon...and much more!
