Telephone Feedback

In order to get feedback on the first ideas we proposed, Renee organized a conference call with Lea, Lena, herself and us. Here is a summary of what we discussed.

From the first ideas we proposed, the Pittsburgh Team liked the “Golf Course” and the “Village” idea. After having discussed the ideas among themselves the P-team 🙂 thought it would be a good idea to combine both into one –  for example think about a miniature golf course that integrates a model of a village (based on visions of Larimer). Concerns with the idea to turn the whole neighborhood into a large scale golf course were of practical and logistical nature. Also the fact, that golf is a primarily white, middle class sport, while Larimer is an African American neighborhood, seemed to be a big concern.
We didn’t like the idea of a mini-golf course. It seemed too “mini”and too many artist mini golf courses do exist already, see examples here or here. What we liked about the abstract idea of a large scale golf course was the fact that it integrated (or connected) the whole neighborhood through a layer of (possibly imagined) green maintained grass and that holes could be created and maintained by individual people from the neighborhood. That it is a middle class white sport does not mean African Americans would not play it. But… how can we know? We don’t know a single person in Larimer, have never talked to anyone there. The only way to find out, is to do a test run.

We therefore all agreed that it would be a good idea to get us started with a simple, easy and fun “warm up project”. This way we could spend time in the neighborhood, learn about it, get to know some people and form some relationships.

This is a list of “warm up ideas” we had prepared to read over the phone:

– flower chart
Seed flowers on vacant lots that bloom according to the colors of ownership map. This way ownership information will be easily accessible. It can be seen from above and from street level. Help is needed by volunteers to seed and to maintain the flowers.

– free outdoor cinema
Playlists, put together by people from Larimer, will allow for interesting film selections which will be screened from various houses onto screens situated on open lots. This should happen during summer nights or a dedicated week of screenings. We could imagine them being simultaneous or individual, each night on a different plot.

– traffic rerouting
While we walked around on Larimer Ave. during our first visit, we noticed that many cars crossed the neighborhood with passengers that didn’t seem to live in Larimer. That might be an assumption, but based on this observation we could imagine developing complex scenarios where each car entering Larimer will be sent on different detours in order to cross it (“gently enforced sightseeing tour of Larimer” ) For a certain amount of time “traffic controllers” (people from Larimer)  would be installed on all main intersections to direct the individual cars in their dedicated directions. A complex pattern of criss-crossing cars will be controlled by the local traffic controllers.

Other thoughts about traffic:Detours, parking or a parcours where cars can’t drive straight but have to go around obstacles which are mobile and human controlled.

– hill over house
a house is buried underneath a mountain of dirt. All what is showing is the chimney. It is the only elevation in Larimer. In the winter, the hill can be used for sledding.

After hearing the list, the Pittsburgh team liked the movie screening idea as an introduction best.

We asked, if  Renee, Lea and Lena could re-summarize their goals for a project again and they agreed on the following points:

–        the project should create a place where a cross section (age-wise) of people from the neighborhood could come together and do something collaboratively

–        the project should not be made for an audience but primarily for and with people from the neighborhood

–        it should not have charity character

We then talked about the next steps:

How can eteam purchase a lot in Larimer? (permanent, private ownership as opposed to temporary license agreement with URA) Lena mentioned a friend who works as a real estate agent. She will ask him about available properties and prices.

Lena, Lea, Renee will attend some community meetings to figure out what’s going on and introduce us and our project. We hope that we can attend one or a few of these meetings as well.

Renee will think about funding sources.

We’ll work on details about the warm up movie screening and keep thinking about possibilities and abstract approaches for the bigger idea.