Youth in San Francisco's Chinatown transform historic alleyways

Youth lead a tour through San Francisco's Chinatown
alleyways.

Step off the main roads of San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood and you’ll find yourself in a labyrinth of alleyways.  At each turn there is history: opium dens, a barbershop where Frank Sinatra used to get the perfect cut and thousands of other, untold stories from one of America’s oldest ethnic villages.  You’ll also see something you wouldn’t expect: teenagers leading tours with expert proficiency, sharing their story of how they cleaned up these neglected public spaces.

Back in 1991, Norman Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center (which is celebrating its fifth year as a NeighborWorks network member), reached out

to local youth and asked them how they could help the community.  Their response was simple: Clean up the local alleyways that had been neglected by both the city and the community.  Chinatown’s historic alleyways are not considered public infrastructure, so the city would not take responsibility for their care; over time, they began to overflow with refuse and waste from the restaurants and businesses that filled the area.  Since traditional open space is limited, these students immediately saw an opportunity to improve the lives of their fellow citizens and went to work.

Students clean the alleyways. (Photo
by James Ng)

Fong’s inaugural group of eight Galloway High School students in the “Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project”  started by grading the alleyways just as they were in school, with marks of A, B, C, D or F.  They worked to have a local newspaper publish the grades, alerting the public to the dire state of their own space.   Then they got to work: washing walls and roads and sweeping away dirt and debris. Soon the community took notice.  Individuals began walking the alleyways again and local restaurants that had been dumping oil and refuse into the alleys began to take care of their waste properly.

A few years later, Fong set up a meeting at the city’s department of public works bureau of street use and mapping to discuss the alleyways.  Although the city had spent the previous several decades dodging the work of cleaning these alleys, the amazing progress of the students could not be ignored. The city commissioned its own master plan allowing the students an opportunity to expand their work and partner with the local government. Jointly, Chinatown CDC and the student volunteers worked to develop a master plan for the city’s entire network of 41 alleyways, describing the current state and the work needed to make them a place the community could use again.  They went door to door visiting with local businesses and residents to make the case for their plan, and in 1998 the city adopted the guidelines authored by students.

Murals now beautify many of the alleyways.

The students’ master plan went beyond cleaning the alleyways to include initiatives to reduce illegal parking, improve pedestrian safety and access for the disabled, add green features and include more beautification efforts like murals.  Since adoption of the plan, five phases featuring the renovation of 11 alleyways have been completed.  The public space transformed by the work of these youth benefits the community overall, including more commerce for local businesses that rely on the millions of tourists who visit each year.

Beyond their work creating clean and safe public spaces the youths have also started a small business that leads tours of the alleys.

Fong believes that the youth of a community are more than the future, but also very much the present. “The youth know what needs to be done like everyone else, but they took on the responsibility to do it and the results speak for themselves,” he says.

Written by Jason Powers, national public affairs and communications adviser for NeighborWorks America.

Finding a Purpose: How Vacant Buildings Can Support Neighborhood Marketing

Reposted from the Stable Communities blog

Finding new uses for vacant buildings is something many nonprofit housing organizations are getting good at, but some properties — like an abandoned movie theater — are harder to rework. With creative thinking, however, empty buildings can be used to spark new interest in old neighborhoods.

Last year, after looking closely at the prominent features of an old, vacant movie theater, NeighborWorks Waco (TX) decided that its brick interior and artistic vibe made the perfect setting for a “pop up” art exhibit. Now in its second year, Art on Elm Avenue puts this otherwise empty space to good use, and is helping the neighborhood to rebrand itself as an arts district.

Art on Elm Avenue is a one-day event featuring 14 local artists and more than 10 local student artists. In addition to the exhibit, local bands provide live music, food and craft vendors sell food and handmade goods, and a local performance artist creates paintings with his bare hands and a spinning canvas (think Jimi Hendrix and Elvis). Kids’ activities include a bounce house, crafts, snowcones and popcorn, plus an 18-foot canvas mural project where kids develop the plan and create the mural with a touch of advice from volunteer art supervisors.

Each artist featured in the exhibit is allowed to bring up to three approved artworks, which may be two-dimensional pieces such as paintings, drawings, prints or photography, or three-dimensional works such as sculpture and ceramics. Artists are provided with a name plate next to their pieces and can list items for sale.

Art on Elm Avenue is free for both artists and guests. It’s a celebration of art and community that fits nicely into NeighborWorks Waco’s neighborhood marketing strategy. The event draws businesses, entrepreneurs and residents who may not otherwise visit this area, and also celebrates local culture and supports the neighborhood’s plan to become an arts district. It builds community relationships and puts vacant space to positive use. “This event brings everyone together from all parts of Waco,” says Honey Jenkins, NW Waco’s director of marketing. “It draws people of all ages and from all walks of life to Elm Avenue, and helps them to see what it used to be and what it can become.”

This year, Art on Elm Avenue took place on the same weekend as one of the city’s monthly musical events — an Eddie Money concert — so the two groups decided to co-market their events as part of a larger celebration called "Weekend in Waco.” Linking the two events in marketing helped boost attendance; more than 2,500 people attended this year as compared to about 500 last year.

To learn more, visit the Art on Elm Avenue Facebook page or follow events on its Twitter feed.