Developing Public Spaces for All

All Philadelphians, of any zip code, should have access to welcoming public spaces where they can connect with people and feel a sense of belonging and community. Such spaces must be thoughtfully designed, built, managed, and programmed to ensure they truly benefit the local community and are rooted in existing neighborhood culture. That’s why we believe in taking a holistic approach to funding public space, focusing on far more than design and construction.

This approach requires constantly expanding our understanding of the ways that public spaces can benefit – or harm – communities. To inform our funding, as well as the broader field, we commissioned a team of researchers led by Hamil Pearsall at Temple University to synthesize existing public space research across many disciplines, from public health to sociology to environmental science, which was completed at the end of 2019. Among the key findings, the synthesis noted that investments in public spaces that are guided primarily by economic development are often associated with residential and commercial displacement, a product of several factors including community exclusion from the planning process.

The synthesis also found that the upkeep and physical quality of public spaces have important implications for the health of surrounding communities and their environment; in other words, poorly maintained spaces beget behavior that can be worrisome or harmful to neighborhoods as civil disorder influences perceptions of safety and increases fear among park users. Nationwide, the researchers found evidence pointing to the disproportionate negative impacts of poorly maintained public space on communities of color and on low-income neighborhoods.

The research synthesis findings have implications for our public space grantmaking. For example, in 2019 we awarded a grant to University City District (UCD) to support its social enterprise Green City Works in delivering more frequent basic maintenance at five neighborhood parks in West Philadelphia, in partnership with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. Through project iteration and evaluation, we hope to better understand the connections between maintenance, community usage, and overall stewardship of the parks.

Case in point is a grant we awarded to Philadelphia Chinatown CDC in support of a Rail Park Equitable Development Lab. In recognition of the impact that the Rail Park has had, and may have in the future, on nearby Callowhill and Chinatown neighborhoods, the Rail Park Equitable Development Lab brought together Chinatown community members, city staff, and local non-profit partners to build engagement and generate policy solutions to help mitigate displacement and cultural erasure that may result from the new park.

Finally, in recognition of the challenges that can affect neighbors’ ability to benefit from nearby public space improvements, we awarded a $1.5 million grant to support the Strawberry Mansion Historic Home Repair Program, led in partnership by the Strawberry Mansion CDC and the Philadelphia chapter of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). This pilot grant aims to be a replicable model supporting community capacity building, homeowner engagement, historic preservation, resource programming, and sustainable homeownership for owner occupied, lower-income households. The program will increase wealth building and neighborhood engagement through a new home repair initiative in Strawberry Mansion, a neighborhood with a rich cultural fabric and history adjacent to recent major public space investments. Strawberry Mansion CDC and LISC hope to leverage City of Philadelphia home repair resources to provide interior and historically sensitive repairs to at least 25 long-term, owner-occupied homes, with the goal of keeping people in the neighborhood.

Art and Communities

Within each neighborhood across Philadelphia there exists a unique microculture that celebrates art and creative expression in its own authentic way. We seek opportunities to support the diversity of cultural expression already happening in neighborhoods across the city through the Foundation’s New Audiences/New Places grantmaking strategy. New Audiences/New Places seeks to make more art available to more people across Philadelphia, including by supporting new organizations to partner in neighborhoods and to work with independent artists and local community arts organizations that are already part of the fabric of each neighborhood.

In South Philadelphia, we funded the Philadelphia Folklore Project’s La Ofrenda, a project about the home altar tradition in the Mexican American community there implemented by artists Cesar Viveros and the late Ana Palma. The project consisted of a research phase and a temporary space with a public exhibition and free, all-ages programs. In the first phase of the project, Philadelphia Folklore Project staff conducted ethnographic research in South Philadelphia to both learn about and document various home altar traditions, and to network with local community organizers to inform the audience engagement plan for a more public phase of the project. An altar was created in a pop-up space in a vacant shop on South 9th Street and the space was programmed with events, food, performances, and hands-on public programming for several days in the fall.

We supported Philadelphia Mural Arts, the American Composers Forum, and Friends of the Rail Park to offer a brand-new art-focused event, Sight/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park. The event was designed to celebrate the Rail Park’s past, present, and future through art in various media, to bring together people from across the city to celebrate and honor the space. Public events, live performances, and art installations were offered throughout the Rail Park for three weeks in October, activating the current quarter-mile of green space and inviting the public to envision the path of the future park that will inhabit the remainder of the rail corridor.

We also funded The Bearded Ladies Cabaret for its project Late Night Snacks, a month-long, temporary cabaret space taking place in a different neighborhood each fall for three years which launched its first space in South Philadelphia in September. The project uses cabaret to serve as a catalyst for community building, artistic experimentation, and cultural exchange within neighborhoods outside of Center City; the content and performances featured were offered in collaboration with partners invested in the neighborhood, including FringeArts, Opera Philadelphia, the Mayor's Office of LGBT Affairs, local neighborhood leaders, and the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation, to elevate the community’s access to artistic expression.

Each of these examples represents our commitment to fund unique projects in Philadelphia’s diverse neighborhoods and are exemplary of how multidisciplinary arts practices and multi-part partnerships can produce exceptional arts experiences across the city.