Story by: Mary Bridget Reilly
Photos by: Lisa Ventre
Date: August 28, 2000
Archive: General News
This summer, area teens and University of Cincinnati students sketched a new future for the city's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. They created public art works to serve as a lasting legacy for the economically troubled area.
Thirteen teens, four UC students, program coordinator Traci Rigaud, and Frank Russell, director of UC's Community Design Center, worked together on six-foot-tall abstract sculptures, paintings where wood window panels served for canvas, signs to guide shoppers to the historic Findlay Market, and benches.
Below, UC student Amos Hopkins and local teens Brittany Sparks, Antonio Dodds, Faye Jenkins and Tiffany Williams created four six-foot-tall totems of wood and brass to represent all the people who have ever lived in Over-the-Rhine. At left, Dodds created the heart from and wire to represent love and the connections between all these people. In the piece at right, Sparks wants to convey the dynamism and excitement palpable in the neighborhood.
 Left to right are UC student Amos Hopkins and local youth Tiffany Williams, Brittany Sparks, and Antonio Dodds. Sitting is Faye Jenkins.
UC student Tom Ruane, 8th-grader Cherrelle Lowe and 10th-grader Dana Walker painted the 13 window panels of an abandoned building on the north edge of the Elm Street playground. The entire group joined in to then paint the playground too.
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UC Student Impact in Troubled Neighborhood
Children come to enjoy the "candy coated" playground on Elm Street. The UC students and the students from Withrow, Taft, Aiken and Western Hills high schools as well as Hughes Center and Dater Junior High School joined together for the Over-the-Rhine project, which included painting the bright colors of the playground above.
 A new, welcoming sign for Findlay Market recalls the strong German heritage of Over-the-Rhine and the importance of pork to the city's overall growth.
Above, UC student Shirley McCauley, standing at left, 10th grader Patrice Kirk, crouching, and 11th grader Beverly Chambers made this bench of metal sheeting and wood for an eco-garden..
A close up of one of the window panels painted by the students. |
