Anderson@Large

John Coltrane House Digital Reconstruction

National Preservation Month began as National Historic Week in May 1973. It has been a month-long celebration since 2005. This year’s theme, “People Saving Places,” encapsulates efforts to save the John Coltrane House.

The Coltrane House has been in a deteriorating condition for more than two decades. Restoration has been stymied by, i.a., legal entanglements (the owner of record died in 2007) and lack of imagination. Over the past 20 years, there have been several schemes to repurpose the property as a historic house museum. The schemers failed to recognize that the historic house museum business model wherein an organization has to raise millions of dollars before the property is open to the public and millions more to keep the door open is no longer feasible.

As I wrote in an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, an Act 135 conservatorship is the only viable option to save this National Historic Landmark.

I am collaborating with Chris Hytha, a digital artist and founder of the Rowhomes project, to raise awareness that the rowhome in which Coltrane lived from 1952 to 1958 is at risk. Hytha will create the John Coltrane House NFT, a unique digital artwork. He said:

NFTs are deeply rooted in the culture of collectability. Featuring the John Coltrane House would add another layer of historical significance, and has the potential to introduce this piece of Philadelphia history to a global audience. Collecting memorabilia has been a part of our culture for centuries, and NFTs provide a new outlet to raise funds for the preservation of this National Historic Landmark.

At the same time, I will team up with an architecture firm that is a pioneer in virtual design and construction. Building on architectural drawings, archival photos, scholarly research and oral histories, we will recreate the exterior and interior. In so doing, we will create a new paradigm for historic preservation. The interior of the rowhome where Coltrane experienced a “spiritual awakening” will be accessible to virtual visitors wherever they are in the world.

We will cast a wide net for a financially-capable alternate stewardship – an Act 135 conservatorship – to preserve the structure, the tangible reminder of John Coltrane, in public memory. We are taking giant steps to preserve for current and future generations the rowhome where John Coltrane composed “Giant Steps.”

For more info, contact All That Philly Jazz Director Faye Anderson at [email protected].

Let’s Do Philadelphia’s Jazz Heritage Justice

On the first day of summer, I had to report for jury duty at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice. As I stood in line to go inside the Jury Assembly Room, I noticed a panoramic mural. I made a mental note to check it out during the break.

As the director of All That Philly Jazz, words cannot convey my shock and awe to discover some of the images depict Philadelphia’s legendary jazz clubs, including the Showboat and Pep’s.

It is clear the details only could have come from folks who were there. So it was no surprise to learn the mural was conceived by Doug Cooper in collaboration with “Philadelphia elderly.” Cooper wrote:

I brought together more than 40 elderly residents to complete it, and I worked jointly with them at the Center in the Park in the Germantown district of Philadelphia. Local artist, Deborah Zwetsch and I assembled their memories over the previous 80 years.

[…]

The memories of the elderly are highly personal. Some are sentimental, some painful, some humorous, some ordinary.

There is nothing ordinary about the depiction of the Ridge Avenue jazz corridor.

Ridge Avenue is ground zero in the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s plan to transform the Sharswood neighborhood. There is widespread concern that PHA has no plan to preserve the neighborhood’s cultural heritage and historic resources.

Cooper’s mural, showcasing Pep’s, the Showboat, Blue Horizon, Uptown Theater and jazz joints on Ridge Avenue, tells part of the story of Philadelphia’s rich jazz heritage. We must capture the rest of the story while the folks who were there are still here. If we don’t, their stories will be lost for current and future generations.

Data Privacy Day 2016

Thursday is Data Privacy Day, “an international effort held annually on January 28 to create awareness about the importance of privacy and protecting personal information.”

I’m an open data advocate who’s equally concerned about privacy. So on Saturday, I nearly spilled my coffee when I read that Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt disclosed that two critics of his office missed voting in some elections. Schmidt shared the data in retaliation to their calls to abolish the elections commission which is “led” by a chairman who doesn’t vote and seldom shows up at the office.

As a longtime voting rights activist, I want people to vote. I also want them to stay engaged beyond Election Day because that’s how you bring about change. That said, I believe one’s voting habit is no one’s business unless that person is receiving a taxpayer-funded six-figure salary to oversee elections.

Indeed, at last year’s Code for Philly Apps for Democracy Hackathon, I expressed my dismay that a team had developed an app, Social Voting, which would allow users to check to see whether their neighbors voted. Vote-shaming is of a piece with slut-shaming and fat-shaming.

Disclosing voting data sows distrust of government. If private citizens believe their voting record will be open to public scrutiny, they will be reluctant to register to vote.

Women in Tech

Mary Lou Williams, Jazz Icon

This year marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of Mary Lou Williams.

Since 1995, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has paid tribute to the legendary pianist and composer with the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. Williams is the subject of a new documentary, Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band. The film premiered on public television on April 1.

Missed it? If you’re in the Philly area, you’re in luck. There will be a screening of the documentary on Tuesday, July 14, at the International House. Hosted by the Scribe Video Center, the screening and conversation with director Carol Bash is co-sponsored by the Leeway Foundation, Philadelphia Jazz Project, Ars Nova Workshop and Reelblack.

Sadly, luck is running out on the Women of Jazz mural, which depicts jazz icons including Williams, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. This civic asset is on the chopping block.

On June 1, I provided public comment before the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, which is chaired by Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell. I brought to Blackwell’s attention the Philadelphia Housing Authority plans to demolish the mural. I made it clear the goal of increasing the availability of affordable housing and preserving the City’s jazz heritage is not mutually exclusive.

COUNCILWOMAN BLACKWELL: Thank you very much. So you're saying they're slated to tear down the mural?
MS. ANDERSON: Yes. The Women of Jazz mural at 3200 [block] of Arlington. It will be torn down sometime this year. The date to be determined.
COUNCILWOMAN BLACKWELL: All right. I'm happy to work on that.

The complete transcript is available here. Clap along if you’re happy.

Why Murals Matter

June is Black Music Month. First observed in 1979 at the White House, I’m kicking off the celebration at City Hall where I will offer public comments at a hearing on the Philadelphia Housing Trust Fund. Some background.

Last year, the Pennrose Company demolished the John Coltrane mural in Strawberry Mansion. Pennrose has been feeding at the public trough of government subsidies for decades. But in an instant, the company erased a tribute to an American cultural icon.

While the nation celebrates the centennial of the birth of Billie Holiday and Mary Lou Williams, the Philadelphia Housing Authority plans to demolish this cultural asset.

 

Now, you might be wondering what is the connection between murals and the affordable housing crisis? Kelvin Jeremiah, President and CEO of PHA, said it best in his remarks before the City Council Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless on April 27:

It is my view that the affordable housing crisis that confronts this great city is also an issue of deep-seated structural poverty. … Solving the poverty problem will go a long way to solve the affordable housing crisis.

Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the nation. A whopping 40 percent of school-aged children live in poverty. There is a correlation between education and poverty. If the educational achievement of poor children is increased, fewer will end up on PHA’s 10-year waiting list for public housing.

A growing body of evidence shows that students with access to arts education perform better on standardized tests. In addition to improved student achievement, arts education contributes to the development of cognitive and social skills, nurtures a motivation to learn, increases student attendance and fosters a positive school environment. At-risk students cite their participation in the arts as a reason for staying in school.

Students involved in arts instruction report less boredom in school. Ask students why they dropped out of school, they will say they were bored.

The School District of Philadelphia has drastically cut arts and music programs; 25 percent of schools offer no music instruction. In the absence of arts education, murals may be poor students’ only exposure to the arts.

At the opening of the new Whitney Museum, First Lady Michelle Obama said the arts “could inspire a young person to rise above the circumstances of their life and reach for something better.”

Community-based public art inspires young people to reach for their star.

 

To be clear, it’s not about preserving brick-and-mortar. Instead, it’s about the transformative power of the arts to engage, motivate and keep students in schools.

It’s also not about money. Through digital and mobile technology, a mural can be recreated at a fraction of its original cost. Indeed, the cost of preserving this great city’s cultural heritage would be far less than, say, Pennrose’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions.

Councilmanic Prerogative and Philly’s Development Boom

On Friday, a new public art and urban research project will be launched, Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia.

 

Monument Lab asks: What is an appropriate monument for the current City of Philadelphia?

The City of Brotherly Love is currently experiencing a development boom. But the hot real estate market is cold comfort for those living in poverty. Fact is, Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the U.S.

 

At the preview event, Monument Lab Co-Curator Ken Lum observed that there are “two emerging narratives.” A boom city with new construction and new possibilities that is facing “profound challenges and crises… How will we remember this time?”

I will remember this time as the presence of absence. Developers are erasing African Americans’ presence in the city’s cultural, political and civic life.

 

I think a closed door would be an appropriate monument.

 

On April 13, 2015, City Council President Darrell L. Clarke was a guest on “Wake Up With WURD,” hosted by Solomon Jones, on 900AM-WURD. I nearly spilled my coffee when I heard Clarke say, “I’m a developer-friendly Councilperson.” The behind-closed-doors Councilmanic Prerogative is the backdrop to Philadelphia’s development boom.

Councilmembers have arrogated unto themselves the power to sign off or veto any development project in their district. That means nothing gets built without their approval. It also means they should be held accountable when developers don’t hire black workers, don’t contract with black-owned businesses, or don’t respect African Americans’ cultural heritage.

After all, it’s their prerogative.