Washington Post: Art Installations Bring Light and Beauty Where Urban Areas Need It Most

Metropolitan Washington’s persistent urban challenges are frequently in the news. The concerns include ensuring public safety; providing quality public education; increasing the availability of affordable housing; promoting accessibility and quality of transportation; enhancing infrastructure reliability and durability; and caretaking of public parks and open space. Sustaining fiscal and economic health — especially jobs — also is high on the list.

Another urban challenge that tends to be overlooked is the need for beautification of visually unappealing and unsafe public places.

Examples of such places in the District are the dark, poorly lighted, ominous railway underpasses along K, L and M streets NE, and Florida Avenue NE, in the NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue) neighborhood. READ MORE

Washington, D.C., July 9, 2014 – Join your neighbors this Saturday to give feedback on the type of artistic playgrounds you’d like to see in NoMa! An initial community meeting will be held Saturday, July 12 at 10 AM at Flats 130 apartments at 130 M Street, NE. The meeting will be about a new playable art sculpture in the neighborhood along the Metropolitan Branch Trail between L & M Streets, NE. The NoMa neighborhood has been selected for the Playable Arts DC project (playableartdc.co) to receive an art sculpture that will double as children’s play equipment, and the DC Office of Planning, NoMa BID, and the ANC are collaborating on the project.

An international design competition will take place later this year, with installation in 2016. The process kicks off with this Saturday’s community workshop to allow neighbors, kids, and parents to provide feedback on what kinds of art & play structures they’d like to see here.

Please help spread the word!  Coffee and pastries will be provided. Whether you can make it or not, please also participate in the related online survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PlayableArtDC.

 

About Playable Art DC

Playable Art DC is a play and place-making initiative of the DC Office of Planning (OP) in partnership with the District Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to bring innovative art-based play spaces to neighborhoods with underserved park space in the District though an international design competition. Playable Art DC promotes the use of art as a means of creating new types of play spaces in areas that are constrained by space, topography, or other barriers like busy streets. Playable Art DC also seeks to engage the whole community in play as a way to promote fitness and exercise and create community landmarks and neighborhood gathering spots. The initiative is made possible by a grant from ArtPlace America.

Playable Art DC builds on Mayor Gray’s playground improvement initiative—a multi-year citywide play space project to evaluate and improve DPR playgrounds—by providing access to play for neighborhoods identified in the Play DC Vision Framework as not well served by traditional parks and open spaces. For more information about Playable Art DC, please visit: http://playableartdc.org

 

About NoMa
NoMa is a vibrant, growing neighborhood nestled among Union Station, the U.S. Capitol, Shaw, and the H Street, NE corridor in Washington, D.C. Over the last several years, private developers have invested more than $5 billion in the 35-block area within the NoMa BID boundary, and have plans to develop more than 16 million square feet of additional office, residential, hotel, and retail space. With a capital investment of $50 million from the District government, NoMa will soon have great new parks and public spaces as well. NoMa is home to more than 3,900 terrific new apartments, and more than 40,000 people work here each day. NoMa is the most connected neighborhood in Washington, D.C.  With unparalleled transportation access on Amtrak, VRE, MARC, two Red Line Metro stops, and vehicular access to Interstate 395, visitors, workers and residents can easily travel throughout the region as well as get to New York or anywhere on the East Coast. NoMa has a WalkScore of 92 and offers great biking facilities, including three free outdoor air pumps, the East Coast’s only Bikestation, the 8-mile Metropolitan Branch Trail, and seven Capital Bikeshare stations. The NoMa BID organizes more than 50 free award-winning community events each year, connecting more than 20,000 friends and neighbors. For more information about NoMa, visit www.nomabid.org and sign up for our bimonthly newsletter. Follow us on Twitter @NoMaBID and like us on Facebook.

 

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For immediate release
News media contact:
Rachel Davis
202-997-3846
rdavis@nomabid.org