Friday, May 9, 2008

In the End

Its all about helping each other rebuild Milwaukee!
LAND Service Learning 170
LAND Service Learning 169
Photos Courtesy of Nathan Booth

Artist's Statement for Washington Park Project

Artist’s Statement for Washington Park Project

For the past 4 months I have been compiling and taking many photos, videos and random images in hopes to create a media archive. Now that I have well over 500 photos of Washington Park and the Surrounding Lisbon Avenue neighborhood I finally feel like the project is finally complete.

Our group took it upon ourselves to create a project entirely about Washington Park. This beautiful old park in the heart of the city has gone from a wonderful social gathering spot to a now almost deserted plot of green space. Within our project we wanted to show the history of Washington Park, the reasoning behind the desolation currently and we wanted to see how the residents use the park today versus in the past.

Upon entering the park for the first time we were all speechless. We had understood that this was a massive park but I believe only Nathan knew parts of its true history. Upon entering this park you feel its significance. This park means something, from the lake to the Urban Ecology Center, or from the Temple of Music all the way to the playground Washington Park is a crucial part of the survival of its community residents and Milwaukee.

For my individual project I wanted to take more visual look at how the residents utilize or under utilize the Washington Park space in the past and in the present day. After compiling and taking many photos I came to the same conclusion that my group and many residents have said, Washington Park is very “underutilized.” The lack of government funding and the overall low interest from the community around the park has led to many years of neglect.

A park that went from acres upon acres of open space used for a Zoo, Racetrack, Lake, and many other activities to a park with few bathrooms, a dirty lake, a temple of music that is rarely used, basketball courts, and a baseball diamond that has more birds on it than children playing. From my observations I found that to my surprise fishing was a big activity for young urban children in the neighborhood. Many of the residents I met while in the park said that they rarely come to Washington Park because its full of gangs and drugs. Also from my observations I didn’t really see that side of Washington Park. I truly feel to this day that Washington Park just had gotten a bad reputation over the years and now the park is suffering from that reputation. During the summer is when the park obviously gets the most use mostly on the Basketball courts. They do have boat rentals available for people who want to paddle boat on the lake but unfortunately the water is very dirty and people are almost unable to swim in it. The pool apparently gets lots of traffic during the summer. This underutilized park is an important asset to Milwaukeeans and many people would like to have some amount of money invested back into the park to rebuild it and to reclaim Washington Park as one of Milwaukee’s Hidden treasures.

I was very happy in the way that this project has turned out. I feel that all of the residents that I met shared that same mentality that this is a wonderful park but they would love to see some money invested in it to make it great once again. The underutilization of this park is just another obstacle in the way of those who are attempting to rebuild this beaten up section of Milwaukee. Organizations such as LAND and others are struggling enough that having to rebuild this park must come from the government.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Washington Park Videos

Our Groups Washington Park video



Washington Park Senior Center



The Terry Sims Band @ Washington Park in the Emil Blatz Temple of Music

findings

Throughout my research and the progression of my project I have accumulated some random files from Washington Park that haven't made it into the final project.
Washingtonparkmap
The Map of Washington Park
Washingtonpark1
Washingtonpark2
Washingtonpark1
obamagwen
Obama Spoke in Washington Park in 2004
obamapress
wp_sign
0014400a
boatless
MillerParkview
fisherman
bridgeview

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

a view of a park

For my individual assignment for my project for FILM 150 I want to demonstrate how people in the surrounding community use and have used the space over time.

The first question I seek to ask is,
Why do people currently come to Washington Park?
-Basketball
-Fishing
-Picnics
-Baseball
-Soccer
-Football
-Jogging
-Bike Riding
-Walking/Dog Walking
-Relaxing/Hanging Out
-The Swimming Pool
-The Playground

CRW_0162.CRW.jpg
CRW_0176.CRW.jpg
CRW_0181.CRW.jpg
CRW_0143.CRW.jpg
CRW_0127.CRW.jpg
CRW_0125.CRW.jpg
CRW_0201.CRW.jpg
CRW_0210.CRW.jpg
CRW_0159.CRW.jpg
CRW_0118.CRW.jpg
CRW_0110.CRW.jpg
CRW_0106.CRW.jpg
CRW_0097.CRW.jpg
IMG_6476.JPG
CRW_0090.CRW.jpg
IMG_6474.JPG
CRW_0083.CRW.jpg
IMG_6472.JPG
CRW_0069.CRW.jpg
CRW_0066.CRW.jpg
CRW_0057.CRW.jpg
CRW_0052.CRW.jpg
IMG_6463.JPG
CRW_0024.CRW.jpg
IMG_6449.JPG
IMG_6450.JPG
IMG_6460.JPG
CRW_0042.CRW.jpg

Why have people come to Washington Park throughout Milwaukee's History?
-Music Under the Stars
-Canoing
-Boating
-The Milwaukee County Zoo
-The Largest Park in all of Milwaukee

IMG_0014.JPG
IMG_0013.JPG
IMG_0012.JPG
IMG_0009.JPG
IMG_0006.JPG
IMG_0017.JPG
CRW_0224.CRW.jpg
CRW_0223.CRW.jpg
CRW_0225.CRW.jpg

to be continued...