Views From the Front Porch

Thinking about community

Dear Readers,

One of the things that intrigues me most about bread is the idea of this staple food drawing us together – to bake and eat, and in the work of grains, from field and mill. The collaborations necessary for our daily bread. Just think of everyone before me involved in the ingredients for this pie!

Pastry flour from Rusted Rooster, recipe from Ellen Gray, and rhubarb from my yard.

The reputation that food has for building community is strong, even as industrialized food companies have their claws deep in our taste buds and stretches solo snacking opportunities across our days and waistlines. I learned a lot about the myths and realities of food and community as I ran a meals program and food pantry for six years, but today I'm thinking about community independent of eating, because I went to an incredible piece of community theater.

Views From the Front Porch is a play that shows the impact of a giant bridge on a community in Troy. The Hoosick Street Bridge, the largest bridge across the Hudson above NYC, landed on my city in 1980, after 10+ years of neighbors and organizations fighting it. People traveling to Vermont from points South will know Hoosick Street as Route 7 and hate it for the congestion that snarls them as they aim for a pastoral state.

Talk of a bridge and arterial in Troy began a long time ago-this plan was from 1954.

I live two blocks from the bridge and the wide highway that Hoosick Street has become; original designs would have cloverleafed on- and off-ramps at my doorstep, and a quarter mile north, too. People in rural areas north and east of Troy also fought the bridge because they knew that it would suburbanize the countryside. But progress prevailed, and in 1980 the Collar City Bridge – named for the former industry that employed 1/3 of Troy’s women in 1900 and provided detachable shirt collars and cuffs to most of America – opened to grand fanfare. The disco in Troy Plaza had a daytime party, and city and state officials celebrated this ‘development.’

The bridge cut the Hillside neighborhood into North and South sections, and made it dangerous to cross the giant street – which is now seven lanes. Lots of people have been hit, and a few people have died, and there’s been plenty of studies to try to soften the traffic intensity and make it safer for pedestrians. Just a few years ago we got a four-way stop at Tenth Street. In 30 seconds, able-bodied folks can make it from side to side, and we are very aware of the stares and sighs of drivers as they impatiently wait their turn. Even more significant than walking is the fact that the bridge created a place to forget, dividing Hillside North from downtown and more prosperous areas.

Despite this division, people made their lives in Hillside North. Families lived in the 2 and 3-story brick houses, sent their kids to a struggling school, and helped each other. They faced hardships together, and this togetherness is the topic that Beverly Hickman, Rachael Lorimer, and Justin Relf explored for two years. Home base for the project was Oakwood Community Center, the former Oakwood Presbyterian Church. Through collecting stories, inviting people into printmaking and other art projects, Views From the Front Porch explored ideas of home and belonging. The play is the culmination of this work, and it really hit me hard.

Rachael Lorimer with a beautiful banner, and Tai Ortiz, Rachael, Justin Relf and Beverly Hickman!

Ages ago, I made a comic book about how the bridge landed here. Volunteering with this project has shown me how deep community art projects need to go to find stories, and connect to the community. The interviews, the story stations and art workshops were embedded in Hillside North. Everything this project did was about the people of this place and involved the people who call this neighborhood home. This was evident in the art show last fall, which had banners and posters with quotes from the interviews, and it was evident in the show last night. There were original songs — like the one from Lyric Wade below, a dance with cello accompaniment, and a solid play that encompassed 55 years of history, and showed the human investment in a place, and in each other. The stuff that makes community.

And so, here I am, at my desk. I am remembering how when I came home to Troy with my husband and our first son, after a hearty self-imposed exile in Seattle, wanted community. I’d grown up in Troy and outside of it, and we came into the city for church on Sundays and for the arts center, where my mom taught and we all took classes. This was the 70s and early 80s, and I was tied to the families in our hippie Catholic church. As a young mother, I tried finding our community at that church, but mass was conservative and the church had lost its leftist leanings, and was anti-abortion. We tried other churches, but they didn’t fit either.

I got a job at the farmers’ market, and there, with people growing food and bringing it to eaters, I found community. That son ran around the square chanting ‘Francis Eddy Magai, farmer, Francis Eddy Magai, farmer,’ envisioning himself in the work of plants and feeding people – which he does! As the manager, I quickly saw how little I knew about farming, and when I left the market to raise our second son, I decided to focus on telling the stories of food – not how it tastes, but how it gets to us.

Us – the enigmatic us – we are what compel me. How do we get opportunities? Who gets to thrive? Who gets to live without war? Who gets to bake bread and who gets to garden? Who can afford healthy food – afford the time to find it, pay for it, cook it? And beyond such nourishment, how do we support each other?

I hope you are amidst people who help you, and that you have your we, your community.

Amy

Notes:

• Views From the Front Porch is a partnership between Oakwood Community Cneter and TRIP, Inc. and supported by the Creatives Rebuild NY Artist Employment Program and NeighborWorks America.

• Listen to Rachael and Justin talk about the project on the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s radio.

• I am on the board of TRIP and if you are local, hope you can join us for Take a Sip for Trip on Thursday June 6th! I’ll be setting up a grain education table to talk about the grainy roots of beer and spirits.

• Joe Fama, who led one of Troy’s bridge and arterial battling orgs, TAP (Troy Architectural Program) for many years, wrote a great story of the Hoosick Street Bridge and it is archived at my library’s website. This is of more than local interest, because it explains how highways and construction projects happened in the last part of the 20th century.

• My comic book, which my friend Jim de Sève helped make, is archived here and here.