Finally, a reason to love a parking meter

LAST SPRING, my colleague David Gambacorta wrote about the slow-but-unmistakable signs of improvements on struggling 52nd Street, also known as West Philadelphia's Main Street:

New transportation hub, clean and well-lit? Check.

Removal of filthy, tattered storefront canopies that made the street look like a war zone instead of a shopping destination? Check.

Uptick in police patrols, contributing to a serious drop in crime along the corridor? Check.

Stepped-up services from Ready, Willing and Able, whose workers regularly clean the streets? Check.

As Dave noted, "There's a sense that the area could be on the cusp of generating real momentum, of finally coming back from the dead as so many other distressed neighborhoods have in recent years."

So, what's the latest sign of the avenue's turnaround?

Painted parking meters. I know: Sounds silly. But I think the idea is a winner.

The Enterprise Center Community Development Corp. is soliciting proposals from Philly artists to paint parking meters along the stretch of 52nd between Arch and Walnut. The deadline for submission is Aug. 10, with up to 10 selected artists receiving up to $4,800 to turn 10 meters into works of art.

Or, as they will be dubbed, "Meter Murals." (Forty-six additional meters will be decorated with the 52nd Street logo.)

A lot of meters in American cities are being repurposed, by the way, as parking-fee collection moves to automated kiosks, leaving old meters standing forlorn.

Philly and New York have retrofitted some of the defunct meters into snazzy bike racks. Other towns, including Santa Fe, N.M., have donated used meters to arts organizations, which decorate them and use them as fundraising devices during arts festivals (Santa Fe's pilot program was called "Change for Change").

All that attention to the humble parking meter has inspired other burgs to see their still-working meters through a fun, new filter.

In York, Pa., 60 downtown meters have been wonderfully transformed by artists - pros and amateurs alike - into whimsical sculptures portraying everything from human faces and undersea creatures to Impressionist landscapes and safari scenes.

"People love them," says Mindy Christian, education director for YorkArts, whose organization curated the project. "They liven up the city. People come to see them - especially people who don't normally come downtown. So they've been a real draw."

The York meters got the attention last year of Rahjer Anthony, then an AmeriCorps employee with Philadelphia LISC, which runs a commercial-corridor-rejuvenation program that helps businesses improve the vitality of their business districts.

"I wanted to get people excited about 52nd Street, and I thought it would be great to have artists collaborate with the community on ways to make art out of the meters," says Anthony.

He found an enthusiastic supporter in Akeem Dixon, the ebullient new manager of the 52nd Street Commercial Corridor (overseen by the Enterprise Community Center). After getting the OK from the Philadelphia Parking Authority (which owns the meters), Anthony and Dixon obtained funding from LISC and guidance from Small But Mighty Arts, which supports local artists.

Thus was born the Meter Murals project, with art inspired by images suggested by neighborhood groups. The winners will be chosen by representatives from, among others, the West Philly YMCA, the Walnut Hill and Garden Court community associations and the 52nd Street Commercial Development Corp.

"Preference will be given to artists with a West Philly connection," says Dixon.

Neighbors will have chance to meet the winners in an October arts event on 52nd Street. The murals will be completed by Dec. 1.

What I love about this project is that it's not about fixing something that's broken; it's about creating something jubilant and lively from objects so dull and workaday that we've all stopped seeing them. Communities that engage in such projects are engaging in joy, fun and creativity.

Those adjectives aren't often used when we talk about raising our rundown commercial corridors from the dead. We talk instead about removing awnings. Cleaning trashy streets. Upping security. Chasing loiterers out of the way so neighbors feel safe enough to venture back to stores they'd long ago abandoned.

That stuff is necessary, obviously. The 52nd Street corridor is improving precisely because city agencies like the Commerce Department - a real champion of the corridor - partnering with police, SEPTA and angel agencies like the Enterprise Center and LISC do the unglamorous work of neighborhood rescue.

But what neighborhoods need, too, is a shot of delight. The kind that's not about dragging a community back to its feet but about getting it to jump with joy.

That's what the Meter Murals aim to do.

Hell, they might even make parking fun. For information, go to https://goo.gl/ZHBJzv.

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly

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