UPDATE: Here’s a video of Saturday’s street-painting event:
Art classes might be getting squeezed in some city schools, but they are still happening in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn — at least on Saturdays. Fort Greene kids are set to paint the street in front of their school tomorrow as part of a city initiative to beautify local roads.
The art teacher from one of the schools, Community Roots Charter School, has been working with a local artist and her second graders to develop a plan for drawing a street mural that looks like a neighborhood map. The event, taking place in front of the building shared by PS 67 and Community Roots, is being sponsored by Livable Streets Education, which like GothamSchools is part of The Open Planning Project.
The “Paint the Pavement” event is part of the city Department of Transportation’s ongoing Urban Art Program. Other Urban Art projects have taken place in public plazas and on sidewalks, but tomorrow’s event is happening in the street in front of a school to create a visual reminder that school zones need to be safe places for children to play, Rebecca Jacobs, Livable Streets Education’s outreach director, explained to me.
You can see the street-mural-making in action tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in front of PS 67 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. (Map)