Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood Association is collaborating with Flint Public Art Project to renovate an abandoned home in the city’s oldest neighborhood as a cooperative art and community space – using an imaginative rebuilding process to help train local residents how to revitalize some of the city’s other 20,000 abandoned buildings.
Led by Andrew Perkins, a recent graduate of State University of New York–Buffalo architecture school who rescued an abandoned house in upstate NY using only recycled materials, Carriage Town and Flint Public Art Project are collaborating with local, regional, and national artists to reuse the magnificent Spencer’s Mortuary, once owned by one of Flint’s leading civil rights figures.
Taking cues from the civil rights meetings held at Spencer’s to transform social conditions, Carriage Town and Flint Public Art Project are planning a series of public workshops to engage residents, city officials, and nonprofits in discussions on how to transform the building into a new community center and reconstruct it using all sustainable and salvaged materials. Located steps from a Native American burial ground, blocks from birthplace of the American auto industry, and halfway between two thriving universities, Spencer’s Art House project is perfectly situated as a beacon of the transformation of Flint already underway.
Funds from Chase Community Giving will offset major renovation costs, including repairing the roof and foundation, installing insulation, solar power, and gray water recycling, and turning the home into a model for the emerging new city. Spencer’s Art House will demonstrate that abandoned homes can be reborn as neighborhood resources – both in Flint and in cities nationwide.
Here's where you vote for the Spencer's project: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charity/view/ein/38-2587577. You have to allow the Chase Community Giving App--it posts who you vote for on your Facebook page--then vote for Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood Association. If you do this it will help us rebuild this structure as an art and community space.
If you have a Chase banking account, you can vote here as well.
