May 18–25, 2000

art

Frankford Gets Festive

On the avenue I’m taking you to: Merchants display their colorful wares on busy Frankford Avenue.

by Ellen Rosenholtz

It’s festival season. Craftspeople, musicians, food tables, maybe a face painter or two — the standard elements of the urban street fair will be popping up on city streets throughout the next several months.

But this weekend’s Frankford Arts Festival, the neighborhood’s first, has more than cotton candy on its mind. Like many of its counterparts in other sections of the city, Frankford’s fest is not just an excuse for a party. It’s a conscious attempt to draw wider attention to an area that’s revitalizing itself.

The idea for an arts festival has its roots in the Frankford Plan 2000, an economic initiative developed seven years ago as a blueprint to bring new life to this architecturally rich and historically significant neighborhood. The Plan identified 12 key concerns, including such basic quality of life issues as improvements in housing, transportation and education. With progress being made in addressing these residential priorities, the arts fest becomes a great marketing tool; it’s a sign that the neighborhood is ready to show itself off a little.

Martha Kearns, executive director of the community-based art program FrankfordStyle, has lived in the Frankford area for 14 years. She noticed about eight years ago that the Avenue, as she refers to it, was "teeter-tottering" on the brink of urban blight. She actively began soliciting artists to move into vacant facilities, connecting them with the local Community Development Corporation (CDC) and landlords to find inexpensive rentals and buyers’ assistance, in exchange for community service.

"The industrial era of textiles and mills in Frankford is over," she says animatedly. "Small retail is perfect for the area, and the artists are natural to rejuvenate the area. The arts create identity and build bridges between people."

Kevin Phelan is one of the artists Kearns enticed to Frankford. A set designer by trade, Phelan, a Philadelphia native, left for 13 years to build a career in New York. Two years ago he returned to raise his daughter. Low cost of living, neighborhood atmosphere and convenience to major thoroughfares convinced him that Frankford was the place to settle and open a commercial gallery, The Art Place in Frankford.

He admits that "it is going to be a challenge and take several years to bring a new level of culture back into the environment, but I am in it for the long haul. There is a large middle-class community that would come back to the Avenue if there were places to go. Ultimately I am here to make money, but I am also community-oriented. Proprietors should live in the communities where their businesses are located, it spurs you on to be involved."

This isn’t the first time a small working-class neighborhood has seen the arts trigger new development. In 1989 merchants instituted what is now considered one of the largest arts festivals of the region: the two-day Manayunk Arts Festival (this year, June 24-25), which draws over 350,000 people to Main Street. According to Kay Smith, the executive director of the Manayunk Development Corporation and a longtime resident, Manayunk’s appeal as a destination didn’t instantly develop. The neighborhood had been positioning itself for an economic revival since the 1970s. And the artists helped kick-start it.

"The artists and the galleries are the first wave in redeveloping a community," Smith observes. "The artists have the ability to visualize the potential of an area and the stamina to make their visions into reality."

	House of art: Kevin Phelan’s The Art Place.

Business-driven, community-built arts festivals have been staged with more and less success throughout the city. First Friday in Old City, the Rittenhouse Arts Festival in Center City and Go West Philadelphia in University City are all about using culture to attract attention — and customers. If a community can create a buzz about itself, then people will want to be part of the scene. According to Smith, area merchants are usually disappointed with the results of the Manayunk festivals. They think that the festival’s profits can only be measured in dollars, but she points out that the real value is exposure.

Frankford’s festival clearly shares her philosophy. Kate Clarke, executive director of Frankford United Neighbors CDC, an organization that purchases vacant properties and rehabs them for retail use, sees the festival as a way to shine a spotlight. "There are a lot of specialty stores and Mom and Pop shops that people are unaware of. There are places on the Avenue where you can purchase a communion dress, have a grandfather clock fixed, or obtain a hearing aid, things you can’t just do anywhere. The festival is a means of letting people know this community is alive and thriving, while attracting more stores and larger businesses."

Gallery owner Kevin Phelan says there are still some amazing real estate bargains to be had. "You can get a 3-4,000-square-foot building on the Avenue with a storefront for $20,000, complete with original molding and charm from the 1800s."

Many of the sites chosen for the festival are specifically properties that Frankford United Neighbors CDC and Frankford Main Street Project, a group dedicated to restoring Frankford Avenue, worked on as part of the area’s redevelopment. For the festival, artisans and performers will be set up in various venues along a three-block radius to focus attention on that restoration work as well as new retail.

Festgoers can expect to see neighborhood artists like Butch Ballard, a local legendary jazz drummer who played with Duke Ellington, and Lion Productions’ rendition of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town at St. Mark’s Church. But there will be also be performers from all over the city, such as P2Tee (an acoustic version of the popular group, Edgar Allen and the Poettes) and The Beach Balls, a unique quartet that reorchestrates Top 40 hits, like AC/DC’s "Back in Black," and sings them operatically. Seventeen visual artists and 15 crafters will be stationed all along Frankford Avenue, and the Polish Beneficial Association will be performing traditional dances at the Friends Meeting House. Comedians, gospel singers, hip-hop performers, and a movie premiere will all add to the diversity.

Gary Ross, one of the festival’s founders, notes "people still have a perception of Frankford as being a dangerous area, especially after dark. We took those concerns into consideration in planning the festival." Uniformed Community Service Representatives will be stationed throughout the festival providing maps, schedules and directions.

Frankford is not the first place most Philadelphians think of when they’re looking for a day, or a night, on the town. But with this type of community excitement, Old City better watch out.