One Man’s Trash, Another Man’s Treasure By: Kaitlyn Hodgins

Lost for nearly 50 years, hidden amidst tangled shrubbery, beneath the dark blanket of the forest, lies a piece of history that was once a bustling, prosperous central location for the people of Greensboro, NC.

For the downtown community, the restoration of this long lost piece of treasure is underway.

Trash-filled alley ways and abandoned tracks, graffiti spewed walls and years of isolation transforms to lighted archways, majestic paintings and sculpted landscaping to bring to life what was once so vibrant and alive.

That is what Action Greensboro, a non-profit organization, plans to do.

“We’re giving the city of Greensboro something that they have never had before,” said Dabney Sanders, project manager at Action Greensboro. “That’s the part that I think we are most excited about!”

Action Greensboro and a team of volunteers are taking this abandoned railroad, whose tracks once transported textiles, granite and marble, up and down the southern East Coast, and restoring it to its original elegance of the early 1900s utilizing the skills and tools of today’s artistic community.

The underpass will be added to the project Action Greensboro has already begun and will become part of a 4.2 mile greenway that will encircle Downtown Greensboro.

This railway was once a part of the Atlantic and Yadkin railway, but was abandoned in the mid 1970s when Freeman Mill road was built. With the new road built, the through streets beneath the underpass were closed off to vehicular traffic and therefore the whole underpass was abandoned and became overgrown.

Action Greensboro- The Beginning

The Downtown greenway railroad underpass public art collaboration is an innovative public art project that will create a link between two sections of the planned greenway.

“Greensboro stands alone as the only North Carolina city that will have an urban trail that encircles downtown,” said Chuck Flink, president of Greenways Inc. “The downtown greenway will become signature landscape within Greensboro in the years to come.”

The downtown greenway is a multi-use trail for walking, bicycling and other non-motorized means of transportation or recreation that will perimeter downtown Greensboro, enhancing the urban landscape with a green space.

The loop itself will be unique to Greensboro and among one of only a few in the country.

“So far, we have received extremely positive feedback from the general public about the project. We have had over 100 people attend public meeting about it,” says Sanders.

“The only negative comment we have received was that someone said ‘they want it wider!’” jokes Steve Carlin, architect for the site.

Behind the Scenes

The first 1,800 foot section of the greenway, in the southwest corner, has been completed. 

Ground is expected to be broken on the next ¼ mile section, traveling through the underpass, in the winter of 2011.

This area is phase one of the four phase plan for completion of the greenway.

This section will travel beneath the still active Norfolk Southern operated North Carolina Railroad Line, where 57 trains a day travel overhead. 

The downtown greenway will cost an estimated $26 million to design and construct over the next five to 10 years. 

“The complexities of the project involving multiple city departments as well as the private sector present the most challenging aspects of the project,” said Sanders.

The project was possible through a $100 thousand grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Dabney reports, “When the National Endowment for the Art grant opportunity came up, we decided this was a perfect fit! The funding has allowed us to make our idea a reality.”

It was a team effort to prepare this site for restoration and to make this dream a reality.

Local sculptor, Jim Gallucci and light designer, Scott Richardson, in cooperation with Steve Carlin of Cooper Carry Center for Connective Architecture have been selected and are working in collaboration with Action Greensboro on this project.

“The biggest concern that we have had, so far, isn’t related to the art itself,” said Sanders. “It is general concern about safety as this is in an isolated area not next to a roadway.”

The design and development will include the creation of 12, 6-foot tall, decorative iron gates that will be inset within existing archways that run along the underpass. 

Colorful, motion detector, lighting will illuminate the site, and will add visual interest as well as improve safety.

In addition, artistic benches, designed by Alloy Artisans out of Wilmington, will sit near the trailhead parking areas in the four corners of the trail as well as gardens, sculptures and brick-stone paths infusing the traditions of the original town in the 1920s.

The Discovery and Clean-up

While doing groundwork looking to see how the concept of the trail might be made a reality on the ground, consultants of Action Greensboro stumbled upon this buried treasure.

When finding the underpass, Action Greensboro decided that it would be a great opportunity to add art to the greenway, hoping to make this an attraction, not just a functional design.

On April 24, 2010, AmeriCorps members, from the Partnership to End Homelessness, dedicated a day of service for their community by cleaning up a homeless camp in the area of the underpass.

After over 40 volunteers, three hours and five pick-up trucks filled with trash, the clean area will become a part of the greenway.

“Rocco Landesman, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, has been really impressed with our project and he uses Greensboro and what we are doing here with the downtown greenway as an example when he speaks all over the country,” says Sanders. “So we are getting national recognition before we have even completed the project!”

External Links:

Other projects Action Greensboro is involved with

http://www.actiongreensboro.org/see/index.php
Greensboro things-to-do

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2859647-greensboro_things_to_do-i

http://www.downtowngreenway.org/community-involvement/