Rochester has a variety of neighborhoods full of history and
art. And on Friday, August 19, 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., you can get a unique look
at one of them at the Historical Urban Art Walking Tour in the Susan B. Anthony
neighborhood. (There was a tour kickoff on Thursday, August 18.)
The tour, which is sponsored by the 540WMain organization, is
part of a weekend of events in the neighborhood celebrating the ratification of
the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. Leading the tour will be four
teenage interns of 540WMain’s Workforce Development, Entrepreneur, and College
Preparatory program. They’ll guide participants around the neighborhood,
focusing especially on nine artworks by local artists.
The interns — Ty’Reek Sizer, Jada
Brown, Ty’Sean Sizer, and James Ross — orchestrated
the tour themselves, says 540WMain’s president, Calvin Eaton, including selecting
the artworks, designing graphics, writing scripts, conducting mock tours,
rehearsing, and writing a press release, with guidance and support from Eaton.
In the beginning, Eaton says, they agreed that the Susan B.
Anthony neighborhood was not being fully appreciated. The students walked
around the area themselves and looked at its art. “It’s amazing how art makes
urban areas so beautiful.”
After they picked the nine pieces, two were assigned to each
intern, which led them to the library to research their chosen works and learn
about their background and the background of the artists and their inspiration.
The interns’ educational growth throughout the process is
important, Eaton says. “They’ve done so much research, and I’ve been trying to
reach out to some of the local artists they chose, hoping they can communicate
and ask questions about their art around the city.”
On the tour, the students get to talk about why they
personally chose the pieces, which lets them share not only what they learned
in their research but also their interpretation of the artworks.
All ages are invited to attend the event, which intern Ty’Reek Sizer says he realized would be another learning
aspect in their preparation for the tour and script rehearsing:
inter-generational communication.
“You wouldn’t talk to a kid the same way that you would talk
to an adult,” he says, “but everyone should be able to understand the tour.
This experience is prepping us for different types of communication we can use
in the future.”
The Historical Urban Art Walking Tour will start at 540WMain,
with tours leaving at 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Admission is free, registration and
donations are suggested. For more information, visit 540westmain.org, or call
732-0002.
540WMain is also hosting a free walking tour of the Voters
Block Community on Friday at 6:30 p.m.; Saturday, at 1:30 p.m.; and Sunday,
with Dawn Noto of the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Association, at 1 p.m. and
3 p.m. Registration is required by calling 732-0002.
This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2016.
