First Meeting Beneath The Tree

The dialog on the morning of the first meeting started over breakfast at a local cafe called Eat Chow. Ryan Smolar and I (Madeleine Spencer) met first with our creative engineering team members Arman Bastiani and Andrew Wright from the company Oval Integration.

The project idea was to light up the tree to make it interactive and we discussed the myriad ways that this could be accomplished. We imagined what would happen if the fence lit up as people walked by and all the ways to immediately engage the pedestrian in its involvement with a tree. A tree that most would pass by without noticing its historic value.  

At the first meeting we also had Manny Escamilla our City's Historical Librarian. Beginning our tour we walked from bush and 3rd Street through the historic buildings, the bones of our city. We stopped beside other memorialized spots, and discussed tactical urbanism such as the ways in which city walls are being turned into virtual libraries in other places at subway and metro stops.

When we arrived at the site of our Sycamore Tree we were met by the Industrial Artist Stacy Dukes. 

We were surprised to find that as we stood discussing the project the beginning of our community engagement phase had already begun. Walking through the lot where we stood was a local businessman named Manny Pena. As we began to describe what we were working on he pointed to the surrounding businesses and the new Restaurant that had just opened on Broadway and told us he knew that Diego one of the managers of Hectors among other businesses would be very excited to help with this Legacy project. 

This was the beginning of what we would soon come to see happen....