Driving Park to see new mural this year to celebrate neighborhood heritage
The Driving Park neighborhood on Columbus' South Side has a century-long history with many leaders and residents who have played a role throughout. Now, a community foundation plans to commemorate them with a mural to be done this year.
The Gertrude Wood Community Foundation received a 614 Beautiful grant of $10,000 from the city in partnership with the Neighborhood Design Center to do the mural on the Fairwood Avenue underpass beneath Interstate 70.
The mural will depict the contribution of "local heroes," said Jennifer Jordan, executive director for the Driving Park-based foundation.
Jordan said the foundation plans to have a community meeting this spring to generate ideas on what the mural will look like and who will be depicted.
Two individuals who will be considered: longtime Driving Park community leader James Johnson, who created the neighborhood's civic association and passed away in 2014 at age 86, and Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I flying ace and former Eastern Air Lines president and chairman whose childhood home sits on East Livingston Avenue.
"It might be someone we don't know about," said Mashelle Williams-Gladney, director of the foundation's community development housing program. Maybe it's an expression of something that's creative and innovative and encouraging, something rich in history, she said.
Anton Johnson, James Johnson's son, said he remembers when President Bill Clinton met with his father in the 1990s after his dad established the first block watch in the city.
"I definitely think he deserves it," Anton Johnson said of a spot for his father on the mural.
Michael Aaron, who leads the Rickenbacker Woods Foundation that maintains the Rickenbacker house, said Florence Holcomb, another community leader who died at 86 in 2012, should be considered.
Aaron said Holcomb lived for years on Geers Avenue and was a force in the civic association, working hard to save the Rickenbacker property.
Aaron said that because the community "shares" the bridge with the South of Main neighborhood on the Near East Side, that community should be involved too.
"It’s not just our bridge," Aaron said. "It shows community. We want to share community with both sides."
The site is near Fairwood Alternative Elementary School, a pre-K through sixth grade school.
Jordan said she wants to involve the school in an education program about the neighborhood's history and leaders, and perhaps recruit them to help paint the mural if the artist that the foundation hires agrees.
The mural must be finished by Dec. 31.
Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation, said ODOT would need to grant a permit and work out a maintenance agreement with the community before work would start. She said department staff did meet with a community leader.
Lisa Snyder, director of community programs for the Neighborhood Design Center, said the grants are efforts to support city neighborhoods, to celebrate the history and uplift residents.
"Recognizing they have a bright future, inspired by these types of neighborhood heroes," Snyder said.
This story is part of the Dispatch's Mobile Newsroom initiative. Read our reporters' work at dispatch.com/mobilenewsroom, where you also can sign up for The Mobile Newsroom newsletter.
mferench@dispatch.com
@MarkFerenchik
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: New mural of notable Driving Park figures to be painted this year
