Hello, Coolidge? Dudley's Calling.

This morning I opened my inbox and read an email from Virtual Street Corners, "a public art project whose goal is to get residents and representatives of different neighborhoods talking to each other via a real-time, life-size video monitors on street corners." They're coming to Coolidge Corner and Dudley Square on Thursday, June 12 and will be up and running 24/7 until Saturday, June 21. They're interested in pairing up artists, community workers, seniors, neighborhood historians, religious leaders, and others from each neighborhood to talk to each other. On Wednesday, June 18, there will also be facilitated conversations by the performance artists of "Black-Jew Dialogues" from 4 to 7pm. I don't know if this has ever been done anywhere else in the Boston area, but I'm excited to see how it works out. For more information, please read their press release.

Comments

[eeka]

This is really intriguing, yet also sad in a way that we even *need* dialogues between neighborhoods a couple miles apart with frequent bus service between them. But unfortunately, I think they're probably right that it's warranted. When I tell people at my synagogue (which is .8 miles from Roxbury Crossing) that I live right near Roxbury Crossing, most of them ask where that is.

[3D]

It is sad that people who live so close and have such easy access to each other don't interact more often. I bet the kids in both neighborhoods don't even know that their grandparents (and some parents, too) likely lived on the same streets and shopped at the same stores less than 50 years ago.