Humanities Truck Community Archive

As of 2021, more than $450,000 in funds were allocated to Penn Ave SE to revise the Neighborhood Small Area Plan, and for a Main Street Program. Ben Stokes and other project partners travelled around the Penn Ave SE neighborhood, interviewing residents for stories and feedback about their neighborhood with the goal of the neighborhood being provided more funding and infrastructural support from the city. The collection contains photos and videos from the Ice Cream Listening tour along Penn Ave East Corridor on July 16, 2021, as well as from the Hard Choices game at Art all Night on October 5, 2021. 

The Humanities Truck was reinvented as an ice cream truck on a “listening tour” that traveled on July 16, 2021 to three sites. The goal was to capture the voices along the Penn Ave East Corridor. The sites included Anacostia Park, Thai Orchid’s Kitchen, and Francis A Gregory Neighborhood Library. At each site, local residents and stakeholders were offered free ice cream as they share their stories about what they think about their neighborhood and how they would like to reimagine it.

In partnership with the DC Office of Planning, the Hard Choices activity was launched in Fall 2021. The project sought to gather resident stories and feedback on the Penn Ave East neighborhood. The Playful City Lab team, led by Ben Stokes, used the Humanities Truck to host the game, building on the stories gathered at the Ice Cream Listening Tour. Also, the team installed five signs along the Penn Ave East Corridor – each with a cultural frame and a site-specific QR code to specific elements in the website, which in turn directed viewers back to the physical locations and told the neighborhood story across sites. For instance, there was a hybrid wayfinding sign located near the Penn Branch Shopping Center which Art All Night attendees could scan and learn more about the neighborhood and amplify on their social media. Collection contains photos and video from event on October 5, 2021.