Colorwave Fest to celebrate Lortz Lane makeover
Art, music, and community bring Lortz Lane alive.
The two-plus-year process of turning Lortz Lane into a pedestrian-friendly passage that can be converted into a public event space marked with a splashy new mural is coming to a close and will be celebrated at the York Road Colorwave Fest on Saturday, April 26.
The family-friendly event takes its name from the design of the mural, which is titled “Lortz Wave” and is an artistic interpretation of what the words “Lortz Lane Govans” would look like if spoken into an oscilloscope.
“Basically the design is a piece of large-scale pavement art that goes from York Road to the parking area of Heritage Smokehouse,” said Melvin Jadulang, director of operations and engagement for Graham Projects, a Baltimore-based public art and design company that developed the image through an extensive community involvement process.
“It’s not exact because we can’t do precise waveform interpretations, but the colors reverberate in spans of orange, yellow and brown that actually complement the kinds of colors that were shared by the community members and by students as they were drawing these different things,” he said.
Students at Govans Elementary School were part of the design process because the Lortz Lane makeover project grew out of an initiative that the city has implemented to make the most out of its investment in new educational facilities as part of the 21st Century School Buildings Program. This effort is called INSPIRE, an acronym for Investing in Neighborhoods and Schools to Promote Improvement, Revitalization and Excellence.
“The INSPIRE process looks at the quarter mile to half mile around the school and the radius around the school and looks at and works with the neighborhoods and organizations and institutions in the area to improve not just the school itself or the property of the school, but looking at the housing and the streets and traffic, all the things that make a neighborhood great, to really leverage the investment in the school,” said Marie McSweeney Anderson, the Northern District Planner for the city of Baltimore.
That review led to the identification of Lortz Lane as a “route that needed pedestrian safety improvement,” she said. The projected benefits include safer passage both for Homeland residents heading toward York Road and for Govans students heading toward the local branch of the Enoch Pratt library system.
Officials considered the idea of closing Lortz to cars completely but opted not to. Instead several other measures will be taken to improve safety. The mural itself, for example, will be a visual signal for motorists to go slowly. In addition the image will be applied with a paving coating product that will make the surface safer, Jadulang said.
The material used to create the waveform image “adds a texture to it that may help to extend the life of the asphalt and also provide a safe surface for both cars and people to walk on,” he said. “Even in times of rain, the artwork will actually be grippier than the actual asphalt itself.”
A pedestrian pathway, now marked with a painted stripe, will be upgraded as well. “Once the mural goes down, then curb bumps and flex posts will be put back in to really make sure that the pathway feels designated and separate from the car lane of traffic,” Anderson said.
“Instead of having the alleyway be closed year round, it will be closed intermittently for community engagement events,” she said.
The first of these upcoming events is the York Road Colorwave Fest, from noon to 3 p.m. on the 26th. It will include a range of family-friendly activities, including a scavenger hunt, crafting, live music and entertainment by Robert AX Adams Jr., free food, local vendors and a plant and flower market.
In addition community members are invited to add to the colorful makeover of Lortz Lane. They will be provided stencils to paint “various pedestrian images, whether it's footprints or bicycles or wheelchairs, or a picture of a book or feather, recognizing writing and reading, and some food symbols like a fork and spoon as well,” Jadulang said.
“We’ve been planning for this for over two years,” Anderson said. “It’s been a really collaborative process.” Along the way, however, some of the original hopes for the project have been scaled back as conflicting community concerns have had to be addressed.
“The Lortz Lane project was a result of children from Govans Elementary School not having a safe path to Govans library,” said Sandi McFadden, a longtime community leader who retired last year as the community coordinator for the school. Without a full closure of the street, “the problem is still there.”
She noted that students regularly use the library for organized school events as well as for individual study. “We need to go back to the drawing board and figure out other ways for children to get to the library in a safe way.”
Still she believes the changes will be beneficial. “What we’re going to be doing will be a beautiful contribution to the community, where people can get together and do music and do food, and we’ll have a mural that the children in the neighborhood identified that they wanted,” she said.
Nearby merchants say they are excited about the coming changes but also note that the ins-and-outs of the planning process have affected their ability to move ahead with ideas about how to use the space.
“It's been a long time in the works, so I'm excited to finally see the mural come to life,” said Jenn Marsh, who runs Heritage along with her husband, George. She said Heritage would consider using the space for a Fourth of July event or for a beer garden when Oktoberfest time rolls around.
When Lortz Lane is closed for special events, the York Road Improvement District will provide planters, seating and lights to add to the atmosphere. “This project shows what’s possible when we put community vision at the center of corridor revitalization,” said Sam Storey, Executive Director of the York Corridor Business Improvement District. “We’re excited to help activate Lortz Lane to make it both safer and more joyful to walk through. The Colorwave Fest is just the beginning.”
Over time the hope is that Lortz Lane will serve as a magnet to draw investment southward by expanding on the success of the Belvedere Square area, which Anderson described as a “stronghold area” for commercial activity.
“Lortz Lane is really a jumping off point for continuing this commercial growth further down the Corridor,” Anderson said. “This will be a really important area of street activation to help change people’s perception and perspective and get folks coming a little bit further down the Corridor.”
Plans to upgrade the nearby Bellona Triangle will add to this momentum, she said. “With both of these spaces, a lot of it is just changing community perspective and perception and getting folks into the space and comfortable with those spaces.”
The project is funded through a federal earmark grant that was received by Loyola University Maryland. The $50,000 budget includes $30,000 for public art installation and $20,000 for lighting, furniture and landscaping.
“It's taken a lot of twists and turns, but I think it's really exciting,” said Gia Grier McGinnis, executive director for Loyola’s Center for Community, Service and Justice (CCSJ) and the York Road Initiative. “Even though … we've compromised by making it a pop-up space, I think once people really start using it and they see the furniture and all that, they're really going to enjoy being out there.”
To encourage its students to learn more about the neighborhood, Loyola recently hosted a “business crawl” along the Corridor. The students went to places like Hex Superette and Angeli’s Pizzeria, McGinnis said.“They were like, ‘Wow–we didn’t know this was here,’” she said.
“I really hope our students see that they can go to this part of York Road and enjoy all the businesses,” she said. Lortz Lane will be a key part to “getting people used to experiencing the Corridor outside of Belvedere Square.”