Pop Up festivities celebrate historic area on Ninth Street
It’s a little bit like a fairy tale. For a few hours, a downon-its-luck neighborhood is transformed into a thriving, living space with temporary businesses and activities. It’s a bit of magic practiced annually by the folks of Pop Up in the Rock and on Saturday, they’re turning their creative, visionary powers to Little Rock’s West Ninth Street.
Pop Up in the Rock is part of the national Better Block Movement. The purpose is to focus on an area that is either car-dominated or neglected and, for one day, transform it with “pop-up” restaurants, businesses, galleries and activities, giving residents a taste of what the neighborhood could be with a little imagination and work.
“Really, this is about community,” co-chairman Chris Hancock says, pointing out that the event is a collection of creative ideas and suggestions gathered from people via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and face-to-face encounters.
This is the fourth Pop Up in the Rock and this one, Hancock says, will have a slightly different twist: “Our past Pop Ups haven’t had so much historical significance.”
West Ninth Street was once a vibrant, active black community lined with businesses and bustling with activity. It also saw more than its share of famous names and faces. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald once performed at the Dreamland Ballroom. Booker T. Washington gave a speech at the corner of Ninth Street and Broadway.
Integration, urban renewal and the construction of Interstate 630 right through the district all played a part in the deterioration of the old neighborhood. Pop Up in the Rock wants to show people what the area once was. And, perhaps even more importantly, what it could be.
To teach people a bit about the street’s significant past, they’ll have Nine on Ninth, a series of historic site markers evenly spaced along the corridor. The Dreamland Ballroom in Taborian Hall will host tours and people are invited to explore the exhibits inside the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. The center will also show a trailer for a forthcoming AETN documentary on the ballroom.
Some other activities and vendors will draw on the neighborhood’s history and the businesses that used to operate there. GoodFellas Barbershop will offer $5 shaves and haircuts in a pop-up barbershop in the ground floor of Taborian Hall. Organizers are hoping to have a large-scale pool table game as a reminder of the old Red’s Pool Hall.
But the past is only part of the project. Organizers also want visitors to think about the present and the future, to see what the area could be like with more businesses and activities.
The children’s library from last year’s Pop Up Park Hill in North Little Rock will be back. There will be games for all ages and a Lost Forty Beer Garden, with 25 percent of sales going to the Pop Up project.
Musicians including Lucious Spiller, Carl Mouton & Friends, the Arkansas Baptist College Concert Choir and opera singer Nisheeda Golden will perform and there will be a pop-up art gallery.
The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub will be on hand demonstrating 3-D printing techniques.
And no one will go hungry. In addition to the food trucks scattered along the street, Solfood Catering and Brown Sugar Bakeshop will have pop-up outdoor cafes so visitors can get their vegan or vegetarian meal, then pig out on decadent cupcakes.
Hancock says everything will be carefully spaced out to “illustrate what it’s like to have active retail and dining options along the street edge.”
Part of the purpose of Pop Up is to encourage pedestrians, bicycle riders and public transportation. Rock Region Metro will host a How to Ride Clinic to show off its new buses and to teach people how to navigate the bus system.
Interstate 630 may have bisected the community years ago, but for one day, they’ll be joined together. While the Philander Smith College State Street gate at the south end of the State Street overpass is usually closed, during Pop Up, it will be open and the overpass will become a pedestrian- and bicycle-only link between the historic black college and the historic business district.
“It’s a beautiful, active thing to participate in,” Hancock says. “It’s a rare opportunity to step into what’s possible for a moment.”