Following what Jane Jacobs stated in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961):

 “Conventionally, neighborhood parks or parklike open spaces are considered boons conferred on the deprived populations of cities.  Let us turn this thought around, and consider city parks deprived places that need the boon of life and appreciation conferred upon them.  This is more nearly in accord with reality, for people do confer use on parks and make them successes – or else withhold use and doom parks to rejection and failure.”

We will meet neighbors representing different organizations, like Friends of Patterson Park and Audubon Center, talking about their contributions to Patterson Park. We will also focus on organizations like the Creative Alliance that gives the neighbors an opportunity to create and excel at art with their programs and activities. We will embrace the park as a place where art lives in many ways for all the neighbors and visitors to enjoy.

We will take a tour of the oldest neighborhood of the city focusing on the streets and buildings that are significant regarding the contribution of women.

We will start in La Bretxa, an old market, explaining the work of the fishmongers, farmers, water carriers/sellers and drum players. From there we will go to the San Telmo museum to talk about Gracia de Olazabal, who was the founder of this convent and others, an illustrious woman of these years from 1520 to 1550. We will pass by the sculpture in tribute to the reconstruction of the city in 1813. A reconstruction that was done, above all, by women. Finally, we will end up on Elbiria Zipitria Street, who was a promoter of education in Basque and the first clandestine Basque schools (ikastolak) during the time of Franco´s dictatorship.