Revitalize Historic Lincoln Park: Chattanooga's singular African American park destination | Seeds

Respect

Revitalize Historic Lincoln Park: Chattanooga's singular African American park destination

Pending Approval

Joseph Paden

Planted this seed

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.” - Martin Luther King Jr. A Cornerstone of Chattanooga’s Parks story: As a National Register eligible site adjacent to Erlanger and UTC, Lincoln Park offers a singular opportunity to showcase cultural heritage, community health, and youth educational programming qualities within Chattanooga’s National Park City portfolio. As a cultural landscape, it is able to express the distinctive character of Chattanooga’s peoples and historical development....

Create a vintage WPA-era national park poster illustration of a community project in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a National Park City surrounded by mountains, rivers, and forests.

Composition: Vertical 4:5 poster layout. Bold foreground focal element representing the project. Use either a natural landscape or urban environment, depending on the subject.

Title: American park destination
Subtitle: National Park City

Typography: National park sans-serif, bold font. Sans serifs feel the pull of the Machine Age. Rough, worn, and perfectly imperfect. The individual letterforms do not strictly abide by all typographic rules, but this intentional imperfection adds to its charm. This typeface feels as if it was drawn by hand, just like the hand lettering in the vintage National Park posters. Just the title and subtitle, NO OTHER TEXT in the graphic.

Focus the composition on the project. "“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

A Cornerstone of Chattanooga’s Parks story:
As a National Register eligible site adjacent to Erlanger and UTC, Lincoln Park offers a singular opportunity to showcase cultural heritage, community health, and youth e". Location: 1135 Lincoln Park Ln, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403, United States. Resources available: Lincoln Park Restoration Proposal Brochure, The Art Haus Project.

Style: WPA-era screenprinted travel poster. Bold graphic composition, simplified shapes, warm earthy color palette, dramatic light and shadow, mid-century screen print texture, minimal detail but strong silhouettes, layered depth, optimistic and heroic tone, clean vector illustration, retro travel poster design, subtle paper grain texture.

Area Geography: Chattanooga is defined by a dramatic transition from flat river basins to towering plateaus. It features sheer granite and sandstone cliff faces (famous for rock climbing) and hidden subterranean wonders like Ruby Falls. Just west of the Great Smoky Mountains, sharing that iconic blue-mist horizon.

Native wildlife and flora: box turtles, white-tailed deer, red-tailed hawks, eastern bluebirds, tulip poplars, dogwoods, rhododendrons, and mountain laurel.

Activities: Pick activities relevant to the project. People here enjoy mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, paddleboarding, trail running, fishing, rollerblading, white water rafting, and community gardening. Weave relevant activities and local nature into the scene.

City life: Chattanooga's urban core is compact, walkable, and layered — historic brick warehouses, Art Deco civic buildings, modern glass infill, pedestrian bridges, riverfront paths, and steep green bluffs all within a small footprint.

Flora & Water: The landscape is carpeted in dense deciduous forests of oak, hickory, and tulip poplars. No pine trees. Hidden in the folds of the rolling hills are moss-covered rolling brooks, limestone swimming holes, and tiered waterfalls that spill over rocky ledges.

Typography: National park sans-serif, bold font. Sans serifs feel the pull of the Machine Age. Rough, worn, and perfectly imperfect. The individual letterforms do not strictly abide by all typographic rules, but this intentional imperfection adds to its charm. This typeface feels as if it was drawn by hand, just like the hand lettering in the vintage National Park posters. Just the title and subtitle, no other text in the graphic.

Photos

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1135 Lincoln Park Ln, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403, United States

Historic community of Lincoln Park which developed with the self-governing African American townships during reconstruction. Once known as Citico City, it became the steward of Chattanooga's original AA park founded in 1918 - the analogue to white Warner Park.

Gardeners

Joseph Paden
Tiffany Rankins

Roots

Unity Group
Erlanger Hospital(not committed yet)
UTC(not committed yet)
City of Chattanooga
Hamilton County(not committed yet)
Preserve Chattanooga(not committed yet)
Bessie Smith Cultural Center(not committed yet)
Trust for Public Land(not committed yet)
Urban League(not committed yet)
TN American Water(not committed yet)
Norfolk Southern(not committed yet)
Chattanooga Zoo(not committed yet)
Chattanooga Lookouts(not committed yet)
Waterways(not committed yet)
Negro League Baseball(not committed yet)

Guides

Dr. John Swanson
Dr. Andrew Bailey
Rita Hubbard
Dr. Mauldin
CIty Council
Juanita Toney

Fertilizer

Budget

$15K

Obstacles

We are communicating with the City of Chattanooga and Erlanger to obtain park access. Park design and programming partners and sponsorships to restore the historic features and recreational amenities. The challenge is also the opportunity to build a multi-institutional collaboration in relationship with the local African American community to preserve Chattanooga's authentic history and culture, and elevate local ingenuity, health, youth self-mastery, and civic relationship.

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Sunlight (3 supporters)

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