As part of the Eastport Choice Neighborhood Initiative Graham Project collaborated with the City of Annapolis and the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis (HACA) to improve pedestrian safety, transit access, and beautify at the intersections of President and Madison Streets and President and Monroe Street in the historic Eastport neighborhood using traffic calming pavement art, creative bus benches and thematic transit art and signs.
Graham Projects worked with Toole Design Group to develop traffic calming engineering plans in coordination with the Annapolis Departments of Planning & Zoning and Public Works. The project enhances pedestrian safety at President and Madison Streets by creating pavement-art-filled curb extensions, or “bump outs”, at President and Madison Street that slow down cars by visually narrowing the street and highlighting where pedestrians have the right of way.
Local residents provided public art ideas and placemaking priorities through in person drawing activities and an online survey. Taking inspiration from the public input, Graham Projects developed design proposals that were publicly shared by the City of Annapolis and voted on by the community.
Designed in collaboration with artist JaVon Townsend, the Compass Crossing pavement art mural features an immersive central compass framed by colorful traffic calming bump outs at President and Madison Streets. An abstract orange sun and wavy bands of blue and aqua evoke the shore, earth, and sky of Eastport, an historic waterfront community. Inspired by the radiant geometries of residents’ drawings, Compass Crossing inscribes this gateway intersection as a centerpoint of the neighborhood. The compass’ eight points aim at purple letters spelling out “EASTPORT”, with the “E” aligned due east.
Legacy community members and local youth helped to finish the traffic calming artwork at Presidents and Madison Streets during a community paint day held on Saturday, June 29, 2024.
Graham Projects enhanced the two bus stops at President and Madison Streets with the Eastport Wave bus benches and compass themed transit signs. The bus stop benches feature a colorful backrest sculpted to abstractly represent Eastport. A recording of the neighborhood name “Eastport” was transformed into a “waveform”, or a graphical representation of the audio signal. The shape of the bench back is based on this unique shape. Baltimore-based fabrication studio LANNINGSMITH fabricated and installed the benches.
A block away the Eastport ShineWave sidewalk art at President and Monroe Street elevates the experience of transit riders and creates a vibrant entryway to the adjacent Eastport community center. A large sun is centered on a recently installed bus shelter with bright orange and yellow rays extending in all directions across a series of groovy blue, teal, and turquoise waves.
Project partners: City of Annapolis, Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis, Toole Design Group, LANNINGSMITH
Production team: Graham Coreil-Allen, Melvin Jadulang, Barbara Mosier, Murat Jenid, JaVon Townsend, Eric Leshinsky, Mar Braxton, Zoe Roane-Hopkins, Liam Arbeiter, Maurice McCrimmon, Rosy Sunshine Galván, Kirsten Pamfilis, Kasey Ott, Catherine Mapp
