Red Lines Drawn On Park Slope Sidewalks Are Part Of A New Exhibit

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Park Slopers who noticed some mysterious red lines appear on Fifth Avenue's sidewalks over the weekend will have all their questions answered when a new exhibit kicks off on Thursday.

The red lines, drawn in chalk from Flatbush Avenue down to 9th Street, are part of a new interactive exhibit about "redlining maps" from the 1930s that barred certain communities from investment, largely based on race.

The traveling exhibit by Designing the We will kick off with an opening event at The Old American Can Factory in Gowanus at 6 p.m. on Thursday. It will then run through Aug. 14.

Named "Undesigning the Redline," the project aims to explore how the redlining policies led to disenfranchisement as a way to find ways to undo those legacies in the communities on the maps.

For Brooklyn, that means looking at Gowanus and Park Slope, which were one of the sectioned-off areas decades ago. The red chalk lines drawn on Fifth Avenue represent the actual start of what was once the "redlined" community.

Redlining was originally a federal policy introduced in the 1930s that were meant to show "risk areas" for federal backing of new home ownership programs. The communities that were outlined in red were those that were essentially barred from investment based on the "hazardous populations" that lived there — or in other words, based almost entirely on race, according to Designing the We.

"Systematic challenges today, like inequalities in housing, education, income, criminal justice and health are far from separate issues," the group writes on the exhibit flyer. "These challenges are rooted in a deep and entangled history of policies, practices and processes that remain un-revealed and misunderstood."

The exhibit will let residents explore the maps that were once used in these policies, hear stories from those that were harmed by the practice and share their own stories of disenfranchisement.

The Fifth Avenue Committee, one of the sponsors of the exhibit, will continue to draw red lines in chalk to show residents where these boundaries once were. The red chalk, which washes off the sidewalks with rain, will appear on various sidewalks over the next 30 days, the Committee told Patch.

The exhibit is also sponsored by Enterprise, M&T Bank and XO Projects Inc.