<p>Yamacraw Village is a neighborhood rich in history, but not much else _ its residents are poor, many live in public housing and outsiders avoid the area for fear of crime.</p><p>But this area just outside Savannah's downtown historic district is also where Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, who founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, befriended the Yamacraw Indians. It's where the Rev. Andrew Bryan, a freed slave, preached to one of the oldest U.S. black congregations in 1788.</p><p>On Saturday, the city will open a new art park in Yamacraw Village designed after the 22 public squares decorating the city with towering oaks and marble monuments. Residents hope the park will revive a sense of pride in their past and shake the stigma of their impoverished present.</p><p>"Everyone has a dim view of Yamacraw Village," said Brenda Johnson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 18 years. "This park will take the focus off crime and show everyone we are not what they think we are."</p><p>The Yamacraw Public Art Park will be the first park in Savannah dedicated to the history of Indians and blacks here. The $337,000 project took 14 years to complete.</p><p>The park sits on what had been a vacant lot across the street from First Bryan Baptist Church, named for one of Savannah's first black ministers.</p><p>"Now we have a square where people can sit and rest just like in Franklin Square," said the Rev. Edward L. Ellis Jr., pastor of First Bryan. "We expect more tourism with a square that lends itself to community activities, weddings and outdoor concerts."</p><p>The park features three bronze statues in the shape of dancing children, walls with photo-etched panels showing key moments in Yamacraw Village's history, indigenous plans and poles for hanging banners promoting community events.</p><p>Savannah artist Jerome Meadows was picked to design the Yamacraw Village park in 1994, two years after a workshop by the group Leadership Savannah proposed a public art project for one of the city's blighted areas.</p><p>Meadows, whose work includes three Martin Luther King Jr. memorials and scores of inner-city pieces, said he hopes the Yamacraw Village park attracts interest from residents and tourists outside the neighborhood.</p><p>"That push has to come from those invested in the community," Meadows said. "If tour buses stop and see the site, that would bring a level of interest that shows this community is part of the city, not abandoned by it."</p><p>The project took 14 years to complete largely because of slow-paced fundraising and flaws in the original construction.</p><p>While most of the money came from federal and state funding, the rest was raised at the grass-roots level from poor residents unable to afford bog donations, said Scott Center, a member of the park project committee.</p><p>"Some people gave as little as a dollar," Center said. "Does that mean it takes longer? Absolutely."</p><p>Also, in 2001, Meadows discovered contractors had botched the concrete plaza that was the park's centerpiece. Rainwater was supposed to drain from the plaza around its cobblestone walls, but instead pooled where people would stand to view the photo-etched panels.</p><p>The city Park and Tree Department took over construction of the park, and city officials allocated more than $19,000 to repair the plaza</p><p>"Rich and poor people, people of all faiths, people of different economic and educational backgrounds came together and made this happen," said Tania Sammons, a member of the park project committee. "For a city like Savannah, where communities are still in some cases segregated, to push this through is incredible."</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdcb40)</p>
