These are some of the working/creative spaces on The Alley Project and the people that animate them. Young Nation staff/board, Stitching Up Detroit-ers, artists, mentors, and youth plan and create weekly on TAP all year long thanks to a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces… some activated within the past 12 months!
Young Nation hosted the 18th annual Blessing of the Lowriders this year on The Alley Project at Grace In Action. Together with founder Victor Villalobos, GoodTimes and Uso Car Clubs’ Detroit chapters, Motor City Rockerz’ Who Got Da Props, Cumbia Poder, and Stitching Up Detroit this year’s event was a memorable mash of Southwest Detroit culture and tradition.
Pastor John offered a blessing and Victor laid out the history of the Blessing of the Lowriders for event attendees.
After the ceremony Young Nation announced that HEETT 16 (Hip Hop Elements Exposed Throughout Time)–including a new large scale community mural commemorating hip hop culture and a street festival–will commence this year on The Alley Project after the original HEETT wall from 2000 at Ste Anne and Vernor was buffed last year.
Each year Young Nation and The Alley Project hosts an annual Angel’s Night event. The event takes place the night before Halloween which has become a city-wide rally of community involvement over the years. This follows years of Detroit’s struggle with an epidemic of crime and arson on Devil’s Night, the eve of Halloween. A plague that peaked in the mid-80′s led to efforts in the 90′s to organize and relieve the city’s neighborhoods of the horror associated with Devil’s Night.
TAP’s annual Angel’s Night celebrations merge themes of social justice, civic engagement, mentoring and honoring those who came before us, and children and family. These themes acknowledge the season of celebration and collaboration in the neighborhood during a week that hosts Angel’s Night, Halloween, All Saints Day, and Dia de Los Muertos.
This year TAP’s Angel’s Night celebration coincided with Grace In Action’s Open Mic night and so were merged for an evening of food, entertainment, and family fun. A blessing was offered for the newly completed Healing Wall mural on the broad side of the building, located on Lawndale at Lane. Young Nation and Grace In Action’s constituents came together as their youth, artists, neighbors, families, acts and local entrepreneurs shared spaces and made memories together in the tradition of the themes above.
