Archives for Erie Places Erie Stories

Erie Places, Erie Stories exhibit available online

EriePlacesErieStoriesErie Places, Erie Stories was a collaboration of the Mercyhurst University Public History program, the Erie Nonprofit Partnership, Preservation Erie, Center City Arts/Bloom Collaborative, and other partners throughout the city. The project engaged Mercyhurst students throughout fall 2013 in both producing photographs of a few of Erie’s great buildings and landscapes, and conducting oral history interviews with individuals who have some connection to those places. Students in Dr. Chris Magoc’s Introduction to Public History class interviewed residents, church parishioners, and business owners with deep and lasting attachments to some of the special places in the greater Erie area.

If you missed seeing the Erie Places, Erie Stories exhibit at Bloom Collaborative in December, or Erie City Hall in January/February, you can experience it online at http://www.mercyhurst.edu/academics/undergraduate/history/erie%20places

Mercyhurst’s Erie Places, Erie Stories exhibit moves to City Hall January 15

The Mercyhurst University History Department is proud to announce that Erie Places, Erie Stories – a student-produced photographic and oral history exhibition showcasing Erie’s historic structures – is moving to Erie City Hall, opening with a reception free and open to the public on Wednesday, January 15 from 5:30 – 6:45 pm, preceding a regularly scheduled Erie City Council meeting. Funded by a grant from Arts Erie, Erie Places, Erie Stories will be located in the first floor foyer of Erie City Hall and will be accessible to the public during regular business hours of 8:30-4:30 through Friday, February 7.

Completed by Mercyhurst public history students as a semester-long hands-on learning initiative, the exhibit “makes a compelling case for more fully appreciating and protecting the historic built landscape of a great city,” said Dr. Chris Magoc, Chair of the Mercyhurst History Department.  The exhibition of more than 30 photographs premiered in December at Stairways Bloom Collaborative and now features an interactive element whereby visitors will be invited to write down their own special “Erie Place That Matters,” adding to a list compiled by Preservation Erie, one of the community partners in the project.  The exhibit will also allow visitors to purchase the photographs, with proceeds going to an organization in the neighborhood where the images were taken or to Preservation Erie.  For more information on the exhibit, contact Chris Magoc, Ph.D., at 824-2075.

Erie Places, Erie Stories Exhibit Opens December 13th

Erie Places, Erie Stories Exhibit Opens December 13th

The Erie Places, Erie Stories project involved students from the Fall 2013 Introduction to Public History and Museum Studies courses at Mercyhurst University. Conceived by Bob Wooler of The Nonprofit Partnership, the project had students working in teams to conduct photographic  and oral history studies of neighborhoods or districts of greater Erie. The end result is an exhibition of photographs of particular buildings of focus in those neighborhoods, accompanied by captions that feature some excerpts from the oral histories. The exhibit opens Friday, December 13 5-8 pm at Center City Arts, 26th and Holland Streets.