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Intergenerational Art Education: Building Community In Harlem, Angela M. La Porte

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

I began the first of 43 visits to an after-school intergenerational art program in Lower East Harlem, New York, with the expectation of a straight-forward research project, one which would perhaps ratify my growing conviction that young people and older adults together would provide a natural learning environment for art. My first personal encounter with the Lower East Harlem community began when I crossed 96th Street, an informal boundary separating its decaying tenements and public housing projects from the newer, more prosperous neighborhood to the south. I soon realized that there was no need for a line on the map …