At long last a few creative and caring people have opted to figure out a way to temporarily display artistic works in vacant storefront windows in Allentown. Take the corner of Allen Street and Elmwood for example – you can’t help but notice the photographed faces that are displayed in the windows, which add a sense of community, color and vibrancy to Allentown. Like a well-positioned, attractive mural, the Faces of Allentown project gives passersby something to look at instead of a vacant, blank space.
Adam Sokol, a board member of the Allentown Association, is one of the people behind the project. He told me that, “The goal was to create something that would improve the physical appearance of vacant storefronts and also become an iconic component of the neighborhood. Jara Stanisavljevic’s design incorporated photos of hundreds of local residents so that the installation is a real reflection of the community. While the former Steel Crazy location happened to be the first place that worked out, our hope is to create a sufficient quantity of the posters so that they can be deployed wherever necessary on Allen Street, and removed when spaces can be rented again. We were fortunate to receive a grant from the Oishei Foundation that enabled us to finance the posters now at the corner of Allen and Elmwood and should enable us to print an additional batch in the near future.”