Ile-Ife Park was the founding project of the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia. According to Lily Yeh, executive director of the Village, this ongoing program has involved community residents in all phases of its development—conception, design, and construction.

In 1963 Yeh arrived in Philadelphia from Taiwan to study art, and she began to teach at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). Then she met Arthur Hall, founder of the Afro-American Dance Ensemble and director of the Ile-Ife Center for the Arts and Humanities. Hall offered the vacant lot adjoining the Ile-Ife Center as a site for a community sculpture garden, and Yeh applied for a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to begin the work. While the grant was in process, five houses next to the vacant lot burned down, and Yeh suddenly had a much larger area for her project. She was determined to involve the community, especially children. Local relations among blacks, Hispanics, Koreans, and Chinese were often uneasy, but Yeh found an ally in Joseph Williams, a long-time neighborhood resident. With Williams exhorting and supervising, the young people continued to help even when grant funds ran out.

As a centerpiece for the garden, the team marked out a circular area with brick. Within the circle Yeh and Williams built five 9-foot columns of cement and galvanized wire on a mound of cobblestones, and the children painted these "trees" in vivid colors. Smaller painted-cement forms were positioned around the columns. Later, both the "trees" and the smaller sculptures were covered with multicolored chunks of tile. Overlooking the entire scene, on the 35-by-90-foot wall of the Ile-Ife Center, a mural was created. Williams, a professional cook, suggested incorporating two pit ovens for a community kitchen.

Many other people and agencies have contributed since the park was founded. Philadelphia Green, the urban program of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, provided trees, shrubs, and flowers. The Anti-Graffiti Network brought painters, painting equipment, and a protective cyclone fence. Yeh sees Ile-Ife Park as a "seed" that enables people to work together: "This seed must then grow in the hearts, perception, and will of the people to do what is right with regard to each other."

Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).