Wilniesha Smith: A Guide To Understanding the Value of Green Spaces
Wilniesha Smith in 2021
Meet Niesha. Wilniesha Smith coordinates the environmental intern program for the Milwaukee nonprofit Reflo as well as supporting community engagement around various placemaking projects involving green infrastructure.
Niesha supports different aspects of three transformative green infrastructure projects in the 30th Street Corridor: Benjamin Franklin’s schoolyard redevelopment, the creation of Melvina Park, and Green Tech Station. In summer 2021 she shared her expertise by co-leading a (virtual) WaterMarks walk with artist Brad Anthony Bernard and ArtWorks for Milwaukee intern Will Plautz.
“Ben Franklin is a schoolyard redevelopment. So, reimagining their play space. Introducing more green space. Because the thing that's kind of evident as you look at Ben Franklin there isn't a ton of green space. They're in the middle of a neighborhood,” Niesha says. “It's kind of tight. All the houses are really close together. So, having access to a green space that's play space as well that's also imagined as a play space is needed for Ben Franklin.”
From doing historical research Niesha learned there has actually been a school on the site of Ben Franklin going all the way back to shortly after it was farmland. The Franklin Heights neighborhood was predominantly German before the 1960s, she also learned.
Just a few blocks west downhill from Ben Franklin and across 27th Street is Melvina Park, a city-owned property being upgraded with green infrastructure and play features. When A.O. Smith’s industrial campus sprawled west of Hopkins, the site was used as a parking lot. Now there is an effort to calm traffic on 27th Street and Hopkins to enhance the safety, appearance, and function of this public space along the edge of Franklin Heights opposite the Century City business park.
Just a few blocks north of Melvina Park across Capitol Drive is Green Tech Station, an education destination demonstrating different kinds of green infrastructure. Niesha envisions teachers and students from Ben Franklin walking on field trips to both Melvina Park and Green Tech Station.
She sees all three spaces reinforcing their value to the local neighborhoods, students, and people moving through the Corridor. “All are within walking distance of each other,” Niesha says. “They can be a turning point for the city to point out all of those and say this is how you can imagine your space in the neighborhood.”
“You can point to any of these projects and say this is what you can imagine in your neighborhood and this is how it can be utilized.”