Levine Museum creates a new digital experience through its new app KnowCLT – a place-based app that allows visitors to experience historical Charlotte sites on-location. The first journey within the app is an immersive GPS-based exploration of Historic Brooklyn, once the largest and most vibrant Black community in the Carolinas.
“Charlotte’s history is rich, important, and too often buried,” said Kathryn Hill, President and CEO of Levine Museum ”But we can’t begin to understand our city today unless we understand the history that got us here, and Levine Museum’s mission is to make sure that we know this city. Digital technologies enable us to bring that history alive in the places where history happened.”
KnowCLT expands upon the Museum’s current exhibit Brooklyn: Once a city within a City. Participants can now delve into the story of Brooklyn through their devices, either on foot in Second Ward, or from home. The experience recounts Brooklyn’s history through narration, photos, augmented reality, poetry, and the voices of former residents.
Those electing to venture on foot can choose their own path and explore seven historic Brooklyn sites. Using the augmented reality component, participants can hold their phone up to the location where previous buildings, such as Brevard Street Library and Second Ward High School, once stood, and see them appear on their screen as they once looked. The Museum aims to tell Brooklyn’s fullest history through both the exhibit and KnowCLT.
“This is an important and immersive way to experience a vital part of our Center City’s past, present and future” said Michael J. Smith, President and CEO of Charlotte Center City Partners. “The foundation of Brooklyn and Second Ward – what was lost, what remains and what can still be – creates the cornerstone of our Center City history, collective memory and values.”
KnowCLT is available for download on August 7; the first 100 people to visit the Museum and show the downloaded app on their phone will receive gift bags to accompany them on their walking tour.
The app was developed in collaboration with The James B. Duke Library at Johnson C. Smith University. Technical development and design was produced by local non-profit, POTIONS & PIXELS.
Whether living in Charlotte, visiting, or researching from afar, the app offers a variety of ways to immerse in Charlotte’s history. KnowCLT is a long-term project that will continue to grow, telling many stories of the people, places, and promises of Charlotte.
KnowCLT is made possible by support from The Knight Foundation, Charlotte Center City Partners, The Philip L. Van Every Foundation, Atrium Health, Crescent Communities, and The City of Charlotte. Levine Museum is supported, in part, by the Infusion and its generous supporters.
For information, you can visit www.museumofthenewsouth.org/knowclt.