Three ‘Leave a Legacy’ finalists named to honor country’s 250th birthday in 2026

Michelle Angela Ortiz is an award-winning artist who has traveled the world to show her art and teach. The Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibited her work last year, and she has received national honors as a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow.

But to the people who live and work around South Philadelphia’s 9th Street Italian Market, she’s known first as Epi’s and Miguel’s daughter, Ortiz said.

Her parents, Epifania and Miguel Ortiz, made their home near the market 45 years ago.

Her mother worked 25 years as a cook and housekeeper for the Giordano family, which has operated a 9th Street business since 1921.

“I used to go to St. Paul’s Catholic School on Christian Street,“ Ortiz said. “And on my way home after school, I would walk through the market.”

In 2019, Ortiz began developing the “Our Market” public art project that she said uses “the power of storytelling” to support the immigrant vendors, business owners and neighbors of the 9th Street Market.

“The market was a reminder of being home.”

“When you understand our stories, whether it’s a family from Central America who arrived a month ago, to someone who is a third generation descendant of Italian immigrants, you begin to see the commonalities between us,” Ortiz said.

The name “Our Market” shows a determination to proclaim that the market, officially known as the 9th Street Italian Market, belongs to everyone, and every one belongs there.

In interviews and on the “Our Market,” website, Ortiz calls the corridor ”the 9th Street Market:”

“Prior to the arrival of Italian immigrants, there was already the presence of Jewish and Irish vendors and African American laborers in the Market,” she said.“Italian, Mexican, Central American, South American, Southeast Asian, and African Americans are the mix of people that continue to contribute to the livelihood and spirit of the Market.”

On Wednesday, PHILADELPHIA250, the nonprofit leading the City of Philadelphia’s planning for the country’s 250th birthday in 2026 named Ortiz’s “Our Market” project as one of three winners of the city’s “Leave a Legacy” grant competition.

“Our goal is to lead and inspire the most inclusive and transformative celebration,” said Danielle DiLeo Kim, executive director of PHILADELPHIA250.

The announcement was made at the first annual Countdown to the 250th Showcase + Celebration event at the Barnes Foundation Wednesday afternoon.

» READ MORE: 11 Philly groups get funds for projects to mark the nation’s 250th birthday

She added that each of the winning projects have the potential to inspire similar projects that could be replicated in different parts of the city.

In previous anniversaries, Philadelphia celebrated these anniversaries every 50 years with the construction of a major capital construction project, such as the building of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, FDR Park in South Philadelphia and the African American Museum in Center City.

But those projects had major support with federal dollars, DiLeo Kim said. This year the federal funds just aren’t there.

So PHILADELPHIA250 came up with the idea of celebrating community building projects that would help create a strong city.

“Each of them also have staying power beyond 2026 and can have impact in the city and beyond,” DiLeo Kim said. She said PHILADELPHIA250 is now in the process of raising another $250,000, which the three winners will share to implement their programs.

The other two winning projects are:

The Special Olympics Pennsylvania’s Cities of Inclusion Initiative will advance the work it is already doing with corporate partners and nonprofit agencies to help people with disabilities gain access to health, education and employment.

The Smith Memorial Playground Revolutionary Action Figures project that will invite children to workshops to customize action figures of contemporary heroic figures who are working to improve their communities.

“Our goal is to lead and inspire the most inclusive and transformative celebration.”

Danielle Smith, director of development at Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse said about being a finalist: “We’re very excited and happy.” She hopes that workshops that are set for the Smith Playground can be reproduced at schools and recreation centers across the city.

Nate Garland, chief mission officer of Special Olympics Pennsylvania, said there are 246,000 Philadelphians who have a disability, which makes the city the largest U.S. city with a disability rate higher than 17 percent.

“We are humbled and excited to be a part of the Legacy project,” he said.

In June, PHILADELPHIA250 announced 11 semifinalists that were awarded $11,000 each to refine their proposals to compete to be selected as official projects for the country’s 250th birthday.

This will be the Semiquincentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen colonies in 1776.

PHILADELPHIA250 said it wanted this anniversary to be more inclusive of various communities in the city and become more of a real, “by the people, for the people” celebration.

Earlier this year, Ortiz and a team of artists revitalized two vendor stands for Ramos Produce and Tran’s Produce by providing more durable materials and art work to tell about their lives and backgrounds.

Over the past summer “Our Market” teams began installing light boxes made of framed plexiglass that had Ortiz’s art designs printed onto the glass. A pair of light boxes are hung from five vendor stands, making a total of 10 lamps.

Mr. Be and Hoa Tran’s stand is not only more durable, but there is art of water patterns and Vietnamese folk sayings painted on them:

“When drinking water, remember the source” and “When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.”

Lidia and Joel Ramos came from Puebla, Mexico more than a decade ago, Ortiz said. The artwork on their stand is inspired by life in their community in San Lucas.

There is a folk saying painted in Spanish that says:

“Mi gente son los que cuidan la tierra.” Which translates to, “My people are the ones that tend to the land.”

In developing the project, Ortiz spoke with vendors, business owners and neighbors about the needs of the market. She said three 9th Street community members were especially vital to the project:

Ernesto Atrisco, who immigrated from Mexico and has operated a small business for 18 years, Molly Russakoff, the owner of Molly’s Bookstore, and Patricia “Cookie” Ciliberti Becker, who has lived and worked in the area her whole life and works at the 9th Street visitors’ center.

As she talked with them and the business owners, she realized that they needed more light on the street, so they came up with the idea of creating light boxes for the stands.

“They illuminate the dark spots on the corridor,” she said. More light boxes and refurbished vendor’s stands are planned for next year.

But what is also important, Ortiz said, is that other neighborhood business corridors may be working on developing their own “Our Market” projects for 2026.

Ortiz said she has been talking to organizations in Chinatown, Germantown and the 5th Street Market in North Philadelphia, and hope they will be able to create similar projects that tell their own stories when Philadelphia celebrates the nation’s 250th birthday.

Ortiz said “Our Market” is not only just talking about the hard work the immigrants and other business owners do, but about the emotional connection people have with it.

When many immigrants arrived, they saw something similar to the open markets in their home countries.

“There’s this connection of even while being away from home, the market was a reminder of being home,” she said.

By 2026, Ortiz said “Our Market” will train people from the community to be tour guides so they can tell their own stories and they will be taught “how to enter a space respectfully.”

So many tour guides from outside the area focus on 9th Street, “as the place Rocky ran through in the movies,” she said. “We are objectified and looked upon as an object, just like the fruit or the scenery they are taking pictures of.”

“Each person that works in the market has a story of survival and a driving force to provide a better life for their families. My ‘Our Market’ project is a love letter to my community and the place I have called home for more than 40 years.”

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