Park Hill Community Market: Cultural Commerce and Entrepreneurship

photo: Anna Mulé

Park Hill Community Market is an open-air marketplace of primarily West African immigrant women selling food, clothes, and cultural goods from a repurposed parking lot at Park Hill Apartments, a Section 8 housing development on Staten Island’s North Shore.

A partner project of our Arts, Culture and Public Housing Communities program, Napela Inc, with support from Staten Island Arts, is enhancing the physical infrastructure of the market and helping with production costs and artists’ fees for the market’s annual Napela Community Festival. In 2018, project partners generated Park Hill Community Market: A Commitment to Entrepreneurship, Education and U.S. Citizenship, a case study sharing the resourcefulness and expertise of Napela founder Adama Fassah, telling the stories of community vendors, and exploring the challenges and future opportunities for the market. 

Park Hill Community Market allows women to put the holistic pillars of Napela’s educational program to the test, applying learnings from math and English language literacy, small business development, and U.S. citizenship courses. The market provides a model for similar initiatives in public housing across New York City.  

Consider donating to Napela and the market!