A court freshly vivid, and dedicated to life
![Neighborhood kids play on the colorful Omar Polanco courts unveiled Wednesday at Harriet & Sayles Park in Lower South Providence. The courts were painted by local Providence artist Jordan Seaberry and New York artist Joiri Minaya and dedicated to the memory of Omar Polanco, killed in a 2012 shooting at the park that remains unsolved. [The Providence Journal / Kris Craig]](/gcdn/authoring/2019/10/16/NPRJ/ghows-PJ-950fcf37-e53f-5e4b-e053-0100007f5baa-8eec1a4d.jpeg?width=660&height=457&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
PROVIDENCE — As kids dribbled basketballs up and down the court at Harriet & Sayles Park in Lower South Providence on Wednesday afternoon, Jessie Polanco said she felt her brother, Omar, was watching over them.
“I think he’s smiling down on us right now,” Polanco said of her younger brother, who was killed in a shooting seven years ago at the age of 19. His murder remains unsolved.
On Wednesday, just feet from where Omar Polanco was found with a gunshot wound in 2012, kids played basketball on a newly painted court that was about to be dedicated in his honor.
“He’s giving back to the community even though he's not here,” his sister said.
City officials and representatives from My HomeCourt, a Providence nonprofit that revitalizes city basketball courts, gathered at Harriet & Sayles Park to rename the basketball court the “Omar Polanco Basketball Court” and dedicate a mural painted across the court surface in his memory.
“It’s a wish come true to see the basketball court like this,” Jessie Polanco told the crowd of community members gathered at the court. “To me, it’s like waking up to a dream.”
Providence College Galleries and My HomeCourt commissioned the artists, Jordan Seaberry of Providence, and Joiri Minaya of New York, to design the colorful, floral mural that now adorns the court floor.
“My design is inspired by plants that have traditionally been used to heal,” Minaya said. “I thought they were fitting for the idea of hope and moving forward.”
Each artist designed half the basketball court, and in creating the pieces, Seaberry said, the two tried to design something that could resonate with the Polanco family as well as the entire community, who lost a beloved son, brother, friend and neighbor to gun violence.
“It required us as artists to build a vision that's bigger than ourselves,” he said. “...To build a vision that the neighborhood can see, that the Polanco family can see themselves in, that the community can feel reflected in and safe in and at home in.”
Omar Polanco was a good kid, his family and friends said at the time of his death. A 2011 graduate of the Met School, he worked several jobs, played basketball and baseball, was a Civil War re-enactor and was working toward earning his college degree.
But instead of attaining his dreams that he was striving so hard to achieve, his life was cut short by a bullet in the early morning of Sept. 8, 2012.
Basketball for him was a pastime, his sister said on Wednesday as she stood by her daughter, Jenalis, on the colorful court — a way for him to spend his free time and stay out of trouble.
“I want this to be an example for other family members that have been through the same thing I have been through and my family has been through,” she said. “I also want it to be an awareness for everybody in the community to know that life’s not over. It continues. Yes, it hurts, but let's make it bright. We have kids here, our future, my daughter, all these kids. Let’s make it bright for them.”
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