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CHARLOTTE -- More than 100 residents of Dilworth crowded together on a small traffic island Sunday to officially kick-off fundraising efforts aimed at building a new sculpture in their neighborhood.

The intersection of Romany and Dilworth roads is at the heart of the neighborhood, next to Latta Park. And with a little help from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and the Charlotte Fire Department, residents blocked the intersection briefly Sunday afternoon.

"I think it's probably one of the coolest things that our neighborhood can do," said organizer Jill Walker. "And, despite the fact that the economy is down and people are having a hard time, I still think there's always room in everybody's heart and soul for art."

Nobody knows what the artwork will look like, or who will do it. But organizers know what some of the material will be: trolley tracks.

When the city of Charlotte ripped up East Blvd. last year, workers found the original trolley tracks underneath the surface.

A local resident saw them, and asked Blythe Construction workers to save them. So, now, residents want to use those salvaged steel pieces of history as part of the art for their neighborhood.

"That kind of spearheaded the whole thing," Walker said. "Which is why we're calling it the "Founding Project" because Dilworth was founded as a streetcar suburb. It just kind of all fell together somehow."

Dilworth was Charlotte's first suburb. Started in 1891, it was the Queen City's first transit-oriented development. Built by Edward Dilworth Latta, it was designed around the streetcar, which, not coincidentally, was owned by Latta's company. The new mode of transportation allowed middle-class and wealthier residents of Charlotte to move outside the city limits to the suburbs.

"When it was founded, it had factories, it had houses of all different types, it had retail. It, basically, was its own town," said architect John Fryday, who is on the board of the neighborhood association. He said current residents want to pay respect to the area's history, as well as to the future.

They estimate that they need about $30,000 for the project, and that they're about one-third of the way there.