Unacceptable

I've been complaining for years about the reckless way that some people drive in Waterbury. I've seen people doing 50 mph through Fulton Park, I've seen people drive 50 mph down my narrow one-way street. Stop signs and red lights are frequently treated as optional. I've been told that it is unreasonable for me to expect the city police to enforce the road laws.

Tonight, some idiot driving an unregistered vehicle tried to do 50 mph down my street. I didn't see what happened, just heard the noise. The driver smashed into a vehicle parked on the side of the road, pushing it a couple of feet sideways onto the sidewalk and forward into the car parked in front of it. There were three cars that wound up being damaged by the speeding car, as each one was pushed forward. I've added some photos below so you can see how bad it was. Bear in mind that this happened only a few hundred feet from Oak Street. How much acceleration do you need to have, how fast do you need to be going in order to cause that much damage?

The jeep wasn't on the sidewalk before it was hit. The rear axle is now bent,
the tires are flat and bent, and the front is smashed in. Two vehicles in front
of it, also parked on the side of the road for the night, are also smashed up.

The car that caused the accident.

The story gets worse. Three people, standing outside their homes, enjoying the nice evening air after a long, hot summer day, were injured. Two were taken to the hospital. These are people who are good neighbors, people who are respectful towards others, people who are willing to help out a neighbor if there's a problem, people who make this a good, friendly neighborhood in which to live.

The driver and his passenger fled the scene, leaving their car blocking the road. The owners of the damaged cars, and the friends of those who were injured, were furious (and rightly so!). People came out of their homes to see what all the commotion was about, trying to find out what happened and whether or not they could do anything to help.

The fire department (currently the city's first responders) arrived first, then an ambulance and finally the police. After everyone had some time to sort things out and take care of the medical emergencies, Patricia Sockwell, acting Vice-President of the Scovill Homes Association, went to talk to one of the police officers about what happened. I followed her and arrived just as she was asking the officer what can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening. His answer was the most horrifying, unhelpful, counter-productive answer he could give short of saying something flat-out racist.

The police officer insisted that the only way to prevent people from driving recklessly down our streets is to get rid of welfare. He went on further to state that only poor people commit crimes and use drugs, that if you go over to Middlebury and Woodbury, you won't find any drug users, crime or reckless driving (we suggested that people from Middlebury come here to buy their drugs, but the officer ignored that comment). His final solution is that "we need to get rid of all the poor people." He insisted that anyone who wants a job can get one. I (hotheadedly) pointed out that there are currently some 12 million people in this country who want jobs and can't get them because they don't exist. He raised his voice at us, we raised our voices back. A full-force argument over whether or not only poor people do drugs and drive like maniacs.

This was the last thing we needed. Our neighbors and friends had been injured and their property damaged by some jerk who was driving an unregistered car and fled the scene. We asked the police officer for advice on what can be done to make our neighborhood better, and he tells us to get rid of all the poor people, and then goes on to tell us that if we don't have jobs we're just lazy bums. Many of the residents of this neighborhood are senior citizens who worked hard all their lives and now scrape by on social security payments. Many others are working class who scrape by on minimum wage. Others are students, currently scraping by on low income while acquiring the skills and certifications needed to get good jobs. And I know there is at least one person who is collecting partial unemployment because the economy tanked, her employer let everyone go, and she's been able to find only part-time employment so far despite being highly educated and skilled. This neighborhood is a wonderful, diverse community. Being poor doesn't make us bad people. We have our problems, but overall there are a lot of good neighbors here. When we ask for help, we deserve something better than being told that poor people are inherently bad people and the only solution is to get rid of the poor people.

UConn Dedication

Today I enjoyed the privilege of seeing a project I worked on come to its conclusion. Way back in 2006, I became part of the committee to select an artwork for the UConn-Waterbury campus. (At the time, I was teaching Art History and Art Appreciation there (I wish I still was!), which is how I wound up on the committee.) Today, the University dedicated the completed artwork and surrounding courtyard.

People mingling before the ceremony.

The sculpture incorporates metal and water, both symbolic of Waterbury. The artist, Barton Rubenstein, sees the different tall sculptural elements as being also symbolic of the UConn students.

Barton Rubenstein's Synergy, without the water feature turned on.

The weather was perfect--so glad the rainy weather finally went away!

It was nice to see many people I know at the event. There were quite a few people present. Many were headed across the street afterwards for the Osher fundraiser event at the Palace Theater. The Osher Life Long Institute program is a real asset for Waterbury, as is UConn itself.

When I taught at UConn-Waterbury, I started every semester by challenging my students to think about what is art. I took them to view the courtyard and asked them if they could identify the tromp l'oeil (fool the eye)"artwork" in front of them. Can you see it in the photo below?

Barton Rubenstein speaking in front of his sculpture, Synergy.

The retaining wall in the back of the courtyard, which looks like a natural rock wall, is actually a concrete wall shaped and colored to look like rock. It's not intended to be seen as an artwork--in fact, it is successful only if the viewer takes for granted that it's natural rather than entirely man-made. It's great for getting my students to start thinking about the definition of art.

Back to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.... speeches were given by Bill Pizzuto, Executive Director of the Waterbury campus, Joan Hartley, State Senator for the 15th District, and Susan Herbst, the new President of UConn.

After the ribbon-cutting, the waterfall portion of the sculpture was turned on. It's a great artwork, well-worth visiting, and a great addition to the courtyard.

Coalition Change

Monday night I attended a meeting of the Waterbury Coalition for Better Government at the WOW Learning Center. The attendees voted unanimously to become the Waterbury Coalition for Economic and Social Justice, a branch of the national organization.

The Center for Economic and Social Justice is based in Washington, D.C. and is "dedicated to a free enterprise approach to economic and social justice for all, through equal opportunities to capital ownership for every person."

Here's the press release issued today about the change:

Jimmie Griffin said he has been thinking about the creation of a local chapter of the National Center for Economic and Social Justice for years, but finally closed the deal last week in a phone discussion with Norm Kurland, a prominent lawyer and economist out of Washington, DC who founded the center some years ago.

Griffin, who founded the local Waterbury Coalition for Better Government in 1995 here in Waterbury to support his efforts to promote the idea of “Electing Alderman by District” some years ago, said he elated that we can now use the educational and research abilities of CESJ to enhance that idea, among others, with direct community involvement of this new improved tax-exempt national education center.

The first thing to do is launch a local membership drive, as we are a membership organization of volunteers. The dues are meager at $25 a year, and provides the chapter the needed support and resources from the national level, to achieve our mission of individual economic independence and social justice. Griffin added, “ one of the most impressive things I see in the formation of the Waterbury Chapter is its ability to be the most diverse non-partisan effort that will cross all political, educational, religious and ethnic bounderies as I envision it as being the true melting pot for success in developing both our neighborhoods and the people who live in them."

Finally, as membership grows and we develop a strong base in the community will surely become a voice for the voiceless and those who seek information or would like to can involved in the transition of the WCBG to the WCESJ can call 203-577-8084 or visit our face-book or website at cesj.org.

Unemployment

Guess what got a little bit better? Waterbury's unemployment rate! It reached a high of 12.8% in January, then started dropping. The April 2011 unemployment rate was estimated to be 11.9%. Before you start celebrating, bear in mind that labor experts believe that the improvement in the national unemployment rate is partially due to people simply no longer reporting their lack of employment. After a couple of years of being unable to find a job, many people give up. If you no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, there's little reason to continue reporting.

Out of curiosity, I did a little digging and found the following historical data about Waterbury's unemployment rate since 1961. The data prior to 1990 is from newspaper articles; 1990-present is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In most cases I have the average unemployment rate for an entire year, but sometimes all I have is the rate for a specific month.

UPDATED 6/21/11: I've added some context with national unemployment rates since 2001, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


Sept. 1961     between 6 and 8.9%
1964                    7.1%
1965                    6.7%
April 1970          7.0%
Sept. 1971        10.1%
March 1975      11.5%
1976                 15.5%
March 1983     10.0%
Dec. 1984           6.8%
March 1985        7.0%
1986                   5.8%
1990                   6.7%
1991                   8.7%
1992                   9.5%
1993                   8.0%
1994                   7.0%
1995                   6.3%
1996                   6.4%
1997                   5.8%
1998                   4.1%
1999                   3.3%
2000                   2.9%     National Rate
2001                   4.3%          4.7%
2002                   6.0%          5.8%
2003                   7.2%          6.0%
2004                   6.3%          5.5%
2005                   6.3%          5.1%
2006                   5.7%          4.6%
2007                   6.0%          4.6%
2008                   7.5%          5.8%
2009                  11.1%         9.3%
2010                  12.1%         9.6%
Jan. 2011           12.8%         9.0%
March 2011        12.2%         8.8%
April 2011           11.9%         9.0%

Albanian Festival

It's summer in Waterbury, and you know what that means--festivals! Music, dancing, and (most important) food!

I stopped by the Albanian Festival this afternoon, as did Governor Malloy. Small crowd during the day, but the place will be packed tonight.

Governor Malloy arrived after 3 p.m.

Besa dancers

Everybody has to get a photo of the Governor.

My photo of the Governor.

The ladies who served up my food.

The food! Marinated lamb, spinach pie, feta cheese,
meatballs, pepper sandwich. YUM!

Albanian coffee made to order.

What best to eat with coffee? Dessert sampler tray!
My favorite is the one in the upper left corner.
I think it is shredded phyllo soaked in honey.

Thank You!!!

Waterbury Thoughts has been voted Best Local Blog 2011 by the readers of The Waterbury Observer!

Pick up your free issue of The Observer to see who won in the other categories.

Thanks for reading!

WOW/Scovill Homes Tour

Until you get out and walk through a neighborhood, you can't really see what the problems are. Today, thanks to the persistence and determination of Patricia Sockwell, several key city leaders walked our streets as a follow-up to the community meeting held at the WOW/NRZ Community Center last month.

In attendance today were Mayor Jarjura, Board of Education Commissioner Neil O'Leary, Bryan Baker, President of the Board of Aldermen Paul Pernerewski, Alderman Ryan Mulcahy, Alderman Larry DePillo, Jimmie Griffin, Richard Wood, Nelson Simoes (Health Department), Deputy Chief Vernon Riddick, Michael Gilmore, Officer Andrew Abney and Lt. Scott Stevenson. As Pat Sockwell pointed out later, she and I were the only women present.

Staring in disgust at the remaining dilapidated building on the corner of Walnut and
Wood Streets. Now that he's seen it, Mayor Jarjura agrees it needs to be torn down.

We started at the WOW center, walked down Walnut to Wood Street, up Wood to Oak Street, down Ives Street, then went down the length of the common area behind Ives Street (lots of dumping, in one case many years worth of dumping), back across Carpmill and Young Streets, pausing to talk to residents at the intersection of Young and Rose Streets, continuing on to Webb Street, pausing to look down Vermont Street (arguably the worst street in the neighborhood), then back up Walnut Street.

Wood Street, in front of abandoned triple-deckers.

Several triple-deckers on Wood Street went up for auction by the city recently. Minimum starting bid of $3,000. No bidders. Given the state of the economy and the condition of the buildings, this is not too surprising.

A beautiful old building that's getting ready to fall down.

I think you get the idea of how bad it is (and how little they realized it before now) from some of the expressions on their faces.

 

Lots of discussion of the problem, lots of discussion of the need to find a solution.

Sockwell led the group through some of the most run-down, trashed-out areas. "Watch your step" was repeated many times.

There are 110 Scovill homes. I need to do an inventory to find out how many are abandoned.

During the tour, talking with Nelson Simoes, I learned an important little detail about the fight against blight and litter: the city can't set foot on private property in order to see if there is blight. In other words, if the property next to mine has a yard full of trash and overgrown weeds, and I complain about it, all the property owner has to do is push the garbage back to where it can't be seen from the street. I can still see it, since it's up against my fence, but the Health Department can't--unless, of course, I invite them into my yard to see the trash (which I have now done).

So at the end of the day, what do we have? Certainly there is now better awareness of just how bad it really is here, which of course comes with many good intentions to find solutions. Some specific actions have been promised: cleaning up overgrown weeds and falling trees behind the rowhouses on Ives Street, getting the abandoned building on the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets torn down, going after the owners of certain trash-filled properties. We'll be holding another community meeting later this summer to assess where we are and what's been accomplished.

Soldiers' Monument on the Green

Last week I attended a great program at the Mattatuck Museum. Dr. Matthew Warshauer, co-chair of the Connecticut Civil War Commemoration Committee and Professor of History at CCSU gave a presentation about Civil War monuments in Connecticut. Waterbury's Civil War monument is the Soldiers' Monument on the Green, erected in 1884 (although portions of the monument were not completed and installed until 1885 and 1886).

There's a lot of information available about the monument--Joseph Anderson published a book about it in 1886. I've read through the book to pull out the interpretive information for this blog post.

The sculptor was George Edwin Bissell, a veteran of the Civil War and a highly accomplished artist who lived in Waterbury for a period of time. He was working in Paris during the final planning of the design for the statue, and the bronze figures, reliefs and lamp posts were cast there in 1884.

The figure at the top of the monument represents Victory holding a laurel wreath for the Union soldiers in one hand, an olive branch for the Confederate soldiers in the other hand, and standing on a cornucopia predicting prosperity for the future.

Relief panels on the lower portion of the monument represent the Union troops charging a Confederate battery, and the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac in 1862 (which has led some to call this the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument).

Below Victory, facing west, is the Farmer who has taken up arms to defend the Union, stepping over a broken fence rail.

Facing north is the grizzled Veteran, laurels and palm branch at his feet, weary from the war and seated at the grave of one of his fellow soldiers.

Facing east is the Mechanic who, like the Farmer, has left his work to take up arms. Behind him is equipment used in brass rolling mills.

Originally, Bissell had proposed figures to represent the North, South, East and West regions of the country. The final design uses the Farmer and the Mechanic to represent the different walks of life from which the Union soldiers came. Bissell also originally planned to have Liberty calling the Nation to her defense, but the final design replaced Liberty with Victory.

Perhaps most significant is the vignette on the south side of the monument. At the program last week, Dr. Warshauer informed us that this is one of only two Civil War monuments in Connecticut to include a reference to the abolition of slavery (the other one is in Hartford), and it is the only one in Connecticut to use the word "Emancipation".

The vignette depicts a seated woman listening intently, her hands resting on an open book. Her feet rest on a cannon, next to which is a shackle which has been broken. The woman, as indicated by her hair ornament, represents the government of the United States. The well-dressed schoolboy to her right represents the North (Anderson wrote that this was because "children have no prejudices, and know no color-line", which is a great point--children are not naturally racist, it has to be taught to them).

The other boy represents the freed slaves, the South and African Americans in general. He is seated on a bale of cotton, holding a hoe in one hand while trying to access the book with his other hand. He is eager to learn, to share the quality education the white schoolboy receives. The vignette emphasizes the importance of education for success.

The Emancipation group as it looked in 1886, when it was published
in Joseph Anderson's History of the Soldiers' Monument.

The monument was dedicated on October 23, 1884. Originally, the ceremony was to include the illumination of the Green with a thousand Chinese lanterns, but a severe storm the day before interfered with that plan (but wouldn't that have been impressive!). The morning of the dedication, there was a last-minute, post-storm flurry of decorating. The downtown was covered in U.S. flags, flags of other countries (many Union soldiers were immigrants), and many other decorations.

Governors of several states attended, as well as numerous military dignitaries. The total number of people in attendance was estimated at somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000. A full description of the dedication, with transcripts of the speeches, is in Anderson's book.

Carnival

I finally made it to the Coleman Brothers Carnival on the last night this year. Beautiful night yesterday, perfect for a stroll outside. Coleman Brothers are based in Middletown and were established in 1916, making this their 96th year. I'm not sure how long they've been coming to Waterbury. Waterbury used to have its very own amusement park, at Lakewood Park, complete with roller coaster, back in the 1930s.

It was a lot like the carnivals at the county fairs I went to when I was a little girl living in upstate New York. In fact, pretty much all the same things were there. I guess there's a standard formula that's been working for decades.

There's the alley of booths full of really cheap-looking stuffed animals that you can try to win by shooting streams of water to inflate balloons or throwing very large basketballs into very small hoops. Most of the people attending were just strolling around and socializing, not spending too much money on games.

The carnival life is always fascinating. They live in very nice trailers, complete with satellite television and air conditioning (although we did see one very old, beat-up looking trailer alongside the nice new ones).

When I was a kid, my mom never let me ride on any roller coasters. She was terrified something horrible would happen to me. Instead, she took me on a ferris wheel. Very disappointing. More fun was the centrifuge ride, like Coleman Brothers' "Starship".

Can't forget the fun house, starting with the hall of mirrors. These are believed to have originated at Coney Island (as did so many other things). I didn't go to carnivals all that often when I was a kid, but the memories are very strong.

The Coleman Brothers Yo-Yo spins out a bit further than I remember a similar ride doing when I was a kid, but maybe I'm just remembering wrong. The one from my childhood was supposed to be some sort of futuristic flying car ride (like something from The Jetsons).

Now that I'm an adult, I can appreciate all the basic principles of physics involved in amusement rides--which is why some high schools have physics field trips to amusement parks!

And, of course, the carnival junk food--ice cream, pizza, fried dough, hamburgers, and soda.

It's funny how the carnival still gleams with a special allure. Even in this modern age of super-sized amusement parks, there's something about the carnival coming to town that triggers a little rush of excitement.

Waterbury's "House, M.D."

Dr. Lisa Sanders is an Internist and Attending Physician at Waterbury Hospital. She also works as a medical technical consultant for the t.v. show House. I'm currently reading her book, Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis. It's fascinating to see the doctors' side of things.

Dr. Sanders also writes for The New York Times (which is how the producers of House found her). She started out as a journalist, eventually entering the Yale School of Medicine at age 36, and combined the two interests for her column, called "Diagnosis". She now writes a NY Times blog called "Think Like a Doctor", in which she presents readers with aspects of real cases and invites them to offer a diagnosis (the case was previously solved by the real-life doctors involved).

She recently wrote about a case at St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury. It's interesting reading.

In an interview for the April 2011 issue of Medical Marketing and Media, Dr. Sanders describes her practice in Waterbury as a great place for diagnostic detective work, that she has encountered exotic illnesses such as typhoid fever and dengue fever, in part because there are so many immigrants in Waterbury.

From now on, when I watch House, I will have to wonder if the case was inspired by one in Waterbury!

WOW Community Meeting

I've been busy lately, so I'm a little behind in posting this. Apologies for the delay!

A while back, Pat Sockwell, Vice-President of the Scovill Homes Association, took it on herself to organize a community meeting at the WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center. The board members of the Scovill Homes Association helped distribute flyers to the neighborhood, and Ms. Sockwell personally invited numerous city officials, community leaders and campaigning politicians while they were all at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new school being constructed just north of our neighborhood.

The meeting was held on May 4 and was attended by many neighbors who are fed up and frustrated. Also in attendance were Mayor Jarjura (whose presence was met with amazement--nobody can remember seeing him in our neighborhood ever before), Aldermen Pernerewski, Mulcahy and Petteway, Commissioners Harvey and O'Leary, State Representative Butler, State Senator Hartley, Michael Gilmore, Lt. Scott Stevenson, Community Police Officer Andrew Abney, Police Chief Michael Gugliotti, Jimmie Griffin, Bryan Baker, Paul Vance, Joshua Angelus, Belinda Weaver, Greg Hadley, Scovill Homes Association board members, and probably a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.

Belinda Weaver started the meeting with a question about the elimination of the community police officers. Mayor Jarjura responded with a long and confusing monologue about the city's budget, said something about community officers not being cut, and then tossed in a reference to switching over to "teams of 20" officers without explaining what that meant. It was a disheartening start to the meeting. Instead of a straight answer, we got what sounded like a canned speech with lots of complex phrases and very little substance.

I had come to the meeting with a long list of topics to raise. I didn't want to hog the stage, especially since there were so many neighbors present who don't get many opportunities to be heard, so I decided I would let everyone else go first. As it turned out, my neighbors had all the same complaints as I did. I chimed in a few times, but I didn't have to talk as much as I thought I would.

The basic list of complaints is as follows (in no particular order, just as I remember them; I was too busy participating to take notes, so I'm sure I've overlooked something):

• Politicians have been making promises to invest in our neighborhood for decades, but as soon as the election is over, they disappear and the promises evaporate.
  
• The sidewalks are more dangerous than walking in the street, but despite years of being promised new sidewalks, all we've been given is a few sections of blacktop layered on top of the crumbled sidewalk. That blacktop will last three or five years at best before the sidewalk is just as bad as ever. (If you don't believe me, go look at Long Hill; the blacktop put down for sidewalk there two years ago is already an unusable disaster.)
  
• We need more community policing, not less. Taking away our Community Officer is going to cause harm to our neighborhood.
  
• The current blight/litter enforcement is an endless cycle of frustration. We need to come together as a community and find new ways to keep our neighborhood clean. We need the city to continue to provide us with the necessary support as we do this.
  
• The city trash pickup is haphazard and messy. They leave garbage behind as litter. It is impossible to get them to pick up the paper bags of leaves and similar yard waste.

I'm writing this in a pretty detached tone. If you weren't there, take a moment to imagine a room full of angry, frustrated people venting their frustrations. There were a few times when the frustrations and outrage started to get a little out of control. It's hard not to get emotional in a situation like this.

A major topic of contention was the condition of the two abandoned buildings at the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets (and another on East Farms). The coverage of this in the Rep-Am didn't even begin to convey any sense of what really happened at the meeting. The short article says "The city plans to demolish two dilapidated buildings and has committed to fight further blight in the troubled WOW neighborhood. The plans were announced Wednesday by Mayor Michael J. Jarjura at a forum at the WOW/NRZ Community Learning Center...."

The real story of how the "plans" came about is much more colorful.

First the back story:  Read my post from February 22, 2009. That's the back story. Add to that a burned out building on East Farms Street. Three abandoned buildings, at least one of which is about to collapse on its own, two of which are likely to injure or kill someone.

When the buildings on Walnut Street were first brought up at the meeting, with a request that they be torn down before they fall on someone, Mayor Jarjura responded by telling us it costs $50,000 to tear down a building, making it very economically difficult to tear down all the buildings that need to be torn down. That caused everyone to pause while we tried to figure out how it could possibly cost $50,000 to tear down a building that doesn't have a roof or floors. A few people offered to do the job for less.

The desire to tear down the buildings was brought up again and again. Each time, Mayor Jarjura came up with a reason why it can't be done: the Mayor doesn't make the decision, only the Building Inspector can make it happen; the city couldn't do anything about it before now, because the buildings were caught up in the TaxServ debacle until recently; we should wait to see if the building sells at tax auction to someone who will fix it up (even though it's been sold and resold many times in recent years).

The neighborhood kept hammering home the immediate danger posed by the buildings, especially by the brick building on Walnut Street. The owner of the well-maintained property to the north of the building said he has heard the walls groaning, that bricks sometimes fall off, that he had to install a protective fence to minimize the damage from the building to his property. Others repeatedly stated that this is a school bus stop. Someone pointed out that the city will lose far more than $50,000 if the building falls and kills someone.

At one point the discussion was leaning towards accepting the Mayor's statement that it will be many months before the city can get around to demolishing the buildings. This led to a discussion about relocating the school bus stop to get the kids away from the Walnut Street buildings, but that is apparently a remarkably difficult thing to do, involving complex analysis and researching of which schools use that stop and which students use that stop. The process of relocating a school bus stop seems to take months.

The neighborhood was getting angrier and more frustrated. When Mayor Jarjura told us it takes months to get a building demolished, several of us, myself included, reminded him loudly that Sena's Bowling Alley was torn down and cleared out in a matter of days. At which point he said that was the Building Inspector's decision, not in his control.

Finally, after maybe twenty minutes and a tremendous amount of pressure, Mayor Jarjura declared "that building could be torn down like this!" with a snap of his fingers. To which we all replied, "Okay! Do it!"  After a minute or so of more pressure, the Mayor declared that the two buildings on Walnut Street and the building on East Farms would be torn down in 30 days or less. There were some negotiations with the owner of the well-maintained property on Walnut Street to see if he would purchase the lot after it's demolished.

That was 13 days ago. Today, on my way home from work, I saw that the East Farms building has been torn down.

There's another backhoe parked in an abandoned lot across from the Walnut Street buildings, waiting to be put to use.

 

 

Now we know what it takes to get adequate city services in our neighborhood. We have to corner the Mayor and harangue him for hours until he finally agrees to do one thing for us. There has to be a better way.

The article in the newspaper said only the brick building on Walnut Street is scheduled for demolition. I hope that's not true. Both of them need to come down, and we left the meeting with the understanding that both would be torn down. We'll see what happens.

The Walnut Street buildings and school bus stop a little over two years ago.

UPDATE 5/18/2011: The brick building with no roof or floors finally came down today. Saw a lot of people standing around staring and talking about it after the work crew left for the day. Now if only we could get the one next to it to come down, then replace it with off-street parking for the neighborhood. And while I'm dreaming, I'd still like to see the empty lots across the street turned into a small park with a basketball court and maybe some garden space.