Neighborhood Brief: Arthur Avenue

The space that Little Italy now occupies was originally called “Belle Mont,” or “Beautiful Mountain” in Latin, which was the estate of a family of French tobacco manufacturers¹. The family bought the tract of land in 1778, after the head of the household, Pierre Lorillard was killed during the Revolutionary War. The estate was 661 acres, and its centerpiece was the Lorillard mansion, which was built in the 1850s and was donated to become St. Barnabas Hospital and Medical Center. The estate was inherited by a niece, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, in 1870, effectively making her the richest woman in America at the time. She sold off portions of the estate; one was divided into streets and avenues, others were transformed into the Bronx Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. Construction at both sites began in 1898, enticing newly arrived Italian immigrants with the possibility of employment at the zoos or the gardens. By 1913, the former estate became known as the Italian colonies in the Bronx because the Italians had already established themselves as the majority, with a Jewish population present as well. During Prohibition, the Bronx, along with the rest United States, saw a rise of the mafia and bootleggers of all nationalities. From the 1930s to the 1960s, people left in droves to different places; those who could afford it moved to the suburbs. This was all part of the urban decline of the neighborhood, which culminated finally in the 1960s and 1970s in many landlords burning down their buildings to collect insurance. As many of the mainstay ethnic groups left the neighborhood, the first wave of Albanian immigration to America began, in the 1960s and 1970s². With many cheap apartments and housing available, Albanian immigrants adopted the practice of the former Jewish inhabitants had formerly used in the beginning of their Bronx residency—that is, buying out cheap apartments in bulk. That strategy has not been unsuccessful for the Albanians either. One third of all apartments are owned by Albanians, with some having made fortunes off of this enterprise. For example, Hajdar Bajraktari immigrated into the Bronx after college, having started from scratch at the time, but he now is a millionaire with many buildings bought under his name. He isn’t the only one as for who occupies the highest class in the Bronx, there are more Albanians than Italians living in Little Italy.

Albanians have immigrated to America in several waves, with the most prominent of which having had occurred from the early 1960s and late 1970s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Under communism, but more specifically, under the country’s dictator Enver Hoxha, who had ruled over the country for over 40 years, the country suffered a high degree of poverty. Under his totalitarian, 1 out of 15 people were pronounced enemies of the state and were sent to one of the many state prisons established by Hoxha, which were made to be like the gulags used in communist Russia³. In these state prisons, inmates were forced to to work on the government’s mining and construction projects, and many died as a result of appalling conditions.” Coupled with this cruelty towards citizens, indoctrination of children oftentimes led to parents being arrested and sent to jail as a result of being spied upon by their own children. The isolation of the country from the rest of the world stopped it from receiving aid that it could have used due to unsuccessful ventures to increase wealth and give jobs to its citizens⁴. This overall ill treatment of its people left many Albanians disenchanted and frustrated with their old way of life. Many were glad to leave when they were given the chance to, and that chance came between 1990 and 1995, shortly after the fall of communism in Albania. Around this time, about 7,000 Albanians immigrated to America,⁵ the fear that had held many back from leaving Albania having finally dissipated—no longer was there a threat of the government executing their family. This exodus to America was connected with a much larger one in which 500,000 Albanians left their homeland. Emigration was further augmented by the ethnic conflict between Serbians and Kosovar Albanians, leading to one million Albanians displaced from their homeland. As a result, annual immigration to America averaged more than 4,100 people between 1996 and 2002, bringing the total number of Albanians in the United States from 47,710 in 1990 to 113,661 in 2000. In addition, the US government granted 20,000 annual refugee visas with “preference given to those with family connections in the United States.” Since the Bronx had had a large Albanian population at the time, many flocked there to make connections with former emigrants and find jobs.

Little Italy on Arthur Avenue is a tiny oasis in the Bronx surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods seeing much fewer tourists. The neighborhood is narrow—it is only about 5 paces wide. The main road is surrounded by authentic Italian, “Italian” (managed or staffed by Albanian) and openly Albanian restaurants. The best place to park your car is in the municipal parking space behind the restaurant Giovanni’s. It is attended by a local who is perhaps not employed by the city but still helps drivers find a parking spot, and he does “accept tips.” Although the parking lot has meters, they don’t accept anything except coins, and so if you’re lacking you or the driver is obliged to become preemptively familiar with the neighborhood to at least make change before you order your meal—at least that is what most of the tourists that come to Little Italy are there for. People come from upstate and the rest of the five boroughs look for the traditional Italian experience and rediscover this little enclave of old Italy, even though it, like the other Little Italy in Manhattan, has been taken over by the next wave of immigrants.

I was sitting in an Albanian restaurant eating cevape—a Yugoslavian meat dish—with my father and brother when my father’s friend, Haxhi Berishe, showed up. Haxhi is a medium sized man, of average height and skinny build, and has thinning hair and horn rimmed glasses. His eyes are small yet sharp, and his forehead is lined from the many expressions he had made during life. His voice exhumes confidence and yet he is not overly manly. Having lived in the Bronx for over 20 years, I assume that this last feature in particular is important to “making it” here. He sits down and has cevape with us. His first question to me is in Albanian, and my first answer is in English, as it has to be since that is the only language I speak fluently. Slowly we get to know one another. I learn that he teaches computer science at Monroe College, and he formerly worked at St. Barnabas hospital for 5 years, helping the hospital put up their computer system. He was educated in Fordham university, where obtained a degree in electrical engineering, and where he learned, out of all things, a love for Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry (he would later take me to see Poe’s former house in the Bronx after the tour). Upon learning that I started college, he asked me a few more questions, which I tried to answer. Having done so, he thought it would be good to have a go at describing the neighborhood, or at least some facet of it, but not without asking, in a slightly playful manner not out of touch, I thought, with his personality, “do you want to know about the good or the bad about this neighborhood?” Seeing that it is my duty to have a most accurate picture of this neighborhood, I reply back to him, “everything.” He then proceeded to tell me that the restaurant right across the street from the place we were eating in, on the corner of the block, was found to have the chopped remains of people as well as of animals in a police bust in the 1980s. After a lull in the conversation, we decided that it would be high time to leave the restaurant and begin our informal tour of the neighborhood.

“This neighborhood has seen some dark times, for sure,” Haxhi said, “especially with the drug addicts that have been present in the neighborhood for a while, but for the past ten years this has been a safe place to go to. Part of the trouble of this neighborhood is that near St. Barnabas medical center there is a place where addicts can get drugs out cleared out of their system quickly which has made them more likely to do more drugs because there is less of a perceived danger in doing drugs if the person doing them doesn’t suffer as much. It’s good that people get treatment, but it isn’t enough to make sure that they stop.”

“The streets usually have some students from Fordham University over, but since they’re having finals this week it’ll take some time before they come over again.” Perhaps one reason why Little Italy is safer is because Fordham University is so nearby. College options for the neighborhood are not sparse, since the Bronx offers a selection of private and public universities such as Fordham University, Lehman College, and Monroe College, where Haxhi teaches. “These schools educate the next generation of Albanian immigrants,’ Haxhi said, “and those kids work hard because they want a better life for their families. You can see a few of them really studying in the library for hours to get high marks.” For high school students, there is several schools within the vicinity that range from low test scores and graduation rates in the 40s such as Dewitt Clinton High school to Bronx Science High School, which boasts a high rank even among the specialized high schools. There seems to be some racial inequality, however, in education. “One of the worst schools in the Bronx,” Haxhi said as he pointed to Clinton DeWitt, passing by with car, “In Bronx Science you see an Asian majority, in DeWitt, there is an even greater majority who are African-American.”

One of the important tourist destinations in the neighborhood is the Arthur Avenue Market, or as the Albanians call it—Haxhi assures me—the “marketa.” This Italian bazaar features shops selling everything from electronics to traditional deli items, and alcohol to flowers. “This is what all tourists come to see,” Haxhi said. “It’s got this old Italian feeling, like how the shops used to line up around here a hundred years ago.” Although now its off peak hours, reflecting our night tour, this place usually has many tourists coming in to see what they’ve got here. The bazaar has a door out on Arthur Avenue and has the width of a normal Italian restaurant but its depth spans across the lot, giving an overall impression of it being a stowed away immigrant haven of years past.

As we walk across the block, Haxhi, with over 20 years experience in this neighborhood and its habitants, proceeds to point out which stores and restaurants are owned by whom and for how long. His face betrays an expression of pride to show me how many of the restaurants are either Albanian specialty stores, or owned, managed, or staffed by Albanians. There is a power balance that tips in the albanians favor here, mostly because there are more of them now, and also because they own more of the restaurants here. It seems as though the Albanians of yesterday have become the Italians of today, and their own spot is taken up by newer waves of Albanian or Hispanic immigrants that have slowly made themselves a presence in the neighborhood for the past few years. “A couple of years ago,” Haxhi said, “Blacks and Hispanics were definitely kept away by the Italians who used to live here. Now, it’s totally different. You look at the Albert Avenue Market, for instance, and you see that they cater to them to. The whole market is open at least two hours later than it used because it’s more convenient for some to come. This and the fact that many of them work here—who knows, maybe they’ll reach our positions soon.”

References

1. “Bronx Little Italy | Arthur Avenue.” Bronx Little Italy | Arthur Avenue. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.bronxlittleitaly.com/history/>.
2. ““Little Albania” in the Bronx | The Bronx Ink.” “Little Albania” in the Bronx | The Bronx Ink. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://bronxink.org/2011/12/15/21004-little-albania/nggallery/image/image-275/>.
3. The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/12/victims-of-albanian-communism-struggle-for-closure/265956/>.
4. “Albania under the Command Economy.” Albania under the Command Economy. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Economics/Economic_History/Albania/echist_albania.htm>.
5. “Albanian Immigration.” Immigration to North America. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://immigrationtous.net/10-albanian-immigration.html>.
6. “Arthur Avenue Market.” NYCEDC. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.nycedc.com/project/arthur-avenue-market>.

NYC’s Chinatown: Past to Present

New York City’s Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in the United States and home to the largest concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere is located on the lower east side of Manhattan. Its two square miles are bounded by Kenmore and Delancey streets on the north, East and Worth streets on the south, Allen street on the east, and Broadway on the west. With a population between 70,000 and 150,000 people, Chinatown is the favored destination point for Chinese immigrants, though in recent years the neighborhood has also become home to many other ethnic immigrants.

The rise of Chinatown began in the mid eighteenth century with Chinese sailors and traders trickling into the United States. In the mid nineteenth century, there was a significant increase in the number of Chinese immigrants pulled into the west coast. This was due to stories of the “Gold Mountain” in California during the gold rush of the 1840’s and 1850’s. The Chinese were also brought by many labor brokers to build the Central Pacific Railroad. Most Chinese arrived expecting to spend a few years working, hoping to earn enough money where they could return to China, build a house, get married, and have children.

As the gold mines began yielding less gold and the railroad was coming to completion, the wide availability of cheap and willing Chinese labor became a source of tension for white laborers. This was especially prevalent in industries such as cigar-rolling and textiles. The white American’s feared that the Chinese were coming over to take over their jobs and threatening their lifestyle. Violence from mobs and discrimination from nativists on the west coast drove the Chinese into larger cities. These cities offered more job opportunities where the Chinese could blend more easily into the already diverse culture. By 1880, the growing area of Chinatown became home to between 200 and 1,100 Chinese, sparking an abundance of laundries in the area.

Since the beginning of Chinatown’s birth, immigrants were often found in clusters as a result of racial discrimination and self-segregation. Different from many ethnic immigrant enclaves in New York, Chinatown was mainly self-supporting. It offered a wealth of governing associations and businesses which supplied jobs, economic aid, social services, and protection for the community. Chinatown continued to grow until the end of the nineteenth century where living space became limited. Often living arrangements consisted of 5 – 15 people in a two room tenement divided into multiple segments.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a federal law enacted by the American government as a reaction to the rising anti-Chinese sentiment. This hate was mainly a result of Chinese laborers willing to work for far less money under far worse and more dangerous conditions compared to those of white laborers. White nativists also disliked the fact that the Chinese were unwilling to “assimilate properly” but rather “just took over the country.” The Act forbade any Chinese national already living in the United States to become naturalized and become an American citizen. It also prevented the immigration of any Chinese person not given a special work permit such as merchant or diplomatic status. Worst of all, the Act prohibited the immigration of families of Chinese nationals already living in the United States. The Exclusion Act was becoming a more serious issue in the following decades and was finally lifted during World War II.

Chinatown consisted of a highly imbalanced male-female ratio that became much worse as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1900, there were between 40 – 150 women compared to the total population of around 7,000 Chinese in Manhattan. This affected the social landscape in Chinatown leading it to become known as the “Bachelor’s Society.” There were often rumors of opium dens, prostitution, and slavery causing increased hatred from the white nativists towards the Chinese. In order to keep with Chinese tradition and to protect against the United States government’s hostility towards the immigrants, the Chinese of Chinatown formed their own associations and societies to protect their own interests. An underground economy was developed allowing undocumented immigrants to work illegally without leaving small area of Chinatown.

Chinatown developed its own political structure comprising of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and other fraternal organizations. Some of their responsibilities included managing business operations, making funeral arrangements, and mediating disputes between members of the community. The organizations also created their own constitution and imposed their own tax on the Chinese. The CCBA ruled Chinatown throughout the early and mid twentieth century and represented the elite of the community.

After the removal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, China was given a small immigration quota and the community of Chinatown continued to grow, slowly expanding throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. The garment industry which was a booming industry employed many Chinese internally. Restaurants and laundry businesses were also paying less than minimum wage under the table to thousands of Chinese. Despite the growing population of Chinatown, the community also faced segregation between its members. Many of the newly arriving Chinese immigrants came from mainland China and were viewed as the “downtown Chinese”, while the Taiwan and Hong Kong educated were called the “uptown Chinese.” This distinction between “downtown” and “uptown” resulted in a hierarchy where an elite class emerged.

In 1968, when the quota for immigrants was raised, the Chinese flooded into the country from their homeland and the population of Chinatown peaked. Chinatown expanded into Little Italy, often purchasing buildings to be turned into garment factories or office buildings. While many of the buildings in Chinatown are tenements that are a century old, the rents in the area are some of the highest in the city competing with apartments in midtown and the Upper West Side.

During my visit to Chinatown in the last week, I met with my aunt whose apartment is located on Monroe street and has been living there for over 30 years. Her apartment was built in the late nineteenth century and is on the third floor of the building above a busy supermarket. Inside the apartment, there lies a clawfoot tub in the middle of the living room with steel bars covering the windows. Separating the living space are thin walls and clothes on clotheslines. I ask my aunt in Chinese “how are you able to afford to live in this apartment?” despite the skyrocketing rents in Chinatown. She responds “the apartment is rent-stabilized and that’s the only way I’m still here.”

My aunt later takes me to her favorite Cantonese restaurant where we have dim sum. The restaurant is fairly empty with a few tables being served despite being a Sunday afternoon. I ask the waiter who has been working there since the restaurant opened in the 1980’s about its vacancy. He tells me about the declining business due to people moving out in the area. He says “the rent is simply too high” informing me of many new restaurants and business taking over ones that have been open for decades. I ask him how he deals with the slow business and increasing rent. He points to the section of the menu labeled “specials” and tells me how he significantly lowered the prices in order to attract customers. He also tells me how he relies on regular customers to keep the business alive. “The owner is happy if we break even or take just a small loss”, the waiter says. My aunt and I then leave happily leaving a generous tip for the courteous waiter.

My next stop was Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing Queens where my cousins live. From my first impression, this area was very busy, making it hard to walk on the sidewalk without bumping into other people.  There were many cars honking through the busy traffic and vast amounts of people entering and leaving the subway station. I approach an elderly woman sitting on the footsteps in front of her house. I ask her in Chinese, “what it’s like to live in the area?” and she tells me that the area is quickly getting more busy with new buildings and construction to account for the growing population. She then tells me how she used to work at a garment factory on Lafayette Street in Chinatown 25 years ago and moved to Flushing after she lost her job. “Machines have taken our jobs” she says, with new technology being used that is cheaper and more efficient than human labor.

According to Wei Leng Chang, a 60 year old resident of Flushing, “I lived in Chinatown before, but the apartments there are too small and expensive.” Another Queens resident said “Flushing is convenient. We have lots of buses and the subway and the shopping is cheaper here.” Owning a car is almost impossible in Chinatown with busy congested traffic and narrow roads with expensive parking. This makes it hard for new immigrants with families to live in Chinatown and often flock to the outer boroughs instead.
Through my experience traveling through Manhattan’s Chinatown and learning about its history, the once busy enclave for Chinese immigrants is slowly dying. With the rise of new “Chinatowns” in Flushing, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn offering more space for a lower price, these areas are attractive to many people. Today, as the number of immigrants continue to grow, downtown Chinatown no longer remains as the most populated and favored destination for the Chinese.

Remiss

We drove over the Whitestone Bridge after an hour journey coming from our house located in upstate New York. As we approached 14th Avenue, the woman in the car began to recall her childhood memories. “I remember growing up in Queens,” she told me, “going to a little amusement park and playing softball with my dad and sisters right here.” Where she was pointing to was now converted into a multipurpose center with commercial businesses now occupying the lots. “A lot of these place didn’t even have roads, back in my day. [long pause] It’s amazing how much stuff is here now.”

We continued driving along the perimeter of the former “whitbread” neighborhood that is College Point, Queens, both reliving past memories and analyzing the current state of the neighborhood. The woman driving us around showed me where she used to live in queens with her parents and two sisters through the 60’s, 70’s, and a bit of the 80’s. “I remember being able to play with my friends in the street and picking tomatoes from our backyard. But’ there are so many cars and so many houses here now, I doubt you could ever relive that now. I remember Joanne and I would meet up on that corner over there and walk to Saint Agnes. I bet even the school has changed quite a bit since I’ve been here too.”

Not too long after stopping by the house, we went towards College Point Boulevard to stop into one of the oldest businesses in the borough. There, we saw a sign that lie above a building reading “Empire Market – The Family Butchers.” We walked in only to be greeted by a man with outrageous charisma towards his job and towards his customers. “Karen! Is that you?” he asked right as we walked into the storefront. She replied back, “Hey John! Long time no see.” The man who greeted us is John Lepine, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1957. The woman that he was so excited to see is named Karen Hika-Borrello, though I personally call her Mom.

The two adults beside me were catching up and shooting the breeze while I surveyed the scene. I recalled being in this market as a young child, buying homemade sausages and clean cut meats. I especially remember buying penny candy from the charismatic John over a decade ago. For old times sake, I asked John if they still had the penny candies. Sure enough, he guided me back towards the edge of the counter and showed me the selection of over fifty types of specialty candy, just as if I were sent in a time machine back to the 40’s, when my grandpa would buy penny candies from the local shops in New York. I had to ask John how it was still possible that the penny candy scene never changed. To which he replied “This is about the only thing around town that hasn’t changed.”

He told me, back when he and my mom were growing up in the neighborhood, everything was run by small business owners of mostly German and Southern European descent. “There was never a sign that was not in English,” he said. “But now look around! A rush of Asians and Hispanics hit the town over the years. It’s really taken over everything.”

The last bit took me aback. Did he mean this with negative connotation? Diversity within the neighborhood should really be a positive aspect of life. I followed up John’s statement by asking him to elaborate of his former claim. “I’m not against change! I’m changing this business every day from since my dad handed it down to me and I know he changed it a bunch since his dad handed it down. But if you look around, no one is keeping their property clean. All the buildings are getting run down.”

John was definitely correct here. I walked up and down College Point Boulevard, noticing how run down and desolate all of the old and new buildings looked. The avenues did not look any better. Walking down 14th Avenue, I expected to see quaint suburban scene with houses keeping a mowed lawn and fresh paint job. However, I saw peeling paint, overgrown gardens, cracked pavement, and general garbage in the streets. My mom was upset at seeing what had become of her old neighborhood.

We continued to walk and drive around College Point, stopping where parks used to be and where factories used to be up and running. Now, the parks were replaced by construction lots and the factories were all shut down or in a state of disrepair. Hardly a whitbread neighborhood anymore. My mom told me when we were kids, we would come play in some of these parks. Now in the remaining parks, there was not a sole.

Around 3pm, we drove to a restaurant called Coppola’s for a stop to eat. The owner came to our tablet and greeted us with another “Karen! Is that you?” The owner of this little Italian restaurant is named Marcelo. He knew my grandpa back in the 60’s when the restaurant had just started. Without hesitation, we gave Macelo our order and began to ask him about the neighborhood. Once our food came to us, Marcelo pulled up a chair and began talking about all the changes he has noticed.

“First of all,” he said, “the people moving in are all nasty. They don’t keep the place looking nice, they throw their garbage around, they’re not very friendly, it’s not a nice place.” This seemed to align with what John was telling us before, so I played along and kept listening. “The people coming into this place, they’re just spilling over.” Now I became curious. I asked Marcelo where they were coming from. “Flushing, Forest Hills, a little of Jackson Heights, and everywhere around here. But mostly, it’s the people coming from Flushing.”

“They’re mostly Asians and some Hispanics coming into the neighborhood and leaving it trashy.” I felt slightly offended that two people made a correlation between neighborhood diversity and trashy neighborhoods in the same day. Nevertheless, I asked Marcelo to elaborate his point. He told me “There are some nice people coming in. There really are. My neighbors are new to the place. Both Asians. The one of them is a nice guy. The other guy, though, is a real nasty guy. He’s not keeping his house nice, he makes a racket, he smokes all the time around kids, it’s like he’s from the streets. But the thing is, I complain to the town about this guy and they can’t do anything about it. He bought the property in cash, made it his own for whatever, and now he doesn’t keep everything looking nice. Me? I’d sooner move from the neighborhood than deal with this guy.”

Marcelo made a good point in his rant. I was understanding something about the general flow of the Queens population. The largest flux in diversity is definitely in Flushing, but the flux is so great that property in Flushing is becoming more expensive quickly. This is causing many of the people that are around the neighborhood to move where it’s cheaper. Enter: College Point. This quaint, family neighborhood has been slowly dying since factories started moving out of the city. With the neighborhood getting older and quieter, a lot of property went up for grabs at cheap price. It can be generalized that the people now moving into College Point are barely making ends meet, fiscally that is, which leaves their property in a state of disrepair. This changing dynamic can only be described as a sort of reverse gentrification, where the neighborhood is becoming less valuable and the state of the infrastructure is deteriorating. Unfortunately, the direction the neighborhood dynamic is going is not positive.

After talking with Marcelo, my Mom and I continued to drive around the neighborhood, getting our last good looks around. She showed me the church where her and my dad were married. She showed me where one of the oldest buildings once stood, only to find a new apartment, already in shambles, in its place. She showed me the funeral home that took care of my grandma and aunt’s funeral arrangements. The entire parlor had changed hands and become an Asian-centric funeral parlor. What John and Marcelo had told us was visible as daylight. The population of the neighborhood really switched. The once German run neighborhood had become an Asian-centric neighborhood with various minorities making the run down neighborhood their new home.

It’s upsetting to see what the neighborhood looks like with new eyes like mine. I cannot hold any one group of people to blame for its current state of disrepair, nor should there be blame put on anyone for the state of the neighborhood. Though what is apparent is the neighborhood needs revitalization. More small, independent businesses need to run College Point. The Empire Market and Coppola’s are two great examples of small independent business that bring life into the neighborhood. The Empire Market has been thriving for over three generations. People build relationships and bonds with one another when there are small businesses in the town. I come from Beacon, a small urban center from upstate New York, where independent business owners run the town. College Point used to be run like this as well. It’s a mystery why this aspect of the neighborhood changed and turned into commercial businesses.

In the car heading back upstate, my Mom kept reliving old memories with a couple of “Oh my goodness”s here and a few “I can’t believe it”s there. To someone that used to live in this neighborhood during its prime, I can understand why she was so upset with the direction the place has turned. There is a sort of reverse gentrification happening in the neighborhood, where the property is cheap enough to house those being displaced by normal gentrification. However, the people cannot maintain their property and uphold the neighborhood as it used to be run with mass factories and small businesses. Perhaps this is but a sign that is calling for a revitalization. More small business owners need to take advantage of the lower property costs and open up show again. It is a start, but anything seems better than leaving the neighborhood as it is in its current state.

The last few things John said to us that day really resounded with me. They went something along the lines of, “I’m not going anywhere. This is my passion and I love this neighborhood. I grew up here! Your mom grew up here! We know what this place used to look like. It would be a shame if no one cared about making this place look good again. It doesn’t matter if it’s White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, Indian, whatever! No one here has pride in the neighborhood anymore. I really hope that we can change that.”