Isn’t this a lovely neighborhood? Notice how the homes are nicely kept, the sidewalks are in good repair, and there’s a mailbox on the corner. Nice car & family, too, incidentally. It’s the kind of neighborhood you’d love to move into, isn’t it? Want to know where it is?
It’s the 500 block of East Ravine Avenue in 1968 (looking east, where it crosses New York Avenue). Oh, how things have changed in the last 37 years. I’d take a picture of it now so you could compare how it has gone downhill, but I don’t want to get jumped by thugs like the 19-year-old man who was walking in the 500 block of Ravine, refused to give five men his change and got beaten for it.
Take my word for it, it’s not a pretty neighborhood anymore, and that’s a shame. The sidewalks have been allowed to deteriorate for many years. Several houses have been razed, so the street is pockmarked with vacant lots. The houses that are left are almost all rentals and terribly run-down. For example, 512 E. Ravine — a two-story, three-bedroom house on the corner of Ravine and New York — sold for less than $5,000 in 2000, and is now valued at a paltry $36,000 for property tax purposes.
Bill Dennis points out that this is just four blocks away from the new MidTown Plaza, anchored by Cub Foods. They razed the vacant storefronts on Knoxville — and several owner-occupied homes on Dechman that were seized via eminent domain — and established a tax-increment finance (TIF) district to build it. Within a couple of years, Sullivan’s and John Bee’s supermarkets went out of business, and the word on the street is that Cub Foods isn’t doing too well either.
So, that attempt at gentrification didn’t work. We’ve voted out Thetford and others who voted for it, but the damage is already done. I don’t know what all the answers are, but I think code enforcement and infrastructure improvements (sidewalks, streetlights, etc.) would be a nice start (going on the broken-window theory).
I’d be interested in your feedback. What should we do to take neighborhoods like Ravine and turn them into attractive places to live again, like the picture above?
You are right about how Ravine in that area has gone down hill.
But, all is not lost in the East Bluff.
I live on New York Avenue in the 1600 block. I’ve lived there four years.
I’m a renter.
When I first moved in there were many homeowners in the area worried about a renter. But, I starteed working on the yard improving it. That got attention. Then they saw I had a job.
They saw I was willing to get involved.
They saw my family did not sell drugs or shoot up the street.
Soon, I was part of the neighborhood, a good neighborhood.
Then something changed.
The city boarded up a bunch of houses on California and some of that element moved into our (and I emphesize the word OUR) neighborhood.
Because of my profession some people in the neighborhood gravitated to me to do something about this development. I was not afraid to go to the police and be open about it. I was not afraid to to go to the city council and city manager with my name attached.
That started getting results.
Then our neighborhood got one of the POP Teams.
We started a neighborhood association.
People started getting involved and things got better.
In Dec. a neighbor of mine (4 houses away) Brian Alexander was murdered in the alley alongside his home.
That was a setback, but not a defeat.
The neighborhood got stronger. We started looking out for each other even more.
We got even closer.
I am an ameteur astronomer, so I am out on clear nights at all hours. I have never been threatened. I have never felt threatened.
I have met a number of people at night. They are friendly enough. I show them a planet or a star cluster and find the people I meet in the middle of the night to be fine.
The East Bluff is not what it once was. No place remains what is was.
Every neighborhood evolves. Some grow better, some worse.
The East Bluff, at least in places, is coming back.
The area of Ravine you speak of has a lot of problems. The problem, I fear, is it is inhabited largely by people who have lost hope of anything better.
When you are mired in self-pity and saddled with a defeatist atttitude it is hard to imagine doing better.
Until we as a city can change that there will alsways be places like that section of Ravine.
That’s too bad.
The East Bluff has a lot of potential. The portion of New York I live on proves that.
Thanks for the comment. Peoria needs more neighbors (and especially renters) like you.
A few people have asked me what kind of car is in the picture. It’s a ’68 Corvair Convertible. You remember Corvairs, right? Ralph Nader launched his career telling everyone they were “Unsafe at Any Speed.”