Homewood Nation

My house is shaking with vibrations coming from across the street. The same type of vibrations that I felt a year ago, when a house with a new roof and an elevator was being torn down.

This time, the house being torn down does not boast such amenities, and its overall condition was such that even I, as inclined as I am toward preservation, did not oppose its demolition. At the same time, I do not take its demolition as being so much of a personal rebuke as before, because this time I did at least make efforts to make a deal with the owner that might have saved it.

Still, the demolition raises the question of what to do with three vacant lots side by side.

The Save Race Street Committee is working on at least a short-term answer. We are preparing an application for Mayor Raventstahl's Love Your Block program - the same program that the Committee made use of in creating a parklet last September, and that the Mulford Street Block Association also used for a large cleanup project. If we receive the grant, we will schedule a beautification project for April 27.

It just struck me that in doing so, we may accidentally set some sort of record. Has a Homewood lot ever been beautified within three months of a house being torn down there?

Hm. What if we (Homewood residents) could obtain a list of all scheduled demolitions, and beautify all of the resulting vacant lots within 90 days of those demolitions?

As things go now, demolition merely replaces one type of blight with another. 

Could we change that? Should we? What would it take?