The new mural in the teen room at COA Youth & Family Centers jumps right out at you. You can’t miss it. Teens at COA were “given the wall” and decided what to do and what to paint. Their vision was to create a mural that depicts COA and the world that opens up to them.
by Vince Bushell
Brewers Hill is a “vintage neighborhood” with “first class value” according to the brochure for Brewers Hill Commons…. Few of the existing “vintage” neighbors could afford one of the new homes, which start at $269,00 and can easily top $300,000…. The photo [to the left] shows a sign illustrating the facades of the new homes being built. In the background of this photo is a duplex built a few years back by ESHAC….to house low to moderate-income residents. Now in private hands, these homes are not subject to income guidelines.
by Tanya Cromartie-Twaddle
Driving down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive today, one encounters a world of contrast and contradictions. The neglected remnants of what used to be, next to glimmers of hope on the north end… the concentrated hustle and bustle at the intersection of North Avenue and King Drive… the economic promise arising from the south end.
The Victory over Violence Park and the colorful mural at Clarke Street, a powerful symbol that illustrates the dream of what the area could be.
The official buzz is in the streets. In mid-January Tom Daykin wrote a front page Sunday feature in the Journal Sentinel about Riverwest as an up-and-coming neighborhood. It will be interesting to see what and who we “draw” in the next couple of years. Will the changes be substantial and dramatic? Will we lose our diversity? Will old-timers feel pushed out by “outsiders?”
Excerpt from Chapter 2 of Riverwest: A Community History
by Tom Tolan
Part 2 of 6 in a series.
It is 4:30 a.m. on what will be a warm Friday in early autumn, 1920. Fourteen-year-old Clem Doberneck is one of the first in the neighborhood to rise. He eats breakfast with his father, who must catch an early streetcar to his job at the Miller Brewery, and by 5 a.m. is out of his family’s Booth Street house, beginning his morning rounds. From Locust Street to Reservoir Avenue, between Richards Street and the river, he walks from streetlight to streetlight, turning off the gas. Gradually, the sky becomes lighter….
