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Aug 1, 2004 Being back home again, I’ve become a bit domestic, cooking meals and occasionally cleaning. I’ve also started taking my mother’s dogs out for walks in the evening. Walking through the neighborhood, I’ve begun to wonder what happened to the place where I was raised. Many of my industrial neighbors have pulled up stakes and moved except for the three behind my parents’ house. Down the street, there are no more neighbors to visit with or catch up on the latest with. Their houses once sat dilapidated and falling down, but were recently razed to make room for a new business. The line between what is zoned residential and commercial has been blurred to the point that it is almost nonexistent. Many lots sit vacant, devoid of houses. This neighborhood has been on the skids since the 1960s, when many people abandoned their houses or moved them elsewhere after Hurricane Carla in 1961. Then, sometime later in the 1960s, part of the neighborhood was zoned for light industry to try and pump money into city coffers. When I was growing up here in the 1980s, it was nothing to see a metal building and then a house next to it or behind it. One of the biggest and more visible casualties of the neighborhood’s decline is West Gate Elementary School. I had only been in the school twice when it was open. Once when my sister was a student there, and another time when my aunt was member of the church that sprang up after it was retired by the district. Walking by there, many of the windows are boarded up or broken. One can look through a broken window and look straight up through the roof and see daylight. Walking back toward home, I passed the Baptist church. This is where my spiritual foundation was laid. It’s in use today by a Spanish speaking congregation. This is where I learned about Noah’s Ark and Jonah and the Whale in Sunday school. I went on and off until with my grandfather and then my grandmother until I moved away to college. Across the street sits the bank building where I’ve done my checking for the last twenty-five years, and where I played in the parking lot after closing time. This was a neighborhood once boot strapped by redlining, a practice now outlawed. Lines were drawn around neighborhoods on the city maps. Those in blue were the premium areas. Those in red, like the one where I was raised, were designated for minorities and the poor. If anyone bought in a redlined neighborhood, they could not get loans for home improvements. It is a practice that led to the decline of many neighborhoods. My hope is that someone else will look at this area and not see blight, but see a place for renewal and healing, as I do. I would like to see less metal buildings and more houses. Maybe even a park or some place for the community to gather, something this neighborhood has never had when I grew up here. Where many may turn a blind eye or just let this happen, I choose to do something about it. ------------ About the author Jose Galvan: I'm a 28 year old writer from Texas. I just recently got out of college, and decided to pursue freelance writing. Email: galvanj@stthom.edu Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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