Major Progress On The Block

Photo by John Hoff, exterior of the former "Johnny A's" bar

A lot happened around the block today, and most of it happened right in front of a reporter from a local online magazine. To start with...

Fare Thee Well, Scary Little Garage

The burned and graffiti adorned "gang garage" behind 3112 6th Street North has been bulldozed. Nothing was there but dirt and tire treads. I really will have to go back there some time soon and scatter "Mountain Meadow Mix" perennial seed.

A few hours later, I saw Cameron Lake (Kathy's pimp) standing on the sidewalk looking toward where the garage used to be, appearing forlorn, crestfallen, dismayed, shocked, surprised, disbelieving and (most of all) woebegone.

I wish I had managed to snap a picture.

Broken Into, Unsecured, and Some Ugly Lavatory Issues

The real estate agent for 415 30th Avenue North called me back from my message on Friday. I had been checking to make sure 20 young gang members didn't have permission to be sitting in the yard and going back and forth in the house freely. (I know which gang it was based on some graffiti left there, but in line with the city's policy I will not give them recognition by naming them on my blog) As I suspected, there was really no reason for 20 youth to be congregating in the yard and if I saw somebody there again, I should please call 911.

The real estate agent promised to get the place secured tomorrow. He gave me permission to take the reporter inside. I was pleased to learn the house was a steal at $13,500. This was exactly the kind of fantastic North Side buyer's market I had been trying to emphasize to the reporter. Buy in and secure the block! Bring all your hip, educated, upwardly mobile friends!

Anyway, the front door was kicked in and somebody had used the toilet despite the water being turned off, the smell wafting throughout the house. The house is a duplex, and the upstairs had been breached, also, but the upstairs door was still able to lock. I had the reporter pull the door shut behind him.

"Now you're Johnny Northside!" I told him.

Evictions At The House of Pookie

Pookie's story that she was leaving because the neighborhood had turned bad doesn't wash anymore, not when a guy from Claude Worrel shows up at 407 30th Avenue North and slaps an eviction order on the door. Clearly, Pookie had mortgage issues.

It was pretty cool to see him slapping official paper on the door. I'm totally into all the official paper, but this was the first time I'd actually seen it slapped up. So it was kind of like being an avid coin collector and touring the U.S. Mint.

I asked if he minded if I took his picture. He asked where it would appear. I told him. I said I only planned to say positive things. He posed by Pookie's red door, obligingly. I'm getting those pictures developed. Today I shot up my last roll of "old school" film, and from now on it's digital all the way with my sweet new "corporate sponsorship" camera.

Progress At "Water World"

I don't have the exact address...maybe it is 412 30th Avenue North? It has never been an issue before. I was familiar with the house from back when I was looking at various properties, getting ready to buy. The basement at 3 feet of water in it because copper thieves had made off with the water meter, so after I heard that I always called the place "Water World."

In fact, I would call the real estate agent, offer various nominal sums, referring to the place as "Water World." I think I even got the real estate agent calling it that. I was so pleased when I walked around the block and learned the magical, mystical "Water World" was part of my block. Could Kevin Costner as Johnny Northside be far behind?

Anyway, somebody bought the place. A motivated and responsible work crew was there today, and a foreman on site spoke to me when I explained I was "sort of the unofficial Block Watch around here." As I said to the reporter, "Block Watch in every way except official title."

The foreman told me they pumped 3 feet of water out of the place and "pressure washed" the basement. I asked how much fun that job was and he said, "A blast." He said the plan is to fix the place up and "throw it on the market for 60 days."

Crackdown At Crack-O-Topia (3101 6th Street North)

I had the reporter pose next to the garbage pile behind the Apartment Complex of Anarchy when we began our tour. Toward the end of our tour, the "sanitation special forces" had arrived. I asked one of the sanitation guys if he'd mind posing for a picture. He said, "We aren't supposed to be in no pictures."

I understand. Their work is highly classified. I'm sure the pictures I took at 416 30th represented a serious security breach. Heads must have rolled.

Not only did the garbage get cleaned up there today, but I saw three squad cars there, involved in what appeared something of a roust or evacuation. Word on the street is some of the folks from 3101 6th Street North were trying to make arrangements to live nearby. At some point, I saw police hauling away three young black teens in the back of a squad car. While I waited in front of Bangkok Market for the reporter, police stopped a car on Lyndale. A man and a woman walked up from the direction of 3101 6th Street.

"Yeah, they stopped 'em," she said, so I assumed the vehicle in question had been associated with 3101 6th Street a moment before. The reporter pulled up in the middle of this madness. He said it had been calm and quiet all the way up Lyndale Avenue North, then he got to my block and squad cars were everywhere. I figured what he was articulating verbally would find its way into ink, eventually.

Anyway, in regard to 3101 6th Street North, word on the street is the management company is still trying to get a rental license. Well, I assume anything that happens after they submitted the license counts against the license, and today it looked like half the Fourth Precinct was tied up at the Apartment Complex of Anarchy, plus the Sanitation Special Forces. The city will be on firm ground denying this rental license, and I'm really hoping they see it the same way.

Was That Love Or Hate?

Late in the day, as I drove by the corner of 6th and 30th, a young black man rushed at my car, grasping his crotch in one hand. I figure he either really hates me or really likes me in a way which makes me uncomfortable. Bad news, either way.

I have spoken to two prominent Hawthorne people today--wait, make that three, another was sitting in the room and participating in the conversation--about the need to increase patrols during all hours of the day. Instead of doing patrols sporadically, off-and-on, we need to hit the block again and again like a hammer hitting a nail. We need to make legitimate 911 calls until hookers, crack dealers and squatters do not dare show their faces on the block.

Already, Cameron Lake and his pimp Kathy have moved North of Lowry, and appear to be using 3201 4th Street North as their base.

Crack House Still Open For Business

Yes, I had vowed to board up that crack house today. I actually got out of a vehicle with a board, prepared to board it up, after talking with 311. It was only, gee, April 25 when it was called in as unsecured, wide open to trespass.

So I was going to board it up as I vowed, openly, in front of a reporter. But Cameron Lake (pimp, squatter, brutal beater of Kathy the Prostitute) came walking down the sidewalk from Lyndale Avenue North, and I had to toss my board on the porch and retreat.

Oh, Big Cameron was mad. He paced, he pointed at his chest, he was saying stuff. Not sure what the stuff was, but it appeared to be along the lines of, "You got a problem with me? You want a piece of me?"

Sad little Kathy The Prostitute just sat over by Lowry and Lyndale, waiting for a car to come by so she could sell her body. All this time the building sits open, the grass is now 12 inches, a big pile of refuse is still in the back, including mattresses literally rejected by crack heads. I'd board this one up, but today discretion was the better part of valor.

At least it all went down in front of the reporter. Sitting back in the parking lot of Bangkok Market after the failed boarding attempt, I must confess...I ranted. I was unhappy with the abysmally slow 311 response, the lack of understanding in the lofty spires of City Hall about the reality of our situation on the North Side. It would be one thing if Cameron had spotted my activity and skulked away like a criminal...but instead he was filled with moral indignation, pacing like an angry pit bull in front of the house he had claimed under the "law of the streets."

Where were the police? Nowhere. I can't call 911 over a guy hanging out on a sidewalk, even if it's obvious he has claimed the house as his squat. Where is the city? After a month, their "official boards" are nowhere to be found, despite repeated 311 calls, despite posting pictures on the internet of the "crack house open for business" across from a city water works facility.

And, in a final ridiculous irony, a little sign in the weedy yard of the house urges individuals to call this number, and free themselves of drug addiction.

Sigh. However, today there was more progress on the block than lack of progress.