Sunday, October 25, 2009

Drug-o-topia Continues To Spiral Downward...

Photo By John Hoff, with Hawthorne Hawman's Camera

I've written previously about Jeff Skrenes' former address at 2218 Lyndale Ave. N., a place we nicknamed "Drug-o-topia." Jeff lived there for a while but left because, well, it's not good for a neighborhood housing director to live at a property where drug dealing is taking place. (Click here for details about Jeff's evacuation)

The property fell upon even harder times after Jeff left and...

...one of the scummy occupants was arrested for (allegedly) being involved with meth, click here. (I guess Jeff giving his downstairs neighbors his old couch didn't exactly turn their lives around, but at least I didn't have to carry that son-of-a-b**** up the stairs)

Anyway...

In the past month or so the property has been condemned for lack of utilities. I took this picture in early September with Jeff's camera, (sharing our gear in the revitalization struggle, all band-of-brothers-like) but the image only recently came back into my hands when I downloaded Jeff's camera after the Peace Ball, click here for video of that event.

Seeing this image of 2218 Lyndale Ave. N., I thought it might be useful to do this little post, just to keep documenting the long, slow, agonizing descent of this property.

I should point out the place is very nice inside, with wonderful old woodwork. If 2218 Lyndale Ave. N. comes on the market, hopefully some revitalization-minded person will snap it up. Even Jeff Skrenes himself has thought about how nice it would be to own "2218," despite living through some of the worst times the property has experienced in (probably) more than a century of existence.


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