Photo and blog post by John HoffThe white-painted brick house at 3201 4th St. N. has been vacant for as long as I can remember, and up until about a year ago it was the frequent target of squatters, including one notorious fellow who was well known for acts of defecation. (I hesitate to mention his name and call his spirit forth) When somebody put about a dozen nails in the door frame that helped keep the crackheads out for, gee, more than two years, now.
The house was in tough shape inside, but didn't look too bad from the outside. In fact, there is a sturdy wooden porch constructed in the past few years, it would appear. The house sits on the corner of 4th St. N. and Lowry Ave. N. It's more than a century old if it's a day. Online city records say the house is owned by Adrience Lance-Lucas of 6622 St Abernathy Dr SE Mableton, GA 30126.
Recently, a demolition notice hit the door. It's unbelievable how many buildings are going down, how rapidly everything is changing in North Minneapolis. This house sits on the periphery of the Hawthorne EcoVillage, though not inside the EcoVillage and actually in the McKinley Neighborhood, not Hawthorne. All the same, its demolition will represent progress in the EcoVillage area...though a sad, heart-rending progress.
We need renovation, not demolition. Every time something is scheduled to be demolished or actually gets demolished, I will say it, and I will keep saying it: As much as demolishing crappy buildings seems to help the neighborhood, it is a brutal fix: like cutting infected flesh off a limb. We can only carry this so far before we lose more than we gain.
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