Longtime JNS blog readers are familiar with what happens when JNS blog announces an obsession about an unsightly eyesore in the community.
FIRST, I assign some kind of cruel-but-catchy nickname.
(OK, well, cruel. Catchy happens sometimes, not always)
THEN I won't shut up about the issue until the problem is solved. There is a list of community eyesores this blog has successfully tackled over the years. With the exception of...
...slumlord Keith Reitman's ugly "Blue Twins," I'll avoid mentioning those other issues because, well, those issues have been solved. There was an implicit-yet-unenforceable promise in my blogging that once the issue was SOLVED, I would MOVE ON and not keep raising a stink.
That would be Step Three.
If the responsible parties solve the problem and I will step over the metaphorical omelette-made-of-broken-eggs and blog about other issues.
I also like to let readers pick my next obsessive blogging project. Usually I can name a handful of issues in the community deserving of special attention, and then inevitably it turns out readers know about even more issues and we all have a great discussion.
Well, this time I'm sorry to let readers know...
THE FIX IS IN. Yes, I'm taking nominations, but unless there's a smoking volcano into which small children have been falling for years, and it turns out I missed it somehow, I am poised to blog obsessively about this sorry graffiti mess at 2719 Lyndale Ave. North beginning six days from today. I have not yet picked out a cruel and oddly adhesive nickname for the place, but be assured it will be a play on Neighborhood Housing Service Minneapolis.
This house has been condemned since 2009. I remember being on its sad exterior in 2010, when I took a picture of a little toy car left in the snow to test the "close up" capability of my current camera. The house is owned by Neighborhood Housing Service Minneapolis which undertook, with a bit of fanfare, to be responsible for this wonderful old house prominently located upon the main thoroughfare of Lyndale Ave. N.
Instead, there has been ZERO progress since 2009 (not counting talking, making excuses about lack of money, and time consuming shuffling of papers) and now the building is slathered in graffiti as pictured above. Complaints are being aired upon North Talk Facebook forum (a somewhat less nutty forum of late, God knows how) about NHS being unresponsive, uncommunicative and accomplishing virtually nothing with this house in half a decade.
Word is being aired upon the same forum of a promise the graffiti will be cleaned up in a week. JNS blog hopes so, but a promise to clean up graffiti in a week doesn't exactly whitewash the glaring fact NHS has allowed this nice house to languish since 2009.
Information online would tend to indicate 2719 Lyndale Ave. N. was once owned by somebody named A.E. Rydlun who was a contractor circa 1908 to 1921.
I wonder how long it would have taken A.E. Rydlun, the former owner of this house, to clean up this mess? Hours, I imagine, not days.
Since the taxpayer address for NHS listed on Henn Cty property tax website is 1501 Dupont Av N - which is owned by Steven & Christa Berg, people should probably ask Steven & Christa.
ReplyDeleteHow about the god-awful stucco gas station on Broadway and Emerson (?) Every window covered over, no actual sign, filthy, announcing they now have diesel since probably 2009?
ReplyDeleteNHS used to have their office in a house located at 1501 Dupont Ave N. A very nice house that reportedly NHS did much of the excellent rehab work on. They sold it and moved elsewhere. I suspect The Bergs are the new owners of 1501 Dupont and have nothing to do with NHS other than being the buyers of a property the organization sold.
ReplyDelete