University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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East
St. Louis Action Research Project
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
|
Virginia Place and adjacent neighborhoods
-- open suburban sense-of-place
Photos Robert Selby
Poss Summer Studio Project - pavilion
for Virginia Park
Virginia Park Photos Jeffrey
Poss
Mix of housing types - new, old; single
and multi-family
Mix of neighborhood conditions - delapidated
homes and active industry
Springfield
Neighborhood Image
Alta Sita is predominately green, with
a surrounding donut of potential green space.
Presence of trash concentrated in periphery
of neighborhood.
"The old people leave and the houses are vacant. Nobody takes care of them."
"The day care center is good but expensive."
"Older population, quieter, houses not kept up, more transitory population, fewer home owners."
"Relationships in ESL- everyone knows everyone and everyone's related to each other"
"People don’t visit with each other as much."
"Pollution has gummed up the soil and created bad air"
"Deteriorated gradually-older people died-no community anymore."
"The city's like a "big toilet, big dirty toilet, with a couple fo clean specks."
"You can't see the nice homes in the overall dirty city."
"Fixing street lights is a problem, you have to go out and read the little number off the top of the light, then report it to the city, and then the city calls the company to come fix it, (I) had to use binoculars to read the number."
"The street floods too when the drain isn't clear. We don't all get flooded, not all of the neightbors get flooded at the same time, it's like one house at a time, and there's no sewer cleaning services."
"They need to work - there are a lot of people just patting each other on the back saying good job, but nothing is getting done."
"On this side of Bond it's not so bad, but on the other side it's really bad."
"A lot of the homes are American Bottoms owned, so they should maintain and pay taxes for them, but they don't. Their name is on the title after a lien was put on the property. "
"(We were) the first black family, on Market (St) 44-45 years."
"Loss of commercial businesses - grocery store 29th and market, "smell of fresh bread" bakery, drug store."
"Once white and black, now all black."
"Better now: First moved here it was a white neighborhood in 7-19-56. Blacks moved in and whites moved out."
"Lower taxes; cut trees and clear fields."
"Supervise the neighborhood (no uppity people)."
House damaged in 1970 railroad explosion, "I thought it was Judgement Day."
"Railroad blast: blew houses down, railroad moved and trees grew, dead bodies thrown in overgrown lot, don't maintain the lot."
"29th Street businesses gone-groceries, barber,bakery,hardware."
"No more apartments or duplexes; keep up with the old style of Virginia Park; build from original footprints and styles; hopes Metro-Link gets expanded ( a branch to Cahokia) sub station in Fairview and more buses to Fairview."
"School system has not changed for the better, when there was neighborhood schools kids didn’t (grade school) have to go far away."
"No one watches the park. There used to be a watcher."
"Street- huge holes in street when large vehicles went over it, shook house and cause damage."
"Neighborhood children tore down property - the beauty has been lost."
