ABULAFIA






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There are so many places, and they are all right here, in the same place. * write this from my house, from my second floor desk, at the front of the 1893 Italianate I have lived in for the past five years. Protecting my place has a different meaning tonight, as my car sits in its garage, at the back of the house, with a bullet hole through the garage door and through the front bumper and through the radiator and possibly beyond. The neighborhood is an old one, immediately east of Columbus’ downtown. Before the interstates tore through in an immense destruction of place (houses upon houses demolished; streets, connections, sidewalks severed; deep trenches filled with speed, noise, and exhaust ripped through the gaping void), it was part of the “Silk Stocking” district, home to the grand houses of the city’s elite. Now, it is home to a very heavy concentration of dedicated Section 8 (low income, government-subsidized) housing, and pockmarked by properties small and large that can, by deed restriction, never be utilized for anything else. The participants in last night’s shooting both emerged from an apartment in the Section 8 complex across the alley from my backyard. Conservationists wish to protect the historic architecture, and the feel of a neighborhood with small commercial stores right up against the sidewalk where walking can accomplish more than just “exercise.” One of the principal streets, Bryden Road, is governed by a Historic District code; homeowners must request permission for nearly every alteration -- even to repaint in the exact same color. Most of the rest of the area is ungoverned by any restrictions, and beautiful, unique structures are often lost to expediency and ugly, unremarkable replacements. Or vacant, neglected lots of weeds and overgrowth. Not everyone is a conservationist. Other people, such as an African-American artist residing for many years on Bryden Road, don’t accept the historic district code, believing that it is used not to protect, but to destroy their place, their neighborhood, and make it anew in someone else’s vision. White flight had left this a predominantly African-American neighborhood by the 1960s. Columbus has a German Village, an Italian Village and a Victorian Village, but there is no African Village; mandates focused on 1900 seem to debase, if not ignore, the history of the area under its later, African-American residents. Some want to protect the diversity of the area, and worry that the continued renovation of historic homes will drive up property values and displace the poorer residents, college students, and artists. These people are renovating themselves, but were drawn to the area by the many divergent experiences it encompasses and wonder if it is possible to retain that breadth even as it seems that the barriers to entry, in the form of income and wealth, may rise and rise. To anyone hit by crime and reminded of fear, as I was last night, that continued renovation seems less certain than before. (I attend Blockwatch meetings -- I know that there are problems and dangers and guns and vicious dogs nearby. They have never come so close.) There is very little left to protect in terms of businesses. The Main Street Business Association has determined that in order to attract them back to its boarded up storefronts (there are not very many that aren’t boarded up), the area must have more residents with incomes above the poverty level; this assessment appears to be in line with U.S. Housing and Urban Development guidelines which discourage high concentrations of low income housing. Should someone worry that so many factors conspire to keep so much Section 8 housing in this neighborhood that its viability to businesses is compromised? Should someone worry that these high concentrations might preclude a safe, economically viable community? An active religious organization, BREAD, comprised by Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations, wants to protect the availability of low income housing. BREAD is concerned by housing codes, including historic districts, which drive the cost of homes ever higher. Some Columbus suburbs mandate such large lot sizes and expensive siding materials that the working poor are excluded from residence by the cost of building within these cities. In historic districts, materials required for period accuracy (multi-paned windows, prohibition of chainlink fences) can add considerably to the cost of maintenance. BREAD has also aggressively lobbied the city of Columbus to tear down vacant houses to prevent their use in drug crimes, leading to conflict with conservationists. (Above) Police tape across the alley next to my house marks the area as a "rough" part of town.** love this neighborhood. I love the diversity. I love the very different people I can meet just by walking down the street -- a man from the homeless shelter around the corner to a university president to a local artist. I love the people who want to make it better. It has color and texture (right now (though not usually) it strikes me as a “rough” neighborhood; perhaps see the “Photographing Place” topic for this fortnight) and history, and has been shaped by so many amazing and individual people I can never know. Each house on each street was one in birth, and has grown more individual through its age and the habitation of the people who have lived inside its walls. The physical imminence of Columbus’ history is worth protecting. Affordable housing is worth protecting. Interesting and individual architecture is worth protecting. A living neighborhood is worth protecting. But tonight my thoughts of this individual place are shaped by: Who wants a house with a bullet hole in the garage door? Who wants to live in a house, fearful that the next bullet may tear through something living, something less easily dismissed than a garage door? I am getting married next July. We will live in this house together. The room we have tentatively planned for her study is 10 feet above the bullet hole. This neighborhood, this place, is worth protecting -- it is worth finding and working out compromises between the many different people who find it their home and their place and want to protect that sense. But I will need a home that will protect us. Once that sense of security is breached, it can be very difficult to get back. -- John.

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