I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighbourhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets. ~ Longfellow

Houses like these abound in my neighborhood. And they can be had for a (relative) song.



Some of them are in terrific shape; some of them need work. Some of them were carved up into rental units and are being restored to single-family homes.



Some of them were owned by old people who did not have the money or ability to keep them up.



Some of them used to be crack houses. (When my neighbors gutted their first floor, they found spent syringes and crack vials under the floorboards.) We got incredibly lucky, when my year-and-a-half of real estate trolling, greatly taxing my agent’s patience, paid off and we found our big old house – and it was the bargain of the century. It does need work but the infrastructure is pretty solid and it still has most of its original mantels, moldings, and leaded glass, not to mention a fabulous staircase and plenty of bathrooms.

We are within easy walking distance of a beautiful 500-acre city park, with several playgrounds, a public swimming pool, tennis courts, trails, and a reservoir at the top of it all.



The uncovered reservoir is a mile around so if I run up to the park, around the res, and back down, I can get in a healthy workout. The entrance to the park was refurbed this year; it sports a multi-pool fountain, surrounded by benches, and lovely flower beds full of tulips, daffodils, lilies, and other glorious flora spring and summer.



The park backs onto the city zoo - you can sometimes hear the lions roaring, or catch sight of a stray peacock wandering the hills the encircle the park. There are always runners, walkers, cyclists, skaters…sometimes people practicing tai chi…lots of kids and moms.

















Primo’s preschool is half a block away, in the church we have recently started attending. St. Andrew’s is very community-oriented and sponsors all kinds of groups, among them AA, OA, the community council, and Meals on Wheels; in addition to offering various music recitals and lectures open to the public. It’s a lovely old stone church with beautifully-maintained stained glass and woodwork, and a pretty churchyard full of trees and flowers.



The neighborhood coffee shop is one of my favorite places.



We know most of the staff – they give my boys cookies and extra whipped cream on their hot chocolates. I send them a Christmas photo-card of the boys; it is on the shop fridge. The owner is active in the community, hosting debate-watching parties, forums with elected officials, and Q-and-A sessions with political candidates. They maintain a rotating art show featuring mostly local artists; I purchased a delicate and wonderful watercolor gelee print there last year as Dan’s anniversary gift. I am a regular there, and it’s nice to see the other regulars. I run into other moms, friends from school and church, neighbors; it’s easy to strike up conversation with random strangers there – it’s a very friendly place. And the coffee and food are good.

There are funky apartment buildings.



There's a little “main street” with a convenience store, a auto shop, a bakery/cooking store, an Indian restaurant, a pizza place (worst pizza I have ever had, like ketchup on matzoh, but still…), a high-end French restaurant, and a community center type place where I take yoga classes.

There’s a neighborhood listserv, for event announcement, want ads, community awareness, and public safety issues. There’s a house tour every fall, a harvest festival, weekly guided walks on the trails in the park.

The Union Project is the restoration of an old church building smack in the middle of the neighborhood, run by a group of young Mennonites. They offer stained glass restoration classes - a clever way to raise money and get the dozens of original windows rebuilt fairly cheaply, selling Christmas trees at the holidays, hosting several church groups and community organizations. They plan another coffee shop and offices and meeting rooms in the space when it’s ready. It will serve as an anchor in the neighborhood and I believe the activity will also serve as a check on some of the less savory activities occurring on that corner right now.

I enjoy the people: my next-door neighbor who will call from the grocery store to see if I need any of the “sale” bananas; the teenager who lives right up the street who watches my kids; the crazy guy who lives on the corner with his crazier sister and can be found on any given morning throwing tennis balls at the stop sign and who shovels the snow out of his backyard in the winter; the 90-year-old man who lives across the street and who goes out walking every single morning (rumor has it that even at age 90, he employs an escort service now and again…ahem…); our priest who lives down the street and walks by every morning, lunchtime, and evening; the super-organized woman who lives down the alley, who just had her fourth baby and home-schools the other three; the delightfully loony couple we met on the house tour and who spent several hours at our house one evening drinking beer and discussing religion.

I’ve gotten to know other moms I see out walking with their children, I say hello almost daily to a friendly daycare caravan of kids whose caretaker always jokes about the number of charges I am herding, I have met lots of dogs, out with their owners: Vishnu, who frequently sports a fruit-sticker bindi and whose owner plays with the symphony; Alex and Magic, who walk with a former prof of mine who always stops to chat and let the boys pet her dogs; Ginger, a Shih Tzu I met for the first time yesterday when her owner stopped to admire the baby. There’s also a neighborhood cat, Socks, who lounges by day in the churchyard and some nights sits on my back porch and yowls at Emmy.

People here are socially aware and active, they watch out for their neighbors and keep an eye on the street activity. They run the political gamut. They vote.



There are students, families with kids, lots of professors, musicians and artists, people who have lived here for fifty years and people who just moved in. We all are excited by the vibrancy and potential of the neighborhood.