The Mural Project

I've been asked to talk a bit about a mural we're doing in our Upper Monroe Neighborhood and how it's affected our block. In order to do that, I think it's best to give a little background on how it all came to be. This is gonna be a little long bu here goes:

My wife, Nori, and I moved to Suter Terrace in May, 2005. Suter Terrace is a one-block long one-way street off Monroe Ave. We were happy to find the house, really liked it as soon as we saw it and liked what we saw of the neighborhood. To be honest, we didn't see much since we bought the house in February and the snow and cold kept people inside. Once we moved in, we learned the block had about 30 kids on it, most of them under 10 years old. We also learned there were some tensions simmering not too far below the surface. By August of 2005, those tensions had stopped simmering had boiled over. By that September, Nori and I were seriously talking about moving. We're glad we stayed. Most of the time, anyway.

Most of the problems really revolved around kids being, well, kids. There are no backyards in our neighborhood. I often marvel at the size of yards on other streets in Upper Monroe; it's like the builders ran out of room and crammed in as many houses as possible on Suter, Luzerne and Laburnam. Anyway, without any backyards, the kids are really forced to play in the street. The nearest playground is a few blocks away and Cobb's Hill even further. Most parents don't want their kids to go that far by themselves. So we have a lot of kids on the block, there's no place for them to play except for the sidewalk or street. This is a recipe for noise. Differences about what is an acceptable level of noise, about cursing, about playing football in the street and about other things led to some serious shouting matches between neighbors. This led to worse feelings and by mid-summer, regular police visits and some arrests.

I don't remember exactly how it happened but we got in touch with the NET Office on Clinton Ave. Pete Saxe, the director there, and Lt. Frank Churnetski were invaluable in setting up community meetings and bringing in other people to try and help diffuse the situation here. My feeling from the beginning was that most of the problems on the block were relatively minor-league and that the majority of people on the block wanted the same simple thing--a block that was safe, quiet (relatively) and clean. I really thought we could bring the block together. And through the meetings, we did for the most part. There were, and are, a couple of families on both sides of the issue that want nothing to do with the things we're doing to solve the conflicts. You can't please everyone. But most of us are working together to make this block and the surrounding block better places to live.

Those initial meetings led to weekly block clean-ups, participation in Clean Sweep, three block parties and planting a Children's Garden on a narrow strip of land adjacent to the sound wall on Laburnam Crescent. That garden started as a mix of flowers and vegetables and this year is being transformed in a Butterfly Garden that will be part of the Seneca Park Zoo's Butterfly Beltway next year.

So what about this mural? Well, I was walking past the garden last winter and suddently realized it'd be a great place for a mural. I contacted Shawn Dunwoody, a muralist, and applied for the United Way's Neighborhood Mini-grant and we got it. We had kids get together in April for a discussion about what they wanted the mural to be and also to talk about the neighborhood. They decided on the overall design and, over the course of the summer, painted their own little sections of the mural. We had about 20 kids participate with 11 0r 12 coming regularly. The United Way named this project the "Conflict Resolution Mural" and we've left it at that. I don't know if the kids will figure out a different name but that one's fine with me. And it's fitting. Toward the end of the project, we were meeting in New Life Church and one day only two kids showed up and none of them were from Suter Terrace. Turns out there had been a fight the night before and there were some bad feelings on the block. I didn't learn about it until I went knocking on doors to find kids. There were now two angry groups of kids and no one was much interested in the mural. I was really down and thought not only that the mural was sunk but that I was being unrealistic about the neighborhood getting much better.

I talked with the two groups individually and they agreed to talk to each other. Sitting for awhile on a front porch, the kids talked (I mostly stayed out of the way) and realized they weren't really angry at each other but at someone else who'd caused trouble. I thought that things had been patched up and went away feeling better. That night, there was another fight and I brought in my friend and neighbor, Johnny (who's a lot younger than me and great with the kids) to talk with them. Over the course of a couple of days we both talked with the groups individually and things really settled down. I don't know if the garden, the mural or block parties helped with this but I do know that without those things, there's no way I would have felt comfortable talking with the kids. And I do think all of these things helped because all of them got kids and adults together. It gave people a chance to get to know each other and work together in different ways.

The mural has been great for the neighborhood. We had excellent participation, the parents are completely supportive and we're all excited about putting it in. One of my favorite stories is from Karen, one of the parents here. We were talking about the mural and she said, "I don't know what's going on but Shika and Zay just looked at each other, said something about the mural and gave each other high fives." There's a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Shawn's putting the finishing touches on the mural and it will be installed in a couple of weeks. The unveiling is September 29 at 2:00. We're expecting a pretty big crowd. It's a chance for us to show off our work and our neighborhood, a chance to bring even more people together. I'll post some more blogs over the next few weeks but I don't want to leave anyone with the idea that we're now this perfect block that's all nice and quiet and clean and where everyone gets along. We still have work to do. The block can be neglected for periods of time and trash builds up. The noise sometimes gets to be a bit too much and there is still the occasional argument between neighbors. But, you know what? For the most part, we can talk to each other now. As imperfect as it is, it's a real neighborhood where you know everyone. I love walking down the street and saying hello to everyone, hearing kids from half a block away yelling out my name or when Angel comes running after me to say hello. As Johnny told me last week, he drives down the street and the kids are all calling out to him. "I never been in a neighborhood like that before." If that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Joseph