Fifth Avenue: Taking Back the Pride

Queenie Filey
Business Administration major, Los Angeles Trade Tech.
Queenie was born in Sarasota, Fl.

Fifth Avenue is filled with small and large trees in the residential yards. The streets are

clean and the lawns are well kept. The homes are both two story and single story, newly painted, remodeled, and children laugh and play in the yards. People speak as they pass; everyone laughs and talks to one another.

There is a church on the corner which offers a free feeding program and free clothing for the homeless on Saturdays. On weeknights the church groups sell food with a smile as you pass by, from barbeque dinners to hot tamales. Sometimes you see men pushing baskets and collecting cans and bottles to make a living.

Fifth Avenue is a place of many different cultures. We share our different food ideals from ribs to enchiladas. We invite one another to our children's or grandchildren's birthday parties. We exchange gifts to celebrate the new arrival of babies, and we offer a shoulder to cry on at the passing of a loved one. Our street does not look like Beverly Hills, but it's home for a lot of working class people and mothers who stay at home and care for their children.

But Fifth Avenue has not always been like this. There used to be drive-by shootings.

Gang members filled the streets and stood on the corners holding up gang signs as we drove by.

Drugs were sold on the corner and from some of the homes in our neighborhood. Graffiti filled the walls and every time we painted over it, someone would come and tag it again. Sometimes dead bodies were on the sidewalk to face us when we came out of church. We had not realized

that the shooting we'd just heard had actually hit a victim walking along the sidewalk. Cars were broken into, cops sped down the streets and routinely blocked them off. Police helicopters flew over our homes. Careless drivers sped down the street, unconcerned about little children or anyone's life. Gang members would sit outside of the church mocking as our congregation sang, not fearing man and offering no respect for God's house or people.

Finally, a neighborhood watch program was set up in the community and police officers came out to help us take back our community and to have pride in where we lived. People started calling the police and reporting crimes that were going on in our neighborhood. We painted over the gang infected graffiti and signed petitions to have speed bumps installed in our streets to slow down speeding cars. We began to watch for gang members and drug dealers, calling the police on any unknown suspect in the area.

The gang members eventually left because we were more determined to take back our community. Some of us started painting our homes and the apartment owners also painted their buildings. Trash was moved away from their lawns, neighbors repaired their fences, picked up paper, and began to watch out for one another.

People started speaking and talking to one another, not just speaking when folks walked by, but actually holding a conversation.

The people on Fifth Avenue have taken back what was theirs and that is pride and respect for their community. It does not matter if we do not live in Beverly Hills, we decided to make and keep up what was there. Everyone began to invest in what they had built and to take pride in it. The old two story and single story homes that once looked like no one lived there and the unkempt yards now look like someone lives there and cares!

Freshly painted and repaired fences have given the neighborhood a fresh new look. The broken down old cars full of parking tickets sitting in front of our homes were towed away. Graffiti does not stay on the walls from week to week or month to month. When it's put on, someone paints over it removing the gang member's tags.

Yes, Fifth Avenue still has some problems but not as many as it did about 5 to 6 years ago.

When I moved here from Florida, the condition of this neighborhood was a shock for someone from a small community. But the people are the same, and that's taking pride in the community where they live. A place that once looked like no one cared, where street gangs and drug dealers were taking over, now looks like a place where people care about how their community looks. Speeding cars now have to slow down. Children now play in the yard without fear of drive-by shootings, and grown men now play soccer or football in the road. Yes! Every now and then a nut drives too fast through a residential street, but for the most part, it has quieted down a whole lot.

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Page Viewed:   / Created: June 2001 / Updated: Monday, 28 May 2001