For as long as
I've lived in Jacksonville, there has been talk of a Springfield
revival.
It was always easy to understand why. The streets of Springfield
were full of splendid old homes in various stages of disrepair,
homes that with a little money and a lot of imagination and sweat
could be turned into show houses.
But for most of the last 25 years, the people who believed in
Springfield's future seemed to be losing the battle to the hookers
and the drug dealers and the slumlords.
But these days Springfield, especially along Laura and Silver and
Pearl streets, is undergoing a metamorphosis. On those streets, the
homes that have been restored or are under restoration seem to
outnumber the homes that are being allowed to fall apart.
Which is why I attached symbolic importance to what I saw
happening Monday afternoon. A couple of professional artists, Lee
Harvey and Ryan Rummel, along with several teenagers, were hard at
work in the side yard of one of those splendid old Springfield
buildings, putting paint on steel cans and sheets of plywood.
The cans will go on Main Street as trash cans. The sheets of
plywood, which carry an anti-littering message, will serve as murals
decorating any business willing to display them. They are part of
the Trashbusters program, a joint effort by Springfield Preservation
and Restoration and The Bridge, a comprehensive agency for youth and
their families that is headquartered on Pearl Street. The teens
working with Rummel and Harvey to create the colorful trash cans and
murals are part of The Bridge's after-school program.
Trashbusters was organized by Rita Reagan, who obtained a $5,000
grant to fund the program. Like me, Reagan, who has lived in
Springfield for almost 10 years and used to be the executive
director of SPAR, sees Trashbusters as a small symbol of what is
happening in Springfield.
What is happening is that private efforts like the work of
developer Craig Van Horn, whose restoration of a couple of blocks of
Laura Street seemed to trigger the Springfield revival, is meshing
with the work of organizations like SPAR.
Meanwhile, the city has begun committing resources to
Springfield. Next fall the city will begin a beautification of Main
Street. A similar program is planned along Eighth Street.
Eventually, the two programs will meet at Eighth and Main, the
symbolic center of Historic Springfield.
Half-a-block south of that intersection, Harvey isng a new
art gallery on Main Street, just one more piece of the Springfield
revival. And in June, SPAR is planning to hold a day-long festival
in Klutho Park, the first festival there in nine years. The city has
even agreed to turn on the water and fix up the rest rooms in the
park, Reagan said.
Not that everything is perfect in Springfield. Crime still
happens. Sometimes it is bloody and tragic, like the recent shooting
of an infant, which took place within the formal boundaries of
Springfield, though not within the Historic District.
Sometimes the crimes are just annoying. Last week, Rummel left
several completed murals under the bandstand at Klutho Park so the
paint could dry. Somebody stole them.
Charlie Patton's column appears on Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday. Contact him at cpatton
or .
