The life of a porn addicted housewife.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Losing Our History To Criminals
As you know, Ap0k and I are trying to find the perfect house. We would like either an older Tudor or Victorian home. We have looked through many neighborhoods that are full or these types of homes, but unfortunately people are allowing them to rot away. It is a huge shame that these houses are going to be lost due to crime and neglect.
What were once beautiful stately homes are now falling apart at the seams. Many of these homes still have the original woodwork and original leaded stained glass windows.
Areas that were once thought of as the best neighborhoods are now full of criminal activity.
Take these houses for example:
Each of the houses shown above is a minimum of 75 years old. Each are also in areas that are so crime ridden no one wants to even drive through anymore.
This next house is absolutely beautiful. The problem is that THIS is the house that is next to the bridge people are using for an outhouse. This house is 126 years old, and has actually had many updates recently. The entire area is full of beautiful houses, but most of them are run down and/or are split up into multi-units.
The last house I want to show you breaks my heart. Take a look at the pictures of both the exterior and interior features:
The above house is 98 years old and was part of the Frank Herschede estate. Frank Herschede owned a an award winning clock company amongst other things. The house also includes a 5 car garage and a carriage house with an apartment. By all rights you would think this house would be worth millions. Because of the direction the road this house is located on has taken the house is currently for sale for only $825,000. So far there are no takers and I highly doubt there will be. Anyone with that much money doesn’t want to live in that area anymore because it has declined so badly.
So what has happened to these areas that were once so sought after?
Times changed. It became more and more expensive to maintain these houses so people either moved away or divided the houses into apartments. It became fashionable to move to the suburbs. And of course at a certain point in time these houses were just seen as old. Of course the changes in local businesses also affected the areas. Neighborhood grocery stores closed due to the chain stores they could not fight and were replaced by gas stations and convenience stores. Local clothiers, Five and Dimes, etc closed because they could not compete with the malls. Today many of the buildings that once housed these stores sit empty and boarded up. When this happens the entire area begins to lose value and the prices of the homes drop.
Plus as everyone knows, when areas start to decline, the criminal element tends to move in.
There is a section of town here called “Over The Rhine.” At one time it was a very nice area full of grand homes and buildings. Today parts of it are so full of crime that the police have had to set up a special task force to try to clean it up. The National Historical Society recently added Over The Rhine to it’s list of the top endangered historical areas in the U.S.
Thankfully there are still some decent people living in that area that are trying to turn it around and restore it to what it once was.
What surprises me most about this area is that it is immediately adjacent to downtown. On one block you have beautiful buildings that house offices and restaurants, but on the next block there have been multiple shootings over the past few months. People are honestly afraid to drive down the roads. The police are trying to rid the area of drug dealers and prostitutes. There are homeless people everywhere you look. We drove through there the other day and I actually saw a guy peeing on a wall right alongside the road. Until people like this are totally removed from the area no one will want to move down there and restore the homes and buildings to their glory.
Moving the criminals out then poses another problem. Where do they go? From what I have heard in the news all that is really happening is that they are moving to another area of town and continuing on with their business. This is causing that area to now be worthless. The police are now starting to work on that area too thankfully. But in the end all that will happen is that the low-lifes will just move to another area and another and another until the police force is nothing more than task forces chasing them around the city.
People like Ap0k and I would give our right arms to have one of these houses, but how do you work up the nerve to buy one? People like us need to go in and buy up the houses and fix them back up. It is affordable and easy to do. The hard part is trying to figure out which area to do this in. What happens if I fork over all of my money to buy and repair one of these houses and the police don’t clean the area up? Personally, because some of these areas are so bad, I would not feel comfortable living there until it is cleaned up, if it ever is. I am just not that brave or stupid.
Something needs to be done about the criminals. Chasing them around the city is not the answer. They need to be locked up and locked up for good. They are destroying our history one neighborhood at a time. I don’t know about you, but think this is extremely sad.
Because the cost of construction has gotten so high, it is virtually impossible to replace these houses and buildings. These designs are part of our history and they are swiftly rotting away.
I wish I knew how to fix it.
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What were once beautiful stately homes are now falling apart at the seams. Many of these homes still have the original woodwork and original leaded stained glass windows.
Areas that were once thought of as the best neighborhoods are now full of criminal activity.
Take these houses for example:
Each of the houses shown above is a minimum of 75 years old. Each are also in areas that are so crime ridden no one wants to even drive through anymore.
This next house is absolutely beautiful. The problem is that THIS is the house that is next to the bridge people are using for an outhouse. This house is 126 years old, and has actually had many updates recently. The entire area is full of beautiful houses, but most of them are run down and/or are split up into multi-units.
The last house I want to show you breaks my heart. Take a look at the pictures of both the exterior and interior features:
The above house is 98 years old and was part of the Frank Herschede estate. Frank Herschede owned a an award winning clock company amongst other things. The house also includes a 5 car garage and a carriage house with an apartment. By all rights you would think this house would be worth millions. Because of the direction the road this house is located on has taken the house is currently for sale for only $825,000. So far there are no takers and I highly doubt there will be. Anyone with that much money doesn’t want to live in that area anymore because it has declined so badly.
So what has happened to these areas that were once so sought after?
Times changed. It became more and more expensive to maintain these houses so people either moved away or divided the houses into apartments. It became fashionable to move to the suburbs. And of course at a certain point in time these houses were just seen as old. Of course the changes in local businesses also affected the areas. Neighborhood grocery stores closed due to the chain stores they could not fight and were replaced by gas stations and convenience stores. Local clothiers, Five and Dimes, etc closed because they could not compete with the malls. Today many of the buildings that once housed these stores sit empty and boarded up. When this happens the entire area begins to lose value and the prices of the homes drop.
Plus as everyone knows, when areas start to decline, the criminal element tends to move in.
There is a section of town here called “Over The Rhine.” At one time it was a very nice area full of grand homes and buildings. Today parts of it are so full of crime that the police have had to set up a special task force to try to clean it up. The National Historical Society recently added Over The Rhine to it’s list of the top endangered historical areas in the U.S.
Thankfully there are still some decent people living in that area that are trying to turn it around and restore it to what it once was.
What surprises me most about this area is that it is immediately adjacent to downtown. On one block you have beautiful buildings that house offices and restaurants, but on the next block there have been multiple shootings over the past few months. People are honestly afraid to drive down the roads. The police are trying to rid the area of drug dealers and prostitutes. There are homeless people everywhere you look. We drove through there the other day and I actually saw a guy peeing on a wall right alongside the road. Until people like this are totally removed from the area no one will want to move down there and restore the homes and buildings to their glory.
Moving the criminals out then poses another problem. Where do they go? From what I have heard in the news all that is really happening is that they are moving to another area of town and continuing on with their business. This is causing that area to now be worthless. The police are now starting to work on that area too thankfully. But in the end all that will happen is that the low-lifes will just move to another area and another and another until the police force is nothing more than task forces chasing them around the city.
People like Ap0k and I would give our right arms to have one of these houses, but how do you work up the nerve to buy one? People like us need to go in and buy up the houses and fix them back up. It is affordable and easy to do. The hard part is trying to figure out which area to do this in. What happens if I fork over all of my money to buy and repair one of these houses and the police don’t clean the area up? Personally, because some of these areas are so bad, I would not feel comfortable living there until it is cleaned up, if it ever is. I am just not that brave or stupid.
Something needs to be done about the criminals. Chasing them around the city is not the answer. They need to be locked up and locked up for good. They are destroying our history one neighborhood at a time. I don’t know about you, but think this is extremely sad.
Because the cost of construction has gotten so high, it is virtually impossible to replace these houses and buildings. These designs are part of our history and they are swiftly rotting away.
I wish I knew how to fix it.
