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| Spring
cleaning: Neighborhood Green and Clean volunteers
in Arbor Hill. By John Whipple |
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Clean
Spirit
Despite
the soggy weather, a handful of citizens armed with rakes
and shovels took to a vacant lot on Third Street in Arbor
Hill Saturday to kick off this year’s Neighborhood Green and
Clean program.
The two-year-old program, funded by Arbor Hill Development
Corporation, looks to enlist volunteers from within the community
to beautify some of the neighborhood’s more blighted areas.
“The
idea is to get people to take pride in where they live,” said
Yacob Williams, the project’s coordinator. “It is especially
important for people involved in illegal activities to do
something to benefit the community instead of taking away
from it.”
Saturday’s program took place in front of a mural, one of
three painted by Williams last year in Arbor Hill. The mural—a
towering, winged black angel with hands clasped in prayer—overlooks
the vacant lot on the corner of North Swan and Third streets,
and was commissioned by a number of community groups as part
of a neighborhood beautification project last year.
Williams said he’d like to develop one project for Arbor Hill
every month, and eventually open the program up to other neighborhoods
as well. He’d also like to try and incorporate the arts into
the program, and is looking for building owners in the neighborhood
to donate wall space for future mural projects.
“Jack
[Yacob] has been wonderful about getting people involved in
the community and getting people to start to take some stewardship
and care about what their neighborhood looks like,” said AHDC
executive director Susan Wright.
Though the program lost some funding this year, down to $3,800
from $4,000, Wright said she’d like the program to continue
at last year’s level by enlisting volunteers and soliciting
donations.
Last year, Neighborhood Green and Clean initiatives planted
28 trees and placed flower planters on Clinton Avenue. Similar
cleanup projects will be held throughout Arbor Hill over the
summer.
Wright said a florist in Hudson Falls recently donated a number
of flower planters that she’d like to place where Henry Johnson
Boulevard, Ten Broeck Place, Lark and Swan streets intersect
Clinton Avenue.
—Travis
Durfee
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& Opinions
