The other Greenville

By Charles Sowell  

MARCH 14, 2010 11:54 a.m. (0)

Neighborhood activists are outraged it took the city of Greenville 465 days to finish work on the Spartanburg Street bridge where a young woman died in November of 2008 after her car plunged into Richland Creek.

Shedreaka Davis was injured on Nov. 12, 2008, and died five days later. The city’s slow response is seen as typical of the indifference toward the Greenline – Spartanburg area by some in the community.

City Manager Jim Bourey said city crews addressed safety issues with the bridge within days of the accident and that the final refurbishment of the structure took longer than it should have because the city wanted to do the job right.

Today the bridge has stout steel guardrails to prevent another accident like the one that killed Davis. Pictures of the bridge from before the accident show two thin steel handrails for pedestrian traffic but nothing to ensure safety for cars crossing Richland Creek at a sharp curve in the road.

David Mitchell, a community activist who grew up in the neighborhood, sees the bridge work that was completed quickly less than a mile upstream in the far more affluent Mohawk Drive area and wonders about the city’s priorities.

The city spent $1.6 million replacing culverts and bridges at Bennett, Mohawk and Chick Springs, according to city budget figures for fiscal year 2008-’09.

Work on the Spartanburg Street bridge cost the city about $25,000, said Phil Lindsay, Greenville city engineer. A final figure is not available because flashers and signage must still be installed.

“It seems like the city’s concerns stop at the North Church Street bridge over Stone Avenue,” Mitchell said.

Residents of Spartanburg-Greenline believe issues of North Main area residents like the Waffle House controversy gather more coverage than the death of a young black woman, a home invasion, or a drive by shooting in what has historically been a tough section of town.

The people most likely to work in a Waffle House would probably come from Greenline – Spartanburg, or a neighborhood like it.

“We don’t have a baseball field to drive economic development in our part of town,” said the Rev. Tony Boyce of Mount Emmanuel Baptist Church referring to the amount of money and work put in by the city to refurbish the West End. “Our claim to fame here is we’re located behind the Law Enforcement Center.”

Greenline also doesn’t have a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district to fund redevelopment like Viola Street and the West End do, city officials say.

Money must come from city capital improvement funds or from grants and the scarcity of those funds have been the biggest hindrance to redeveloping the 130-acre neighborhood.

Jil Littlejohn, who represents the area on council, said the city’s progress has been slow, but significant in Greenline.“We’ve had to do things as money became available,” she said

Greenline – Spartanburg’s roots are sunk firmly into the era following the Civil War when blacks started settling along the steep sides of ravines that form the banks of streams that eventually flow into the Reedy River in Cleveland Park.

The neighborhood rests on land others have found too challenging to develop in a roughly triangular area bordered by Wade Hampton, Stone Avenue, East North Street and Harrington Avenue.

The neighborhood’s saving grace, so far as its poor residents have been concerned, is easy access to work in more affluent areas of town.

Funding for Greenline – Spartanburg revitalization through May of last year totaled $1.3 million out of a total city budget for revitalization of $7.2 million.

In the city’s 2001 Greenline – Spartanburg Neighborhood Revitalization plan costs for phase one were put at $4 million and phase two at more than $10 million.

Ginny Stroud, the city’s urban redevelopment chief, said costs for implementing the plan have gone up in the intervening years. But work has started on a variety of projects in the neighborhood using non-profits and grant money to leverage funds put in by the city.

“I can tell you that we, the people who have lived in the neighborhood all of our lives, are pleased with the city’s efforts,” said Mary Cleveland, a power in the neighborhood association. “Most of the ones who are complaining don’t live here now (even though they may have in the past) or have never lived here.”

Work is ongoing on several projects that come under the umbrella of the revitalization plan, Stroud said.

A tour of the projects found a community of senior citizen duplex rental housing going up along a tributary to Richland Creek at Hollywood Circle.

The duplexes will provide affordable housing for seniors in the hopes that the neighborhood will be able to retain its older citizens, said Harold Carey of the non-profit Greenville Housing Futures.

After the project moves into the next phase there will be a street connection between the lower and upper ends of the neighborhood, said Stroud.

The city plans to build a bridge connecting Chestnut Street on the Greenline side with Hollywood Circle on the Spartanburg side.

“We used to use paths we made though the bushes at the creek to get from one side to the other,” Cleveland said. “This new bridge will be a good thing for those of us who are getting older. We’ll be able to drive from one side to the other.”

Phase one will see 12 units coming online in six buildings in a few weeks, Carey said.

Mary Atwood, 62, who lives at 58 Spartanburg St., hasn’t been able to take advantage of those new senior housing units going up within sight the tiny home where she sublets a room.

Neat on the outside, the house reeks of kerosene on the inside. There are strips of peeling paint hanging from the ceiling and walls and holes in the ceiling of the living room. “I worry about it (lead-based paint) getting into my food,” Atwood said.

Her house is located directly across the street from Hollywood Circle and adjacent to the parking lot of the Hellums Community Center, a focus of community activity and a zone of safety for neighborhood children.

Crime is another concern of Boyce, but statistics from the police department for show the area has come a long way since it was one of the city’s roughest drug areas.

In 2009, police department statistics show, there were 39 reportable crimes and no killings.

“Frankly, there hasn’t been the same kind of crime problem in Greenline as I’ve seen in Nicholtown since I’ve been on council,” Littlejohn said. “You could drive through on one street over there (in Nicholtown) and genuinely feel threatened.”