It’s Right Up Their Alley

Gilbert Orozco and his neighbors watched the unpaved strip of land that runs behind his and six other well-kept homes turn into a junkyard. Gardeners dumped grass clippings and debris for more than five years. Children threw soda bottles into an uncovered manhole. Residents said the trash-strewn alley, a haven for gang members and homeless people, was a serious threat to their community.

“I would not let my kids run back there,” said Orozco, who lives with his wife and four children in Highland Park. “It was dirty and dangerous. People dumped trash and left abandoned cars there. We worried about drug sales and homeless people drinking further back in the alley.”

City officials agreed.

“I would say that is one of the worst alleys I’ve ever seen,” said John Hayes, spokesman for the Department of Public Works. “It was a place where residents were afraid to enter . . . a magnet for illegal dumping, drug dealing and prostitution.”

Now Orozco and his neighbors on North Avenue 49 hold the keys to a shiny green gate that blocks off the once crime-ridden alley. They are the gatekeepers to a neighborhood park that is being dedicated Saturday.

“Teenagers would light fires back there just for the fun of it,” said David Moreno, who has lived with his family of five near the alley for almost 10 years. “Bums would hang out and drink. There was a lot of bad stuff going on there. Now we’ve got the keys to a clean park.”

The park, completed in June, features picnic benches, a barbecue grill and a small brick walkway. City maintenance workers cleared the waist-high grass and weeds for jacaranda trees, jasmine bushes and other flowering plants. A lid now covers the manhole. And an eight-foot-high barbed wire fence forms a perimeter around the 450-foot-long stretch of mulch-covered land.

The park is one of 13 alleys converted as part of a citywide project that fences off “nuisance” alleys and signs them over to nearby residents for community parks. The alley reclamation project is a joint venture between the affected neighborhood, the City Council and the Department of Public Works. Each project costs an average of $12,000 to complete.

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“The alleys are now nice, clean spaces for families to have a picnic or a barbecue,” Hayes said. “Kids can run around and play. The parks have created a better quality of life for the community. They work together to keep it clean and safe.”

The transformation is the result of the Nuisance Alley Conversion Project developed in two central city districts. The project, approved by City Council in 1993, followed a city-commissioned survey of 1,150 of 3,600 alleys in the 8th and 9th Council Districts. The study was conducted by Cal Poly Pomona students.

The 13 alleys cleaned up so far are in six council districts across the city, but most are in the South-Central region. Six more are in the make-over process, city officials said. The next alley targeted for cleanup is a 900-foot-long alley between 104th and 105th streets in Watts.

“People now look at the [once] trash-strewn alley as an oasis for community gatherings,” Hayes said. “It’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. They have to work together to keep it clean and safe.”

The Highland Park project was initiated after longtime residents Ezequiel and Margarita Reyes wrote to Councilmen Mike Hernandez’s office. In the letter, they complained that the blighted area was a magnet for “illegal dumping, drug sales and prostitution,” said Abigail Ramirez of Hernandez’s office.

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The letter was followed in November by a petition with the signatures of residents from eight homes. The area was identified as a public nuisance and approved for a weeklong city cleanup in April.

Monica Rodriguez, a field deputy to Hernandez, said the alley project has brought about “a positive change” in the neighborhood.

“[The park] is a shared responsibility,” Rodriguez said. “They have the keys and they determine who is allowed in the park. Many people look at the problems in their community and think there is nowhere to turn. This is one example of the solutions available to people who want to to take care of neighborhood problems.”

Moreno says he and other residents feel good about the park. “It looks a lot better now,” Moreno said. “A couple of my friends barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers in the new park. People feel safer with the new park.”

Orozco, watching his 4-year-old son Anthony run across the park, said he marveled at the change. “Day by day, we watched a transformation,” Orozco said. “First the cleanup of the land, then the new park benches, tables and fence. I was very surprised. I did not think I would ever let my children run around here.”