A Modest Renaissance in Reseda

In the cold early Saturday morning, they begin their determined--if sometimes misunderstood--work on the margins of a town in decline.

Three Reseda homeowners, who have been mistaken for community service probationers, city employees and even thieves, unload a light-brown pickup truck at the median strip at Sherman Way and Reseda Boulevard.

“You get the best people and the worst people out here,” says Barbara Varenas, who works for a Studio City liquor importer.

It could be argued that Varenas is one of the best. So too are Shirley Merz and Allison McGean. They are, after all, the Reseda Renaissance Ladies.

On this Saturday, armed with shovels, rakes, brooms and clippers, they attack the center divider, removing dying plants and clipping off brown leaves. Merz, an office manager for an orthodontist, kneels on the curb to dig into the earth, her feet hanging into the roadside.

As she works, just inches away the tires of a Chevy four-wheel-drive truck roll by in the turning lane. This driver is not trying to scare her.

“Sometimes, you think they’re trying to,” Merz says. “They’ll come right on up to you and lay on the horn, scare the stuff out of you.”

But throughout the morning, drivers also honk their horns encouragingly, give a thumbs up or wave to the self-named Reseda Renaissance Ladies. People may not know the women and why they do the work--turning a stretch of Sherman Way into a kind of personal garden--but they like seeing the flowers and fresh plants along the median.

“That’s what it’s all about,” says McGean, the one who drives the pickup truck. “That people appreciate it.”

Chance brought them together. They all volunteered for a community cleanup day 1 1/2 years ago, and happened to walk up to the registration table at about the same time. McGean had the truck and offered to drive them to the site they were assigned.

“We all hit it off,” McGean says. As they cleared the weeds out of a flower bed they discovered a similar interest in gardening and in antiques.

“We find the same things funny,” Varenas says.

What was also funny--in more of an ironic way--was that after pulling all the weeds from the flower bed, they discovered no flowers or plants in the bed at all. It was just bare dirt.

So, they decided to buy the flowers and plants themselves. Eventually, they adopted a stretch of Sherman Way from Lindley to Wilbur avenues, going out two or three times a week to clip away at the rotting leaves and wilted flowers. It takes three or four trips to work the entire stretch, replacing plants and repairing damage. Then they start over.

“It’s like painting a bridge,” says Varenas.

“I know we’re fighting a losing battle,” McGean agrees. “But then again, so are the police.”

They have also picked a part of the San Fernando Valley they know has an image problem. In 1985, McGean did not even want to move here, but her husband--a stuntman--needs to be close to the city and the freeways. They looked elsewhere in the Valley, until they found a quiet cul-de-sac in Reseda. “The fact of the matter was that it was a beautiful house for what it was worth,” McGean says.

But still, it rattles her when a friend may give directions to a restaurant, mentioning in passing the intersection of Sherman Way and Reseda, adding casually, “Oh, you know, that crappy part of town.”

She has an answer ready, however. “You’re right,” she tells them. “It is a crappy town, but my friends and I are trying to do something about it.”

But it’s not easy, and sometimes is unpleasant. Cleaning out planters, they find used syringes and condoms. They sometimes try to scrape out slimy muck and garbage that gathers in the curbs at blocked storm drains.

“Some planters you never go in at all, even with your gloves on,” McGean says.

Merz’s pet peeve is cigarette butts.

“They never seem to decompose,” Merz says, while sweeping debris. “We’re constantly digging up cigarette butts. I hope you don’t smoke.”

McGean does smoke. “But I don’t throw my cigarettes out the window,” she says.

As they work, Pat Murtagh, the owner of a local pawnshop, crosses the street to talk to them for the first time.

“What’s this, the save Reseda committee?” asks Murtagh, cigarette in hand, admiring their work. “It’s beautiful.”

He returns to the sidewalk to finish his cigarette. Murtagh has been in business for 43 years, back when much of the area was farmland and customers used to ride up on horseback. Before the women started their work, whatever plants were there were overgrown and unkempt.

“It looked lousy,” Murtagh says. Unseen by Merz, he flips his cigarette into the gutter. “If more people would join in, it would make this town right. We’ll get this town moving. It’ll take time, but it’ll get moving.”

After they finish the planting and trimming at the median in front of Murtagh’s store--replacing annual plants with perennials--the women clean up and get drinks out of McGean’s truck. Varenas has a can of Diet Coke, Merz an iced tea, McGean a squeeze bottle of Tang.

“The truck was parked right here,” recalls Merz, remembering the time the police visited. “The hazard lights were on, we were knelt down and working.”

A patrol car pulled up, with three police officers. One approached them.

“We had a report that someone was stealing the flowers,” he told them.

At first, they just tried laughing it off. “We thought everybody knew us,” Merz recalls.

But the cop was unimpressed.

“How much longer are you going to be?” he asked. He wanted them to move along.

They were nearly finished anyway. But, the officer returned to his running car and pulled off to the side of the road.

“My god, they’re not kidding,” Varenas said. The women packed up and left as the police watched and waited, making sure the flowers were unmolested.

Relations with the city are usually better than that. McGean’s truck had been ticketed twice for illegal parking, but after explaining the situation to parking officials, they were forgiven.

One meter maid, worrying about their safety, gave them small red cones for safety. And city workers have offered them the bright orange vests used by road crews. They turned them down, however.

“Then, we’ll look like city workers,” Varenas says.

As it is, many mistake them for city employees already. Professional gardeners sometimes stop by, curious about how they landed such a lucrative contract with the city. They invariably walk away shaking their heads when they are told it is a volunteer effort.

Some merchants think the women get paid--and treat them as such. One day, an owner came out of his store and whistled at them from across traffic.

“He pointed at the garbage in front of his store and he pointed at me,” Varenas says. They waved him off, explaining they were volunteers, but he persisted. Finally, Varenas stormed through the traffic and confronted him in his store.

“I did the best that I could, as hot as I was,” Varenas says. “It was the whistling and pointing at us that bothered me.”

Her explanations did little to sway him. The man still watches them when they work, supposedly expecting them to take care of the garbage. It was their only unpleasant confrontation with a business, they said. Some restaurants, stores and pastry shops have brought out drinks and food for the women and cooperated with their suggestions to improve their neighborhood.

At their break, sipping drinks, the women discuss the work. They have been replacing annuals with longer-lasting perennial plants but the green perennials have a sameness. A splash of color is needed, and the women decide on pansies.

“Break’s over, back to work,” a passing driver calls out. They laugh.

But driving in the other direction is Peter Kalos, a Reseda resident who pulls over after seeing the women. He has been an admirer of their work since he and his family moved to the neighborhood 1 1/2 years ago. He hands them a $20 bill through the window. It is enough to buy the new pansies.

“We walk by here on Saturdays,” Kalos says. But he was unsure how to get a donation to them unless he caught them in person. “I was going to leave it here in a Ziploc bag with a note.”

They all laugh. They know about the honesty in the neighborhood. Often the holiday displays the women erect at the “Welcome to Reseda” sign at Sherman Way and Lindley is raided. A handmade wooden pilgrim was stolen one Thanksgiving. Scarves and mittens were stolen from snowmen at Christmas, and one night every heart for a Valentine display was stolen.

Still optimistic, the women put up a scarecrow for this Thanksgiving. At least this year’s Halloween ghosts survived unmolested, mostly because the women have learned better ways to secure the decorations.

After their break, they packed up the pickup truck again and moved to the median on the east side of Reseda Boulevard. The sweatshirts they needed in the colder early morning have been shed and the compliments and comments seem to increase as the morning warms up. Passersby wave, honk horns in support or ask questions about the type of plants, how they are cared for and how long they last.

While McGean trims back a climbing vine, Varenas and Merz ready a Lilly of the Nile to transplant into a planter. Holding on to the root ball from either side, Varenas and Merz carry the plant through the crosswalk as the light threatens to change.

The clump of dirt holding the plant together starts to break apart, scattering over the asphalt, but they reach the planter in time.

Merz then carries across another Lilly of the Nile, scampering across the walkway. And as Varenas returns to bring back a broom to sweep the dirt, a gardener in a blue pickup truck that had been sitting at the light calls out, “Nice work.”

About 12:30, four hours after they started, the women are cleaning up the site and getting ready to leave.

“Do you guys need help?” a driver asks.

“Oh, now you want to help?” Merz teases him. “Where were you at 8 o’clock in the morning?

“We’re done,” she finishes. “It’s hot and we’re tired.”