Alert reader GG sends along this photo of gang-related graffiti on a busy and not-at-all downscale stretch of Lawndale Drive.

Comments

[word_worker]

Not at all downscale, true. But I am guessing a few of the apartment complexes less than a mile down the road may help explain it.

Since I no longer live down there I won't try to assert what I don't know to presently be true. But when I did live there, those complexes seemed to have a healthy traffic of police cars on the property, weekend nights especially.

Either way, a bit alarming and definitely sad to see it.

[mick riggs]

I work right there and the landlord's building, dumpster and parking lot were recently similarly vandalized. I would agree that the apartments up the street and the convenience stores create some traffic. Young mothers, kids who should obviously be in school, sometime solicitation to purchase alcohol or smokes for underagers, frequent brief meetings at cars, etc.

I will keep a closer look but I havent really seen a lot of "colors" or anything.

[Roch101]

No, not downscale at all. There is a steady stream of people buying cigars at the convenience store across the street.

[Danny Wright]

Some perspective from someone nearby:

It MAY have something to do with the apartments at Cone and Lawndale. We had a neighborhood watch meeting back in 2003 after a rash of break-ins in Kirkwood, and the police representative explained that with the renovation of Smith Homes, the Hope Grant, and the razing of Morningside, some sort of arrangement resulted in relocations of some of those residents to the two complexes. (I don't know if it was Section 8.)

However, an increased police presence and the red-handed capture of the perpetrators while inside a house soon took care of that initial problem, and I don't think there has been a significant problem since. From what I understand, more recent thefts or incidents in our neighborhood have resulted from opportunism inspired by unlocked cars or questionable behavior / decision-making by youths -- possibly from the neighborhood but not definitively from the complexes.

A fair number of kids from the complexes play hoops in Kirkwood Park, and I don't think there has been a significant issue with behavior or rowdiness. It's all about learning how to be good neighbors to each other.

It's interesting that Roch mentions the stores -- there are actually two -- the C&C Market and the BP store. Along with the basketball court, they constitute places where there is interaction between all people from the area. In fact, I would go so far as to say that C&C may be one of the most integrated shopping places in Greensboro.

And as far as "Lil' Bruce" goes, I have seen his work in some other nearby places besides the Steak-n-Shake wall.