Last weekend, I did something unusual; I took my two-year-oldson Reece to the park. From the time he gets up in the morninguntil when he goes to bed, all he wants to do is play outside.Sometimes I have even gone into his room in the middle of the nightto change a diaper, and in a sleepy stupor he will say "side" andpoint to the door.
I like this particular park because it has wood shavings on theground instead of cement and soft landing spots so Reece won't hurthimself coming down the slide. There is a gate around the play areaso he cannot escape, and I can do my homework without worryingabout him running into traffic.
Reece had a great time at the park. We watched some young boysplay basketball, and we watched girls on the sidelines admiringthem while the boys pretended not to notice. It kind of reminded meof my junior high school days when we used to go to the park andwatch the punk skateboarders, who we thought were the coolest guysever. Some of the guys playing basketball even came over and letReece play with the ball, and he thought that was the best.
I say this trip to the park was unusual because no trip to thepark has ever been this safe or run this smoothly. Last year, atthis time, we couldn't go to the park at all because it was overrunby gangs and drug dealers. The playground was dirty and theequipment was out of date.
I moved into my neighborhood about a year and a half ago, andwas really excited to have found a great apartment at such a greatprice. The landlords were nice people and they really liked Reece.There was even a park up the street for Reece to play in. It was anethnically diverse neighborhood, and I really looked forward tomeeting the neighbors and raising my son there.
At the beginning of summer before sophomore year, I moved in. Myson was less than six months old at the time. Immediately, Inoticed that cars would circle the block at all hours, honking andplaying music at top volume, especially on Fridays. Groups of shadypeople were hanging out all over the place.
Just after I moved in, one of my neighbors was shot and killed;he had been a member of one of the five gangs that operated withinyards of my house. Just before that incident, there had been a gangrape of two girls ages 14 and 19 in the park. One was nowwheelchair bound.
The first time I realized that something was really wrong withthe neighborhood was at 2 a.m. on July 5 of that year. I awoke tofind a race riot going on outside my apartment, just feet from mybedroom window. Someone in the neighborhood had lit off a series offire crackers, which to me sounded like gunfire. I called thepolice and they told everyone to go home. That was it.
Many times that summer, the same scenario played out again andagain, with that same neighbor fighting with the gang across thestreet. I also started to learn about my other neighbors who weremore drug-dealing gang members. The scariest people used to hangout on their porch, and they even had children living with them.There was also another drug dealing operation going on around thecorner by a different group.
The park up the street was where all the gang members used tohang out. It was also the same park that the two young girls hadbeen raped in. In the year following the time I moved into thatapartment, I was surrounded by many crimes. My car had the windowssmashed in twice, once by gunfire. Someone tried to break into myapartment while I was home, but luckily was scared away by theshock of me yelling at him to get out.
A 17-year-old kid was killed by a gang while he tried to protecthis friend from getting hurt. They beat him to death on the streetby the park with a hockey stick. He was a football star in highschool, had just graduated, and was looking forward to going tocollege this fall on a scholarship. Another time, two rival gangshad a brawl involving more than 20 men and weapons just feet frommy house.
In the wintertime, the neighbors who were dealing drugs acrossthe street burned down their apartment. When they fled the fire,they must have left some drugs behind, because a couple weeks laterthey were raided by the police. This resulted in the second largestdrug bust in Somerville history.
They found cocaine, crack, crystal meth, heroin, and marijuana,as well as a nice cache of semi-automatic weapons. Police alsodiscovered that apartments in that building were being illegallyrented out and hence violating city zoning and tax laws, as well asfire codes.
Remember, this is not Watts in L.A., this is Somerville. Onemile up the road from Tufts University. Clearly, this is not aplace in which one would choose to live unless she needed to. Well,I needed to. It was the only place I could afford and still be ableto attend Tufts. Really, I don't want to move, because I still lovemy apartment. It is my home.
This is part one of a two part series. Please read part twoin tomorrow's Daily, October 19th, 2004.
Anne Stevenson is a junior majoring in politicalscience.
