I headed over to Lewis Place neighborhood, which is immediately adjacent to the east of Fountain Park. I went up Walton Avenue, which is the first north-south street to get into the area since Fountain Avenue is blocked off, preventing direct access.

The housing stock is beautiful, and again just as impressive as what you would see just to the south in the Central West End.

But as I noted years ago when I walked around and extensively covered the neighborhood, there is a lot of abandonment, something that is perhaps very obvious in the buildings below but not so apparent passing by quickly.

I turned right onto Vernon Avenue, and when I was reviewing my photos, I realized something was missing: the building with the giant mural of Dr. Martin Luther King. Looking at city records, I could find no compelling reason for the building’s demolition; there was no record of a fire, no emergency structural condemnation, no nothing. It just seems like the church which owns the property decided to demolish it for no good reason. There’s something just sort of sad about demolishing a mural of Dr. King.

I’ve looked at this block of Vernon Avenue west of the old Shaare Zedek before twice, in April of 2016 and then again in February of 2022. To put it bluntly, it is still looking bad, with multiple demolitions and abandoned buildings.

Heading down Page Boulevard for a little while before turning south on North Taylor, we get back to some much better preserved houses, but again, if you start looking closely, you realize there is so much abandonment, just as I had seen in 2016.

There is so much potential on these streets, just blocks north of Delmar, but the question remains, will help arrive in time?