Update: I went back and revisited the area in the spring of 2021.

Well, technically it’s a month or two early since these photos are from mid-December 2017, but I wanted to see what has been happening to the places I photographed last year. Short answer: nothing positive. For example, the building above, still sits in largely the same condition on the 5600 block of Kennerly. The first two murders of 2018 occurred just to the west of this house, at Kennerly’s intersection with Hodiamont, just fifty feet or so from the county line.

Above, this building in the 5600 block of Labadie, is still largely unchanged.

The same goes for the “beautiful apartment buildings.” They sit empty, though anything short of a billion dollars in aid for the neighborhood would not be enough.

Many of these other sad houses sit just to the north of Gundlach School, still abandoned.

The rest of these old wooden houses are largely abandoned, and lie anonymously. I’ve been up and down these streets numerous times, and I always find new blocks I’ve never visited before.