The south side of the Grove, or Forest Park Southeast, or whatever you want to call it, is one of those areas that has been isolated for a very long time. It was a small settlement, out the railroad tracks and the Market Street Road, or Manchester Road as we call it nowadays, and even as the city grew up around it, the area was still isolated, by those same railroad tracks, Manchester Avenue or even Highway 40 further north.

I photographed it before the redevelopment began during the last year, and honestly, I’m having trouble figuring out where the heck some of my pictures were taken. Some are obvious, because those old 1870s or earlier houses are still standing, but many others seem to be gone, replaced by new in-fill designed by a friend whose family is from the Grove no less, and constructed by RISE as affordable housing, seen below.

I like the new RISE housing; the new idea in affordable housing is to make it look like regular houses so that it will fit in with the neighborhood. I know there has been a lot of talk about the direction of this part of the neighborhood, and the word “gentrification” has been mentioned, but with affordable housing being built, there will still be economic diversity.

I hope some of these cool old survivors, which have not been demolished so far, are renovated to preserve the history of this little corner of the city.