File this one under: "People stink, people shine." A criminal smashed my driver side window Sunday, June 12 at about 2 p.m. I wasn't home, and my car was parked in my lot off Laurel Street.

The robber made off with about $5 in change and $7 worth of tokens for the Newport Bridge. I keep nothing valuable in my vehicle because I learned my lesson long ago.

Our six-unit condo complex boasts of a secluded parking lot behind our building, yet it attracts trouble. Maybe it's the street. Laurel is a favored venue for drug dealers, drug users, muggers, litterbugs, speeders, prostitutes, rats, feral cats and car thieves.

But Laurel is also a hangout for volunteer gardeners, dog walkers, school children and good neighbors.

My neighbor Peter broke the news to me. I was bummed, but on the bright side, my neighbors Gary and Edgardo cleaned up the mess. Gary removed jumper cables, a bike rack, and football from my trunk, while Edgardo vacuumed up the glass. He said he didn't want his dogs hurting their paws in the debris.

Whatever their reasons, I took reassurance because while some people shatter your trust in humanity, others always seem to appear to restore that faith. Arriving home Sunday night to find a broken but clean vehicle made me feel better.

Although we had no chance whatsoever of capturing the perpetrator, I reported the crime with the Hartford Police Department. HPD's Officer Iovanna helped me create a record for statistics.

Officer Iovanna and I agreed that it could have been worse: I had my car, no one was hurt, and I only have to pay a $100 deductible to fix the window. Funny how property crime increases the Gross Domestic Product.

President Bush's feed the rich/starve the poor economic policies kill this neighborhood and thousands of others like it. State-issued directives that combat the root causes of poverty would lessen the constant mayhem on Laurel Street than the .

I forgot to tell Officer Iovanna that we at 364 Laurel suspect that the perp originated with the questionable elements at the apartment building next door, 360 Laurel. I cast a wary eye when I catch cars tearing in and out of our parking lot, and see the drivers hustle to the front door of our neighboring structure. Activity patterns at that building seem indicative of drug-dealing.

Already we know that drug markets operate on the corner of Farmington and Laurel. It's so bad that the U.S. Army recruiting center is relocating down Farmington, next to the Webster Bank. If we legalized drugs, those dealers could set up a legit shop where the Army has vacated.

Just as farfetched, the Army thinks that it can find soldiers to fight its war in Iraq if it moves further from the war raging in the American ghetto. I doubt that a shift towards the business district will help solve the Army's well-publicized recruiting woes.

At first, I thought that Brenda McCumber and her flower power planting brigade scared the soldiers off. Ms. McCumber recruited dozens of volunteers (including a smart partnership with the Asylum Hill Boys and Girls Club). Her block party/planting session last Saturday generated a couple hundred spectators. Maybe the vitality the flowers add to the corner will attract a local service to the corner.

Otherwise, add the vacant Army storefront to the out-of-business Mississippi River Grille/Hog River Grille/Oasis Diner, and the multiple empty houses on Laurel Street.

While real estate prices are rising on Laurel, I don't think it improves the neighborhood. Real estate agent Jonathan Clark recently told me a renovated condo at 356 Laurel sold in the upper $30s. Another unit in the same building is for sale for a similar price.

Considering I paid $25,500 for my condo three years ago, it seems an improvement. But in this red-hot housing bubble, combined with the empty homes on the street, I don't see it as a harbinger.

On the corner of Niles and Laurel sits 370 Laurel, the one depicted on the "Welcome to Asylum Hill" street signs. This 4,000 square foot Victorian gem has sat empty for years, plywood on the windows.

Shuttered houses like 370 Laurel are likely to stay empty until (a) the city makes the streets safe and schools secure, and (b) projects like renovating 370 Laurel are economically viable.

I figure it would cost more than $350,000 to purchase 370 Laurel and get it back on line (it needs a new roof, fire escape, and significant interior work). Without public investment, I don't think that 377 Laurel represents a feasible private project.

The same goes for 335, a small brick townhouse at the opposite end of the street that apparently needs a new furnace. 335, its overgrown shrubs and newly broken windows on the second floor have been empty at least five years.

City leaders must develop policies that deter investment banking in residential real estate. Sitting on a property as it deteriorates worsens Laurel Street, one of the few Hartford streets with all its original buildings intact. Good owners at 370 and 335 Laurel could anchor the streetscape.

How different would this neighborhood be if the $271 million sunk into the convention center boondoggle downtown was instead invested in programs of social uplift: grants for real estate improvements, homeownership for the indigent, construction of a literacy center, cottage industry development and so forth?

Until we get an answer to that query, weary taxpayers grow tired of living in this tangled crime zone, when we should be growing sunflowers.

6/15/05

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Laurel is a favored venue for drug dealers, drug users, muggers, litterbugs, speeders, prostitutes, rats, feral cats and car thieves. But Laurel is also a hangout for volunteer gardeners, dog walkers, school children and good neighbors

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Laurel is a favored venue for drug dealers, drug users, muggers, litterbugs, speeders, prostitutes, rats, feral cats and car thieves. But Laurel is also a hangout for volunteer gardeners, dog walkers, school children and good neighbors