Tuesday, July 31, 2012

46th Ward Neighborhood Night On Wednesday

Gooseberry Park photo courtesy of Google Streetview
Ald. Cappleman and his staff will be hosting his late office hours in Gooseberry Playlot Park, 4648 North Malden, on Wednesday, August 1st, between 5pm and 7pm. Come by, mingle with your neighbors, and say hello to the Alderman and his staff.

The ward office (4544 N Broadway) will remain open during regular business hours (9AM-7PM) on Wednesday as well.

Update:  Sad to say, after a very positive Neighborhood Nights event early in the evening, there were shots fired just before midnight.  Obviously someone living near there has made someone else very angry, and we've suddenly got a bit of a hotspot.

A neighbor writes:  "After a promising meeting with Alderman Cappleman today regarding shots fired in and around Gooseberry Park, around 11:25/11:30, a series of shots fired again in this vicinity. I live above the alley separating Beacon and Malden and it sounded in the same spot as Saturday/Sunday morning. More than 5 this time, I was a bit shaken. I thought I counted 9, I'm not sure. I called 911 and the dispatcher said he was getting many calls about it, said callers were reporting Beacon and Leland." Keep calling 911, ladies and gentlemen. The area is now getting attention, and the idiots firing guns don't seem to realize that the more they act out, the more unwanted attention will be focused on them.

16 comments:

  1. wow. ballsy! we might get shot, but I'm intrigued.

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  2. Its a fantastic idea!

    We need to hold the Sept. CAPS meeting there as well. They did the same thing over at Astor Playlot last month. Its summertime and the park belongs to us all let's use it.

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  3. Love it. Send a big message to the gangs..get out of Uptown. We watch, we report and we get results!

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  4. I am going to try to attend this and would encourage neighbors to pop by.

    I rarely call the cops, but last night I could not even walk past this park. Not less than 15 teens and young adults swearing, hollering, and in one case lying on the hood of a car that I know does not belong to them. Then would not get out of the way when I tried to use the sidewalk.

    How about a gate with a padlock that is locked by a beat cop at dusk and opened in the AM?

    Also, Operation Uptown missed a few, as the open air drug market was open for business in the middle of this very nice residential street. Makes utterly no sense.

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  5. Constant drug dealing on all corners of that intersection that originates from the section 8 housing. Also, the women in the building on Malden are starting to loiter in front of the building again and doing "other" things that was cleared up for about a year. Things are falling through the cracks....

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  6. This was a very positive meeting. Alderman Cappleman is seemingly very dedicated to making changes to this park. As mentioned before, he is proposing a higher gate that is locked nightly by local volunteers. He said this worked well at the park near him. He also apologized because he didn't know it was this bad. He seemed genuinely concerned and this was further enforced by the turnout of neighbors. I felt it was a very positive experience and I feel a little safer knowing my neighbors, knowing our Alderman pledges to improve the park and the safety of those around it, and knowing that so many people care. Thank you to all my neighbors who showed up. If we were not there in numbers it wouldn't have made the statement it did to our Alderman and all who may have been watching from a distance. It also feels good to be heard by a leader in the community with the means to make a difference. This proves that our presence at these events are critical to the success of our requests for help. Our Alderman can only do so much but we also need to be active and show interest in helping him out too.

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  7. 6 gun shots were reported by a couple of neighbor in the gooseberry playlot just one hour ago. Its time to take action, and not just standing around with aldermen and neighbors looking like fools.

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  8. If you have FB access to Beacon Block Club group, here's a direct link to tonights shooting, just hours after this neighborhood night: https://www.facebook.com/groups/120593497963427/permalink/448064218549685/

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  9. Gang bangers, drug dealers and section 8 housing is the formula for a doomed neighborhood that creates little but unsafe and unhealthy living conditions until the residents force change to occure on their streets with some good old day action. Lip action promises has never changed anything for as far back as I can remember in the Uptown area.

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  10. This was very disheartening to have to hear and witness again. Especially after the positive meeting we had yesterday at that very park. I I know our presence spoke volumes at that gathering and everyone who was there did take an action that will hopefully translate into more action against these occurrences. I agree with the idea of having the CAPS meeting there at Gooseberry.

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  11. It boggles my mind that only HOURS after the Neighborhood Night..... shouts were fired at the corner of Beacon and Malden. I saw them, right on the corner, not in the alley. Neighborhood Nights are not enough to tackle this problem that is growing everyday at this corner.

    Other than attending CAPS meetings, what are we to do? I see children, families, mothers, fathers walking at this intersection all the time.

    I am new to this. What do we do to work for change?

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  12. GjMau, did you see if it was just one person shooting and if so what/who that person was shooting at? I ask because it seemed like two people shooting.

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  13. GjMau, you mentioned other than CAPS, what can you do. Did you go to CAPS and mention this as a problem?

    At other beats, the neighbors organize positive loitering in their high crime areas. How about you working with your neighbors to do the same at this playlot?

    Positive loitering helps some, but the real benefit out of doing this is that it gets neighbors introduced to one another so that they can start working together to do more problem solving.

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  14. The only way to get rid of these guys is to catch them in the act and get them incarcerated. We need to catch them in the act and make sure they're convicted. The only way to do this is more security surveillance and higher quality surveillance. A neighbor posted her live stream to everyblock, earlier this week. It's a cam pointed directly at this corner.

    In the long term, if the landlords are negligent, and harboring gang bangers, there should be an effort to cut out their section 8 funding.

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  15. I t was just a bunch of neighbors and the Alderman meeting up. It helps just to get more people in the park who typically avoid it.

    I bet for some of my neighbors it was the first time in the playlot.

    It was just one night and we are going to keep the ball rolling. That does not mean Neighborhood Nights is going to un-Boggle every mind and solve every problem instantaneously.

    The community/neighbors are one leg of a 3 legged stool that includes the police and the elected policy makers/City.

    None of us can do it alone, for positive results we need to stay positive and ignore these endless and divisive rants about public housing. All of these sterotypes are tired and unproductive at the very least.

    Neighborhood Night is a positive thing but it isn't loitering. Good things happen when good people get together.......see ya next week.

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  16. This is atrocious, but I am also a bit confused by the astonishment those on this thread. Stash's description of the park is like describing EVERY single night on the property of our condo near sheridan and windsor. Our condo is not public housing, but the gangs from nearby think it's ok to come onto our property, throw garbage on our property, scream and yell, intimidate people who want to visit us, smash our garden, talk about killing people, etc. Yes we contact the Alderman's office (they goodness the new alderman takes our calls). yes, we have asked the men not to throw food and other garbage on our property on our property (when it feels ok to do so but not when there are 20 of them). Yes we call 911 but it wasn't until recently that we realized 911 wasn't putting the calls through. We finally had to start taking names of the operators and saying, they are on OUR property...NO..not NEAR it, once we started demanding our rights the police have done a great job of responding immediately. We shouldn't have to live like this. I'm picking up crack debris and rotted food and toilet paper with human waste on a daily basis from our property. It's outrageous.

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