222 Locust stands in the way of progress

I recently read yet another crime report about the subsidized housing building most Elginites know as "222 Locust."

This time it was a drug bust in which the police arrested 8 people. The Elgin Police Department does a great job of suppressing the criminal activities there, keeping the building under watch around the clock, seven days a week.

But this expensive suppression is hardly a fundamental cure for a problem so much a part of high-rise subsidized public housing.

This remaining legacy of the Great Society experiment has been a blight on our neighborhood since it was first built in 1970.

As long as it stands, our neighborhood will continue to get all the bad press a neighborhood doesn't want to have.

Crime and the perception of crime serve to promote dis-investment within our stressed neighborhood.

When I was trying in 2004 to sell the Grace Church parsonage to someone who would restore it, I was told by all interested parties that it was too close to 222 Locust. We ended up giving it to Epworth Methodist Church.

We have many homes that were once as fine as any in Elgin. But finding anyone who will knowingly buy an old house here to restore is impossible.

The Gifford Park Association has done a fabulous job of promoting restoration of their fine old homes. And with it, they have brought new vitality to their part of Elgin.

But what if they had a nine-story "222 Locust" right in the middle of their stock pile of gorgeous old homes?

But there are a few positives to having 222 Locust in Elgin's Near West Neighborhood.

We continue to provide a good training ground for our police in the conduct of drug raids.

Our neighborhood association, formed in 1997 in response to the crime at 222 Locust, continues today.

And, of course, 222 Locust still generates free publicity for our neighborhood.

Everyone should be so lucky.

Chuck Keysor

Elgin