The Most Maligned Corridor

The last time I was in and around Myrtle/Moncrief on a regular basis was 1991-’98, when I attended James Weldon Johnson Middle School and Stanton College Prep. Since then, I’ve been back through the area occasionally for work projects and to visit friends or go to weddings. Mostly, though, that area was left to my memories.

Fast-forward 19 years and my daughter, Mackenzie, has been assigned to a school in Northwest Jacksonville as part of City Year.

Getting her ready to drive herself to school, we found a non-highway route until she gets to be a more confident driver and can tackle the highway. Our route takes us through Riverside and up Myrtle to Moncrief and then on to 45th Street. She could easily take JTA until she feels more confident (we are public transit devotees), but my own fears have crept in. I’m more than a little ashamed to admit that, though the reality of crime statistics can’t be ignored. Poverty and opportunity intersect in the form of crime and I’m not willing to put her in harm’s way when there is an alternative.

It’s definitely not the neighborhood’s blackness that is at the root of my fears; I wouldn’t let her walk through ‘Sin City’ in Arlington, either. Poverty breeds crime no matter who lives in the neighborhood.

My discomfort has made me think: How do we solve these issues?

It’s obvious that funding and broader community support are desperately needed. There have been some seeds planted with roadway projects, better bus shelters, the baseball field and the one fancy development whose name I don’t know, at the Myrtle/Moncrief intersection.

It’s all underwhelming, quite frankly. Any funding is usually chump change designed to placate and secure the black vote in election years. These developments and improvements are all starkly foiled by the harsh realities of the Families of Slain Children memorial, the abandoned homes, the crumbling roadways, underfunded schools and a tangible sense of being left behind and left alone.

Those aforementioned improvements are now old in 2018. I read a 2014 Folio Weekly article about former Mayor Alvin Brown’s election-year Hail Mary. I read the Town Center report from the City of Jacksonville, dated 2004. I hear the stories of the inequitable funding and all of the broken promises about sewer infrastructure and business development dollars. I read news coverage about the need for MORE police to do surveillance in a community already heavily burdened by the eyes of law enforcement.

When you look through the blight, you see some rather vibrant life: adorable houses, thriving small businesses, a community doing as much as it can with meager resources.

Job opportunities are few and far between, and with too many residents cash- and opportunity-poor, traveling for minimum wage work means hours-long commutes on buses or nerve-racking rides in cars held together with hope, prayer and the work of shade tree mechanics. Would you commit to getting up at 4 a.m. to be across town by 7 a.m. for an $8.50/hour job?

What is it going to take for those of us not living and working in that area to care? Do the residents of Mandarin and the Intracoastal not realize a rising tide lifts all ships? Do Southsiders and Ortegans “deserve” more? Does the rest of Jacksonville really believe it’s a neighborhood not worth saving?

I remember one semester at JWJ, having to come to Riverside and attend John Gorrie while our school was being renovated. I recall my 12-year-old self being a bit horrified at the quality of the neighborhood, vowing that I could never live in a place like that. It wasn’t all shiny new renovations and bustling coffee shops and boutiques. In 20 years’ time, we gentrified the hell out of this neighborhood, forcing the poor and black residents farther to the north and west where they can be easily and casually forgotten, the no-man’s land where we send black and brown people to be ignored, over-policed and undervalued.

I don’t want to gentrify NW Jax like we have done to Springfield and Riverside. I want these families and business owners to stay and grow, knowing that the rest of the city has their backs.

Does our city leadership have their backs? The answer is apparent.

Do Jacksonville residents have their backs? That answer is apparent, too.

Investment in the most-maligned corridor in Jacksonville is urgently needed. But we won’t get the first nickel if our suburban neighbors don’t extend their concern beyond their own backyards and HOA gates.

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Steele is the director of communications for the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.