Western Anniston residents had a devotional Tuesday morning on a shaded lot on Murray Avenue. It is a tranquil little street, only one block long, with quaint homes and fresh gardens. The neighbors mingled in the shade of old trees.A few months ago, in the same spot, they would have been standing in a crack house. In fact, they would have stayed away. For about 20 years, Murray Avenue was a forgotten place, home to hookers and drug addicts who did their business in three abandoned houses.
Fear confined the few law-abiding residents who remained in houses that crumbled around them. There was no use in purchasing home improvements, like a lawn chair, because someone would just steal it. Peace of mind had abandoned the place. At times, it seemed, so had the cops.
Instead the place was governed by the wiry men with half-empty bottles who wandered the street, staring intently at the few people who drove by. When Lucy S. Jemison, 85, walked arthritically to her mailbox, they cussed her.
“You know people drink that stuff and get crazy,” said Jemison, rocking in a chair while men pounded on her house.
These were good men, however, and were busy replacing the leaky roof above Jemison’s kitchen.
“Now I won’t have to cook with one hand, holding an umbrella with the other,” she said. Outside her window are empty green lots where the bad people used to live.
Almost overnight, perhaps the darkest, most neglected block in Anniston has risen to renewed life. It is a sliver of the West Anniston Revitalization Project, which is a sliver of the massive living improvements that are being made this week by Habitat for Humanity’s 2,800-person-strong Jimmy Carter Work Project.
And for a side of town that many people had left for dead, Murray Avenue’s renewal is both a dose of comfort and a shot of adrenaline.
People are walking the refurbished sidewalks, introducing themselves to their neighbors and asking for help. Many who just six months ago had turned down Habitat’s offer of affordable repairs with zero-interest financing, are out looking for the Habitat man.
That man is Bill Wright, who actually retired as Calhoun County’s director of Habitat for Humanity last year. But the fit, bearded, 62-year-old Wright continued to lobby for western Anniston when people on both sides of town said he was batty.
“People told me this was impossible, they told me it couldn’t be done,” said Wright, standing on an avenue as charming as any on the east side of town. “My response was, ‘You’re right. It is impossible, but we’re gonna do it anyway.”
Originally, the Carter Project, which is building 35 houses in Wellborn Manor this week, was going to be centered in western Anniston. But only one qualified homeowner, Edna Mae Yates, 75, was willing to move there.
So Habitat, along with Anniston Mayor Chip Howell and City Councilman Herbert Palmore, changed gears. If they couldn’t build new homes, they would use the resources of the Carter Project to repair existing ones, earning the respect of the residents one new coat of paint at a time.
“They’re helping the poor people,” said Robert Baker, 50, who grew up in western Anniston before the stores shut down and the parks went to weeds. He sat on the tailgate of a pickup parked at a friend’s house on Pine Avenue. The houses, the commerce, even a lot of the people, Baker said, “Time’s done killed them.”
Preparation for this week started months ago. More than 30 vacant houses, the long-time crime harbors, have been torn down. Broken sidewalks, where only the hookers hiked, have been replaced. Streetlights have been installed. Those simple measures, Wright said, have persuaded people who have been wounded over the years by smooth talkers and empty guarantees, to believe in Habitat.
Even Edna Holloway, who was one of the first western Anniston residents to join Wright, said in February that she was harnessing her hopes. Tuesday, while the Peace and Goodwill Baptist Church was getting new siding and landscaping, Holloway said, “The hammering has begun.”
All around her, the neighborhood was alive.
A Kreekside Nursery and Landscaping crew took shrubs from door to door. They told every homeowner to pick what they liked, as much as they wanted, and that they would plant them for free.
Carolyn Brown selected some azaleas.
“They say good things come to those who wait,” she said.
Many in the community volunteered their skills.
A man in a wheelchair motored up and down Mulberry Avenue, an expired license plate dangling from the back of his chair. He wore a handlebar mustache and a sombrero. His name is Alfonso Thomas, but most people call him ‘Applejack’ or ‘Tiny.’
He is a large man and he held a long pole.
“I’m security,” he said. The men of his Masonic Lodge, Pot of Manna 478, which sits on the corner of 16th and Mulberry, are making sure troublemakers don’t get any ideas. So far, it appears, they haven’t.
Since Habitat started their plan rolling a few weeks ago, western Anniston crime calls have been few, said Anniston Police Chief Johnny Dryden. Before, it was one of the busiest areas for the police.
In the last year, the department has reduced the amount of drug activity and prostitution in the area. They have enforced loitering laws and helped the city take down abandoned houses. Their continued involvement, Wright stressed, is vital.
A majority of the labor on the revitalization project is being provided by about 120 Solutia workers, some from Anniston, others from outside the state. The company is the largest sponsor of the western Anniston work.
“West Anniston is our home,” said Missy Hammonds, public affairs officer for Solutia’s Anniston plant. “Some of our employees grew up here.”
Another laborer in the area is Mayor Howell, who wore a ball cap and a pair of Timberlands Tuesday. He is working in western Anniston all week. Like Wright and Palmore, he knows the week is only an infant step on a long road.
The city, along with Habitat, has vowed to eliminate all substandard housing by 2020. Monday, Carter said that commitment was the reason he had come.
The renewal project, the mayor hopes, will spread across town, from family to family.
“How do you eat an elephant?” he asked, rhetorically. “A bite at a time.”
About 35 houses in western Anniston are getting major renovations this week, equaling the number of new houses being built in Wellborn Manor. Another 20 are having minor repairs, and that number is growing every day, Wright said. Residents who initially told Habitat to go away are now wearing Carter Project T-shirts.
By the end of the week, the little shotgun homes on Murray Avenue will have fresh coats of paint.
“A few months ago I wouldn’t have gone down there by myself,” said Wright.
One of his most loyal residents has been Bernard Thornton, who was considering a move to Golden Springs a year ago.
Thornton decided to stick with Mulberry Avenue. Tuesday, he stood proudly with a tool in his hand.
“It’s like a whole new neighborhood,” he said.
Star Staff Writer Nathan Solheim Contributed to this report.
