Janet S.

"My two buildings had been empty for six or 10 years. The staircase was gone and the windows were all out on the front building, the parapets were crumbling and the walls were bulgy, but both of these buildings were in relatively good shape. I think I got a good deal in that way, some of the other buildings have much bigger challenges. The floors are original, and this building is actually very strong, because it's got such a weird structure. So I didn't have to replace many of the beams at all, or the joists. They just needed new roofs and things like that."

"Because I had done a couple of public art projects up in Hyde Park, I was interested, it was the only place where I'd had contacts with communties other than Washington Avenue, which in the 90s wasn't much of a community, so I thought well, this will lead me somewhere; I'm sure I did know Sister Diane [at the Restoration Group] through the work in Hyde Park. I think people here have the freedom to live their lives, and they have had to struggle to stay and support each other, and in that way it has a nice fabric of cooperation. And because it's very quiet as well, we don't have tons and tons of traffic coming through, you have these village-y things – kids playing, people walking up and down the streets. And the older residents will tell you, there was a bar here, or a such-and-such there. When you have these buildings coming back to life, I think it stirs up dust, and people want to talk about what was here before."

Check back soon for Janet's full story.