This picture thread is to help me overcome the stresses of Alleynary Block Disease. Outside the gate, blocked Alleys attract noxious weeds, litter, vermin, urination/defecation, eye soreness, and prevent healthy air circulation.  In other words.. BAD Feng Shui.  Some newcombers and developers would like OTR to be a gated fortress,  hence the new branded area "Gateway Quarter" Where you can be a suburbanite in the Ghetto  :-D

OTR scores a 100% on walkability.com  I use the alleys daily for transportation by walking, bicycle and scooter.  Here are some alleys I would love to travel and maintain,  but probably will never due to them being constantly blocked by cars,  sold off for private use and gated.  I will add more pics of other areas in OTR later. 

 

:lol:

 

 

Lot of variable facts and circumstances there....e.g. a few of those are just cars in an alley (temporarily?); the last one is Mercer Commons construction/excavation, I do believe....

Interesting.

Great set of photos.  The first one is Waggoner Masonry between Vine and Walnut on 13th, and it has been building for years.  What an eyesore.

Great set of photos.  The first one is Waggoner Masonry between Vine and Walnut on 13th, and it has been building for years.  What an eyesore.

 

Don't attack the gate, attack the stuff inside the gate. ;-)

I think that when done tastefully, with the proper oversight, gated alleys can add real value for a potential homeowner/investor.  Maybe one day when the drug trafficking leaves OTR for good then we can reopen these things, but in the mean time alleys present a real opportunity for many of the events to take place that we are trying to rid the neighborhood of.

 

The chainlink fense, wood fences, and barricades are all bad examples...the nice ones used in the Gateway Quarter are a visual enhancement to the area.

^ agreed - but I love the character these alleys have, could have, but they are almost universally in rough shape

 

thanks for the shots

good thread. hmm, these gates & fences don't look all that old. i wonder if some of these alleys were gated over during the early nineties craze for 'urban gated neighborhoods' to slow drug dealing?

 

five oaks in dayton, my spouse's old neighborhood (and coldayman too), was the national poster neighborhood for the tactic i am referring to:

 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E3DA1339F936A1575BC0A962958260

 

Love this thread

Just bringing this topic back up. We've seen several more alleys with gates added. Although they are 5 year leases, we'd late to see them all privatized.

I would like to see alleys in Downtown and OTR turned into a bike network.

 

Privatizing sounds like it will lead to lots of gating, which is a negative for cyclists and pedestrians. Though I do realize they can be crime hotspots, so they must be treated strategically.

These fences ain't gonna stop The Warriors!

nice pics. that first one really irks me. I hope when Mercer Commons opens they will open that up