Thanks But No Thanks on the Holton Street Article - 2 Replies

I was extremely disappointed in your feature article about the various stores located on and around Holton Ave. To begin with, who are you to judge anyone or anything? As we all have been taught, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and “what really counts is on the inside.” For you to label someone’s livelihood as “bad” or “ugly” is downright deplorable. To build a better community people have to communicate and work out their differences together. So you don’t like the aesthetics of a storefront? Then talk to the owner and build a relationship with them. But please don’t point the finger in an accusatory manner that builds up barriers instead of taking them down.

- Micca Leider

P.S. I think your paper has done some wonderful things for Riverwest and look forward to reading it every chance I get.

I am writing in response to your cover story on Holton Street with hope that you might consider a change in focus for future installments in the ongoing series on streets in Riverwest. Tess Reiss and Carrie Trousil’s attempt to portray the ups and the downs of the most economically and ethnically diverse street in our neighborhood shows a deplorable lack of appreciation for the ways of living and modes of expression chosen and valued by our neighbors.

Despite “celebrating” the diversity of the people who live, shop, work, worship and otherwise make their lives on Holton Street, Reiss and Trousil apply murky moral and aesthetic standards (steeped in the privilege of their class and race, no doubt) as their main mode of evaluating quality of life. Are we really to believe that hand-painted beer signs at corner stores are “the problem” on Holton Street?

It was most distressing to turn to page 9 for Reiss’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” These businesses are owned and operated by hard-working people who undoubtedly pay excessive rent, earn minimal wages or marginal profits, and are frequently put at physical risk in order provide convenience to Riverwest and Harbambee residents. Those of us who regularly visit the corner stores Reiss disparages as “bunkers” do not find them “unfriendly.” Small businesses in our neighborhood that are frequently robbed or subjected to other violent transgressions should not be chastised for failing to participate in “prettying up” that makes elites feel more comfortable or welcome as they engage in uncritical habits of consumption.

Rather than complaining about cosmetics and advocating the homogenous, bland, and smiley-face strewn streetscapes of “main street,” we should be fighting to protect the wide range of economic and cultural opportunity our neighborhood needs to survive and thrive. I look forward to future coverage of neighborhood streets, preferably by writers who have a broader range of aesthetic preference and a deeper appreciation for Riverwest’s many assets.

- Jennifer Geigel