By Neal Pollack
Guy attended the November meeting. During a citizen comment period, he stood up and said to the commission, “My name is James Guy. I have the nicest house on 13th Street. And I would like to know, what are your plans for me?”
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The “district development area” is better known to its residents as the “Valley.” It includes an old school, a new church building, a few corner stores, a lot of ramshackle houses, and many, many vacant lots. Most of its residents are black, quite a few are elderly, and many have lived in the Valley for a long time. Over the years many residents have given up and sold their houses, knowing that the medical district was authorized to come in at any time.
Wardlow’s son Wayne is an associate minister at New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, the Valley’s main religious institution. Both he and his father would like the medical district to reserve a few Valley blocks for residential use, as was done in neighborhoods such as Tri-Taylor and Little Italy. “They can put funds to rebuild into all these other areas, but not the south side of Roosevelt?” he says. “Nobody’s looking for a handout, but just don’t eliminate us.”
None of these arguments work for the Guys. Ruth Guy has lived in the two-flat since 1945. James Guy, her second husband, has lived there since 1960. His major passion, he says, is working on his house, and he’s finally got it to a point where he likes it. “I don’t want to move too much nowhere. I’ve moved around too much when I was coming up. I was working, and you go from here to here and here to here. Never get yourself settled. So I would like to stay right here. I’m too old to be moving on, and all this kind of stuff. Too old for that now. I’m 83 years old now. Keep on moving? I don’t want to go anywhere.”
