61st & Peoria

[BKDotCom]

KJRH: "People living near 61st and Peoria, may have woken up to the sound of gun-fire around midnight."
Isn't there a good chance of that during any given night?

[FOTD]

KJRH: "People living near 61st and Peoria, may have woken up to the sound of gun-fire around midnight."
Isn't there a good chance of that during any given night?

Daytime too.

[Danny]

That place is like a warzone

[sgrizzle]

Exagerate much?

[custosnox]

It is a bad area, but I haven't found an area yet in Tulsa that can be concidered a "warzone".  I think the oddest thing about that area is if you go just a little bit into the neighborhood you start seeing nice houses, and Metro Christian Academy.  I never could understand how two contrasting area's like that could stand so long in such close proximity.

[DolfanBob]

That is so true about that area.
SW corner, High level terrible.
NW corner, Slight to moderate terrible.
SE corner, Slight to moderate nice.
NE corner, Nice to high level nice.
All with just a traffic light seperation.

[TulsaSooner]

Southern Hills is not far away either.

I understand Augusta National is not in such a great area, but I've never been there to see it.

[Danny]

Exagerate much?

actually no I dont, have you lived there, and become used to waking up to gunshots just outside your window?
Well, I have

the news only reports the shots that hit, they could care less about the ones that miss, and there are plenty.

[rwarn17588]

It is a bad area, but I haven't found an area yet in Tulsa that can be concidered a "warzone".  I think the oddest thing about that area is if you go just a little bit into the neighborhood you start seeing nice houses, and Metro Christian Academy.  I never could understand how two contrasting area's like that could stand so long in such close proximity.

Good neighborhood/bad neighborhood within a block or so is common in the Midwest. Go to Chicago and you'll see what I mean.

[Friendly Bear]

Back in the 1960's when HUD through various lawsuits forced cities to DISPERSE Low-Income Housing from historical ethnic neighborhood pockets, the City Fathers of Tulsa decided to drop this mandate into the laps of the 61st and Peoria neighborhood, effectively Red-Lining decent development in that area.

Things have gone straight downhill in that neighborhood since then.  Sungate Apartments evolved into Gungate Apartments.  It did not happen overnight, but gradually those people who didn't have to live in a war zone moved out.

Pawn shops, liquor stores, laundreys, and fast food outlets predominate.

[FOTD]

Back in the 1960's when HUD through various lawsuits forced cities to DISPERSE Low-Income Housing from historical ethnic neighborhood pockets, the City Fathers of Tulsa decided to drop this mandate into the laps of the 61st and Peoria neighborhood, effectively Red-Lining decent development in that area.

Things have gone straight downhill in that neighborhood since then.  Sungate Apartments evolved into Gungate Apartments.  It did not happen overnight, but gradually those people who didn't have to live in a war zone moved out.

Pawn shops, liquor stores, laundreys, and fast food outlets predominate.

Yes, but no wondering bears from Turkey Mountain.

[Friendly Bear]

Am I being called a wondering bear, and perhaps meaning a wandering bear?

[Chicken Little]

Back in the 1960's when HUD through various lawsuits forced cities to DISPERSE Low-Income Housing from historical ethnic neighborhood pockets, the City Fathers of Tulsa decided to drop this mandate into the laps of the 61st and Peoria neighborhood, effectively Red-Lining decent development in that area.

Things have gone straight downhill in that neighborhood since then.  Sungate Apartments evolved into Gungate Apartments.  It did not happen overnight, but gradually those people who didn't have to live in a war zone moved out.

Pawn shops, liquor stores, laundreys, and fast food outlets predominate.

Sometimes you are right about local issues, but not this time.  That's not how it went down.  Tulsa was never under such a consent order from HUD or anyone else.  Though it takes some serious stupidity to let an area go so far down, it's not a conspiracy, and it wasn't entirely the gov't, though they played a role.

61st and Peoria was driven at high speed off a cliff through a combination of bad planning, cheap construction, and poor management.  Almost all of it was "market rate" when built.  Think about it...what a hip location!  But bad planning created an inordinate concentration of apartments and little else, i.e., jobs, services, etc. in this compact area.  Add to it the fact that "hands off" absentee landlords didn't listen to tenants or manage their cheaply built properties well.  The end result is a neighborhood with a shelf life that could be measured with an egg timer.

It didn't become what it is today by design.  Rather, it's a rough place because of a lack of design.  It's a mischaracterization to say that this was caused by HUD, and lawsuits, the city, though some of this may happened and played a part.  It's also wrong to blame this on poor people; they didn't build that place.  It's an object lesson on how not to build a neighborhood.  Think the city will learn from it?

[Friendly Bear]

All cities with public housing concentrated in ethnic minority concentrated areas were under a de facto threat of a HUD lawsuit, since it was the self-same lawsuits which forced some cities to begin to DISPERSE their public housing.

Our city fathers chose 61st and Peoria Avenue as the destination to disperse public housing, which had heretofore been concentrated in north Tulsa, i.e. Apache Manor and Commanche Manor.

Whether Tulsa was ever actually sued or not, I do not believe we actually were, or that it really matters whether the city of Tulsa was actually sued. 

The lawsuits established HUD public housing public policy during the Great Society era of Lieing Lyndon Johnson.

[DolfanBob]

Another shooting out there ? No wayyyy !
I could probably keep this topic active with just updates.
http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10929674