Residents in a section of downtown Nashua are trying to improve the health of their community.
They want to make the neighborhood cleaner and safer, so people will spend more time outdoors.
In the meantime, their efforts might also permanently change the face of Nashua’s downtown.
NHPR Correspondent Avishay Artsy has more.
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On the corner of West Hollis and Palm Streets, in the so-called “tree streets” neighborhood, Marqy Studer points to the vacant lot next to her home.
A house used to sit on the site.
But the state demolished it last year to make room for the Broad Street Parkway.
That project is millions of dollars in debt, and might not be built for another decade.
In the meantime, this lot and others nearby became dumping grounds for old cars and appliances.
So Studer got some friends together and planted bushes and placed large flowerpots in the lot.
T7, 3:38 “And what I’d like to do in the meantime, is, why not make these lots useful, you know? Nice grass, some perennials – nothing really high maintenance – and keep them maintained. So they don’t turn into junkyards.”
Studer is the chair of Nashua's Livable, Walkable Communities program.
The organization assists local community groups in everything from improving sidewalks and bike paths to building trails and parks.
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But the overarching goal is designing a community in which people can easily walk to shops, school and work.
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But getting residents involved has been a challenge.
T8, 2:10 “It’s a ghetto neighborhood, what do you expect? If it wasn’t for this business I wouldn’t live here.”
That’s Ali Ahmad, the owner of West Hollis Market.
He says drug dealing, loitering and violence are constant problems.
T8, 1:06 “I’m a married man, my wife is 24 years old, I have a four month old daughter. I wouldn’t let her walk alone in the neighborhood. It’s not safe.”
Ahmad may have some grounds for his beliefs.
The neighborhood is the most densely populated section of the city.
And the northern section of the neighborhood has Nashua's highest crime rate.
The poverty rate here is three times higher than the city on average.
And it has twice the rate of single-mother households.
Also, 80 percent of the housing is rental, so there’s a high turnover rate.
Another challenge has been the language barrier.
According to the 2000 census, about a quarter of the residents are Latino.
That gives it the highest rate of Spanish-speaking residents of any neighborhood in the state of New Hampshire.
One Latina resident of the neighborhood is Becky Zuniga, the owner of Becky’s Bakery off of West Hollis Street.
She moved here three years ago from Mexico and has a large Mexican flag hanging next to the cash register.
The Spanish-language network TeleMundo is playing on the TV.
Zuniga says she would like to see her Nashua neighbors be as friendly as she remembers people back home.
But she's trying to make the best of it.
T9, 8:50 “When the kids come in and ask me for some cookies or something, I say okay, I’ll give you some cookies but I don’t want you guys to fight or something, and they go back happy. Sometimes when it snows the kids help me to clean the street because I give them some cookies. That way I try to change something a little bit.”
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And change is coming to the neighborhood.
Alderman Marc Plamondon’s ward includes the “tree streets” neighborhood.
He says one of the great things working for the area is the Heritage Rail Trail.
Five years ago, it was an unused railroad track.
But it's become a major pedestrian walkway.
Plamondon says joggers, dog walkers, and cyclists use the trail every day to get around the city.
T28, 3:15 “You can walk to all these key destinations: churches, Mine Falls Park, Ledge Street School, Nashua West Fields – the baseball fields, Memorial Park, Main Street. There’s all these key destinations you don’t have to drive to, and it’s safe.”
But many residents here disagree.
Just look at the graffiti along the trail, they say.
It’s a mixture of crude drawings, misspelled obscenities, and the initials “SK”.
T44, 6:37 (Bob) “That’s Spanish Kings, it says right there. This is their territory at nighttime. You don’t come down here at nighttime unless you’re with four or five people. They hang out on the corner, about twenty of ‘em, and the cops don’t do nothing.”
(Debbie) “So a lot of people won’t take this path because of these things that go on.”
That’s Bob Green and Debbie Fitzgerald. They moved to the neighborhood from Boston two years ago.
(Debbie) T44, 2:58 “I can practically walk down this trail and watch people smoke marijuana, do drugs right in front of me. They don’t hide it, if anything they let everyone know what they’re doing. You rarely see cops. I’ve only seen cops on this trail twice in the past two years I’ve been here. I’m on this trail about four times a day.”
Local businesses and organizations have begun adopting sections of the trail for maintenance.
And the Mayor’s Youth Task Force is planning to put up murals along the trail.
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Back on the corner of West Hollis and Palm streets, one can see that Marqy Studer's neighborhood clean-up effort is part of bigger changes in Nashua.
T15, 0:10 “From the effort that I see that the city is putting into this, it seems to me that they want to be going into a new direction, and this I think is the start of it. Going in a direction of a healthier, more vital community.”
That new direction has been taking small, but important steps in Nashua’s “tree streets” neighborhood.
For NHPR News, this is Avishay Artsy in Nashua.
