West End - Courier - $100K grant brings hope to Plainfield's West End

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Published in the Courier News, Friday, May 26, 2006

$100K grant brings hope to Plainfield's West End

By BERNICE PAGLIA
Correspondent

PLAINFIELD -- There was a sense of fate about a West End gathering Thursday.

A wide range of residents, officials and community activists met Thursday to witness the delivery of a $100,000 planning grant from the Wachovia Regional Foundation to move the Plainfield Organization for West End Revitalization into high gear. The expected fruits of the grant will be new, affordable homes; safe streets and neighborhoods; economic revitalization and parity for the West End's 4th Ward with the city's other three political wards.

Because the Plainfield Organization for West End Revitalization is teamed with Homefirst -- formerly Interfaith Council for the Homeless -- and Rutgers University's National Center for Neighborhoods and Brownfields Development, many present felt success in the air.

"The stars are aligned," Homefirst Executive Director Barbara Aaronoff said.

Curtis Conway, vice president of the West End group and a self-described farm boy before coming to live in the West End, said, "We are planting in the right season."

Assemblyman Jerry Green, D-Plainfield, and Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs both said a new political climate of unity favors the project.

"The city's theme is 'Growth by unity' -- this is a prime example," Robinson-Briggs said.

Fate has not been kind to the West End for many decades, said the West End group's president and former City Councilman Albert Hendricks. Outside Hannah Atkins Park where the ceremony took place, Hendricks recalled seeing the 1967 riots start right across the street. Part of the civil disturbances that rocked and forever changed many cities, the riots sent the West End on a downward spiral toward crime and decay.

But many West Enders remained loyal to their neighborhoods. Now, their reward will be the opportunity to guide the revitalization. The Rev. Michael Jones, community director of the group, said six task forces made up of residents have just been formed to carry out the planning.

Board member Robert Nelson said residents will not lose out as others have in neighborhood gentrification. The plan's goal is "for the city of Plainfield and the people of the West End to remain in control," he said.

Denise McGregor Armbrister, executive director of the Wachovia Regional Foundation, told the residents, "With this money comes responsibility," and urged them to join focus groups or fill out surveys if asked.

The $100,000 grant was the only one awarded this year in New Jersey. Since its formation in 1998, the foundation has awarded more than $25 million to 65 nonprofit groups in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

An earlier plan for the 44-block West End revitalization project hinged on construction of a new middle school. But when the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp. failed, so did the middle school. Green said it is uncertain whether money can be found for a new school or whether the city-owned lot will be used for redevelopment.

Meanwhile, the partnership has mapped all properties in the project site and is looking into the environmental reclamation of abandoned commercial sites in the West End.

After the presentation and speeches, 23-year West End resident Betty Shorter said she felt good. She especially liked the idea of improving safety.

"The children can go out and play and you could go out and walk at night." Right now, she said, "It's dangerous at night."

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060526/NEWS/605260303

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