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Another side of Mount Hope?
We Live in Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood!
Friday’s ProJo featured a letter to the editor by Beatrice A. Parker, Another side of Mount Hope, in which Ms. Parker seemed to take umbrage with Ellen Baver’s letter published in both the ESM and ProJo, Was moving here a mistake, mayor.
Ms. Parker stated that Baver described her displeasure with Mt. Hope. I wonder if she read the same letter that I did. I don’t recall any expression of displeasure with Mt. Hope in Baver’s letter. Just an accurate description of what she experiences walking down Camp Street and what she has heard from her neighbors and from the police.
Ms. Parker goes on to describe Mt. Hope as Mr. Rodger’s neighborhood!
She celebrates our group homes for the mentally challenged and our rehab facilities!
She states that Mt. Hope homes were built as working class homes like those on Benefit Street!
She does not condone drug dealing but does condone saying good morning:
“I do not condone drug dealing, but I would also be careful about assuming that young men sitting on a porch in the summertime are automatically doing something illegal. I personally find that simply saying ‘Good morning’ to whomever I meet or pass makes us both feel more comfortable.”
So next time you pass some drug dealers, say “Good morning.” You will both feel more comfortable?
Ms. Parker holds a position on the Board of the Camp St. Ministries and states that they try to keep the sidewalk clear. Well, we’ve all noticed the improvement there since Mrs. Baver’s letter was published. Keep up the good work. It was shamefull.
Ms. Parker claims that Mt. Hope has less crime than Blackstone according to the city’s crime stats!
No comment!
I sent the following letter to the ProJo in response to Ms Parker’s well intentioned but hilarious letter:
Please, let’s get serious in Mt. Hope and not try to blame the messenger as Ms. Parker attempts to do in her August 5th letter to the Providence Journal, Another side of Mt. Hope. Many East Siders, and Mt. Hope residents especially, applauded Mrs. Baver’s July 1st letter, Was moving here a mistake, mayor, because it accurately portrayed what one experiences when walking down Camp Street from Rochambeau to Billy Taylor Park. Her letter implied a simple question, “Why is this allowed to continue in Mt. Hope?” Mrs. Baver’s letter was not an attack on Mt. Hope, it was an accurate description of what she and many of us in Mt. Hope experience. Hiding ones head in the sand will not make Mt. Hope’s problems disappear. Nor will putting on a Pollyanna hat and pretending everything is hunky-dory.
It takes little time for a Mt. Hope resident to be able to tell the difference between drug dealers and young people sitting innocently on a porch, and I’m sure Mrs. Baver can tell the difference.
Ms. Parker’s letter actually takes on the tone of a self-righteous lecture when she begins writing about home buying, saying good morning, being civil, and teaching your children respect. Such lecturing appears inappropriate here and condescending to Mrs. Baver.
The embedded Mt. Hope drug culture has long had its liberal apologists, its enablers, and Ms. Parker sounds like another one.
As for crime stats, how about counting the number of drug deals consummated every day in Mt. Hope that go unreported. That would send the crime stats for Mt. Hope through the roof. I can leave my house and witness a drug deal in Mt. Hope almost anytime of day or night. The fact remains that Mt. Hope is not a bad neighborhood, but that bad people do bad things freely here, like sell drugs and commit drug related crimes, and much of it goes unreported and undocumented.
As a Camp Street Ministries board member, Ms. Parker could be a better neighbor by insuring that the Ministries never leave donated furniture or clothes blocking the sidewalk. That should be a relativity simple improvement to accomplish. Can you imagine the outrage if a facility on Hope Street operated that way?
Let us not blame the victim, nor shame the messenger: Mrs. Baver’s truthful letter was long overdue.
John Twomey
Mt. Hope, Providence
Posted at August 7, 2005 12:13 AM
Does it mention anywhere that Ms. Parker is a real estate agent and has brokered property here in Mt. Hope? I did not get the opportunity to read the full article, but from what I gather here she must actually believe the unsolicited fabrications she told me about the "fantastic neighborhood" when I bought my condo from her. I found the excerpts of her letter quite amusing...
-Jen
Posted by: Jen at August 15, 2005 04:09 PM