A lawn mower shop here, a quaint diner there and a thriving barbershop right up the street created a perfect Saturday outing for Temple families.
As time slipped away, Scott & White hospital moved, a shelter was born, businesses left and a new breed of residents arrived - some homeless, some addicts and some looking to profit off the new look of the neighborhood. Still, some firms survived the culture shock.
. . .
It was 8:40 on a Wednesday morning in October 2007 and the bars and streets were hopping as if it were 8:30 on a Saturday night.
A group of four shot a game of pool at the Side Track Lounge while the stagnant smell of smoke lingered in the air.
Harry Blanding sat at the bar, sipping on a beer, awaiting his turn to shoot.
“This was the area,” Blanding said. “Businesses up and down the street.
“The police left it alone for too long.”
Blanding turned to his beckoning friends and took his pool shot but returned to the same spot moments later. He eyed his dwindling beverage.
“This was a dangerous sucker four or five years ago,” Blanding said, referring to Avenue G. “They’re fixing it.
“They’re truly trying to fix it.”
. . .
“Pure heaven” is how Bruce Hillis described life on Avenue G for the past 29 years. He blanketed his response in sarcasm and offered a friendly crooked grin.
From his perch at his car clinic, Hillis had a clear view of Jones Park, a prime location for drug deals and prostitution.
“It’s pretty bad,” he said.
While he believed the start of police patrols had made a significant impact on the community, during the fall of 2007 he still was getting an eyeful of prostitutes and dealers every day.
There was a difference, though.
A few months before, Hillis said, homeless men and women spread across every bench at Jones Park. Now, only two or three set up camp each day.
In the past, Hillis said, one of his favorite things to do was buy a bucket of chicken and picnic at the park during his lunch break.
“We don’t even go eat lunch there anymore,” Hillis said. “Nobody uses it.”
Even with drugs and prostitution, Hillis has never been so disheartened that he would pack up and leave.
“I’ve got a real good clientele,” Hillis said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
. . .
In a ride-along with Temple police Cpl. Chuck Borgeson last summer, a call came in about criminal activity at the Oasis Motel on South General Bruce Drive.
He gunned the motor and headed for the motel where an officer was in the process of arresting a known prostitute everyone called “Big Mary.” Her slinky black halter dress clung to every inch of her skin. A white tag flipped carelessly over the back. Her hands fidget from secured handcuffs.
As the officer escorted her to the police car, she shot a scowl at bystanders.
Big Mary was arrested two months before when police rounded up 38 men and women in the Avenue G area on various violations involving prostitution.
. . .
Like most prostitutes and johns, Big Mary won’t stay in jail for long. While some may go back to the streets, police want to make sure they don’t return to the same spot.
“We try to get back in that environment, and our goal is for them to see us pretty quickly, and say, ‘Uh oh. It changed,’” Temple Police Chief Gary Smith said. “You really have to attack it pretty hard and keep it from springing back up.
“Prostitution - it’s a public order crime, but it brings so many things with it,” Smith said. “It brings the drug users. It brings the violence. It brings a whole gambit of bad environment with it.”
To clear the streets, Temple police started changing the scenery - buckling down on major and minor crime, initiating neighborhood cleanups and encouraging residential input.
By changing the scenery, Smith said prostitutes and drug dealers alike would be discouraged from their activities.
“The discomfort comes from police presence and changed appearance,” Smith said. “You want the criminals who are there to visibly see this is changing. They lose their comfort zone and move away.”
And once they move, Smith said police find out where they go so they don’t re-embed themselves.
. . .
While police were zeroing in on Avenue G as the prostitution hotspot, the neighborhood’s other problem - drugs - was on the move.
As Borgeson eyed a poorly parked vehicle during the August ride-along, he said most drug deals had moved behind closed doors, as opposed to taking place in an open drug market as had been the case in the ’90s.
And, “It’s not just the drugs,” Smith said. “It’s not just the prostitution.
“What shoots off those create headlines in newspapers and hours and hours of criminal investigations because somebody’s been murdered, raped or beaten in an alley.”
Today, almost a year after police decided to crack down on crime in the Avenue G area, the place is better off, according to neighbors, officers and business owners.
Monday: Avenue G was once the heart of the city.
Robert Stinson contributed to this report.
