New Jersey project finished
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Center director, coordinated neighborhood opinion. Through the Ballard Center, the houses owned by outsiders, called "slum lords" by Zilm, were weeded out.
For the last five weekends the majority of volunteers have been recruited from outside the architecture class. One weekend 120 persons worked. This weekend there were less, with fifty persons working on the last weekend of the project. The advocacy planning class will expand into other projects over the summer and next year, Zilm said.
Reaction varies
There were people staring out of the windows of most of the houses. Some were sitting on porches, and one little girl with hair to her waist, one of the white members of the neighborhood, stared shyly from in back of a post on a cluttered porch.
Another child, a black girl, stood on the sidewalk with a broom.
"Gonna help. Gonna broom," she said. Then she staggered down the sidewalk with the cumbersome broom and tripped over it. A young woman came out of an untouched house and showed a one-dollar Japanese camera to a student.
"Do you know how to put film in this?"
"Yes," he said, and proceeded to ruin her film trying to load it. She sighed and looked up the street at the students. "They can't work on my house because I got an outside landlord. He might raise my rent if the house got fixed up."
"I ruined your film," he said. "Oh my, that's all right, I'll get new film. Not much of a house to take pictures of anyway." She went back into the leaning house.
Kool-aid for kindly
An old woman, who lived farther down New Jersey Street, opened her screen door and motioned with her hand.
"Come on in and have some cookies and Kool-aid."
Not listening, she laughed and pulled a young man into her house and pointed at a table. "Take all you want. I like students." Her husband walked out of a back room and smiled, staring into space. "He's blind," she said.
"I haven't been able to see in five years," said her husband, "She's filling me in on what's happening with all the kids working on the houses. They painted our house." He felt for a chair and sat down.
"When I could see, I never saw anything like this." He laughed to himself. "Never was anything like this. When I went to college it was a great thing if
Czechs remove eleven foreigners
PRAGUE (UPI) Three Americans and eight other foreigners have been expelled from Czechoslovakia in the past few days, the news agency CTK announced yesterday.
At least six of them were newsmen.
The 11 were identified as: Martin Bell, William Bagling and Erick Thieren, described as "British journalists and cameramen" working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
George M. White, Christopher Ottenweller and Walter James Kelly, identified as U.S. citizens. No details on them were given.
Hennk Hovinga, Jaap van der Zwan and Piet Ter Laag, all Dutch television newsmen.
you mowed a lawn for someone. But to paint a house . . ." He shook his head. "To paint a whole house is really something."
May 5
1969 KANSAN 7
"They painted our house," the old woman said, "because we couldn't do it ourselves. They're going to leave us paint so I can paint the trim on the inside."
This has been the kind of reaction that most of the residents of New Jersey Street have had. They have helped when they could, like the tired man with the new porch. One weekend the women fixed a dinner for 120 students.
the corner of the house with a ladder. Zilm put his hand over his eyes, forgetting again about the paint.
As Pam Mathey, St Louis junior, said, just because sixteen houses have been redone doesn't mean the neighborhood has been improved. What is important is the interaction of the people, and their reaction to the project.
Interaction important
Someone was wiping the paint off Frank Zilm's face. The volunteers, many of them from the architecture class that originally planned the project, were loading a truck with unused construction materials. The day was over, and with it ended the New Jersey Street Project.
"There's still a girl on the roof, Lou," he said loudly.
Lou Fisher, Kansas City, Kansas senior, walked around
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"Well. I needed a ladder."
So he did, and the girl got down. After they finished loading the truck, the "saints" went marching home.
"Put the ladder back, Lou."