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K-Mart At 1431 W. 20th St.


jookyhc

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The few people who lived on East TC Jester near the split North of 11th, and the baseball folks (Timbergrove Sports Association), were adamantly against the expansion of the street all the way up to 18th/20th. Of course, so were the folks South of 11th on TC Jester when the announcement was made about building the bridge over the Bayou.

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Timbergrove was notorious for shooting down everything. The entire neighborhood was up in arms when the city connected Dian to Wynwood Drive. Oh no! All the riff-raff from the Heights is going to overrun our neighborhood, all the gangbangers are going to graffiti up our walls!

So...they brightly erected a gate with a lock box for emergency personnel. That'll keep that riff-raff out!

Yeah, and it kept an ambulance out too, leading to the death of a Timbergrove resident. That gate came down rather suddenly after that, and Dian still connects with Wynwood, sans the uptick in Timbergrove riff-raff.

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Another reason for the Dian "hate gate" was that AT&T couldn't/wouldn't control their trucks from charging down the Timbergrove streets at speeds far higher than necessary. That's better now, but still an issue at times.

 

If the gate stopped an ambulance, that's more the fault of HFD for picking a bad route. The townhome residents tried that same ambulance arguments to fight the speed bumps on Worthshire, but failed. Of course, the townhome residents really wanted to be able to drive 50+ without any impediments.

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Another reason for the Dian "hate gate" was that AT&T couldn't/wouldn't control their trucks from charging down the Timbergrove streets at speeds far higher than necessary. That's better now, but still an issue at times.

 

If the gate stopped an ambulance, that's more the fault of HFD for picking a bad route. The townhome residents tried that same ambulance arguments to fight the speed bumps on Worthshire, but failed. Of course, the townhome residents really wanted to be able to drive 50+ without any impediments.

 

Was the "hate gate" the media's term for it at the time, or yours? Kinda reminds me of a similar issue locally in the late 1990s where some residents pulled the same thing on a through road that they didn't want people cutting through, and the fact that at the time a lot of influential people lived there (including Sen. Phil Gramm), it took maybe a year and a half to get the city to reopen it, which was difficult because said influential people had enormous control on the city council. Makes me wonder why COH approved the gate in the first place...or did they?!

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I feel like the narrative that "the city connected them, and then Timbergrove got scared" gives kind of a false impression here.  Those streets were connected for years when I was a kid (this was one possible route from places I lived and where my family worked in the Heights to my grandmothers house in Tiumbergrove).   I cant remember back to a time when you couldn't go down Dian to get to Wynnwood (I was born in 1981) and the intersection was closed off when I was teenager in the mid 90's, IIRC.

 

The neighborhood at that time on Dian was a much worse place than the neighborhood on Wynnwood, but I don't really remember if it was a crime issue, seems like it was a through traffic issue, Timbergrove didn't like through traffic driving down Wynwood to cut to TC Jester from the Heights.  Yes, it was closed off for a while due to the neighborhoods complaints, but it wasn't the "opening of the connection" that was the impetus as implied, it was the fact that the neighborhood didn't like things that were happening because the connection already existed. 

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Those two streets were connected long before you were even born, JJxvi. The actual wording used when that gate was erected, was that it was done to keep the "riff-raff from 14th street" from coming into Timbergrove and bringing the blight with them. Yes, it was somewhat a traffic issue as well, but the general idea from the Timbergrove residents was that our side was rundown and infested with hoodlums, their side was pristine and much too uppity to have to "allow" our kind to meander through their streets. I know, because I lived through it.

The streets were originally connected. Wynwood was built to connect into Dian, you know, because Dian was first. It wasn't a matter of the City opening the connection between the two all of a sudden, then the Timbergrovians went into a panic. It was more like, hey here's an opportunity to shut off this access point and show these lower class whites and Mexicans from the Heights that they don't belong walking or driving down our streets and making us feel fidgety and anxious about possibly making eye contact with one of them.

The poster above actually nailed it. Timbergrove, at the time, had a large majority of its homes occupied by the original inhabitants and they weren't nearly as politically correct and socially aware as we like to think we are in the here and now.

Whether you wish to believe the actual motivation behind the gate's erection or not, it's a legitimate part of history between the two neighborhoods. Thankfully, it is indeed history and not the current standard.

If I were to tell some of the stories I lived through while growing up in the Heights back then, my posting privileges would be revoked here at the HAIF for generally frightening people.

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there is some sort of work going on in the old Eckerds building. There was a large dumpster outside, a manlift, and some workers. I could not really see what was going on inside.

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  • 2 years later...
  • The title was changed to Former K-Mart At E. TC Jester Blvd. And 19th St.
  • The title was changed to K-Mart At 1431 W. 20th St.

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