Hilltop: general impressions

local crackhouse on left

We moved to the neighborhood near 14th and So M St in December '09.  Hilltop, baby.  I grew up in Summit near Canyon Rd.  Close enough to have absorbed the reputation Hilltop earned in the 80's (when I was in grade school at Fruitland Elementary), but far enough to never get any first-hand exposure. 
I came willingly to Hilltop, I wanted to live here and be a part of it.  I dread the day I live in an all-white upper-class neighborhood, surrounded by people just like me.  (Ok, I'm not upper-class, but like a true aspirational American, I expect to be someday.) I want to be among colored people.  I want to be among poor people.
Hilltop has its share of that.  I happen to live half a block from a crackhouse, so we get quite a lot of foot traffic and night-time activity.  This building and the business it does has become a mini-interest of mine.  I'll write about it in the future.
Aside from the crackheads, it's a wonderful neighborhood.  I know the names of every kid on the block.  I know my neighbors better than any place I've lived in my adult life.  I strap Xavier to the back of my bike and we tour around in the afternoons, or we walk the one block to Ferry Park. 
Hilltop is a neighborhood of pockets.  There are sketchy streets, then a block away are beautiful well-maintained homes.  You can't live around here and not occasionally see some twitchy dude pushing an empty stroller go shuffling by at 6 in the morning.
It's awesome.  

Buying a House, part 1

Lisa and I are about a month into the process of buying a house.  The one we've got caught on the line is 814 S I Street.  It's a 1200 sf 3 bedroom home, a half block off of 9th, 3 doors down from Neighbor's Park, which is one of the cutest neighborhood parks I've yet to find in the city.  It's exactly half a mile from work which means that my bicycle will remain super convenient as my primary mode of transportation.




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There is a little convenience store on the corner of 8th and I which I've seen attract some scruffy characters in the year or so that I've been riding by (my daily bike commute takes me through the park there so I'm pretty familiar with that block.)  Since getting into the process of buying a house there, I've started going past it at virtually every opportunity.  I want to see what the area is like at all hours of the day and week. So far I haven't seen any crackheads or sketchy types.  

One slightly funny thing is that there is a drug house half a block from our current apartment on 14th and M.  Over time I've learned to recognize some of the cars and faces of people who come through to get their fix.  What's funny is that I recognize some of the same people and vehicles near the new place.  Lisa made the observation that if they need to drive up to our neighborhood to get their drugs it means that there isn't someplace closer, so that's looking on the bright side.

My favorite thing to do when I go by the place is to imagine what I'll do there.  It's kind of overwhelming.  I've had ideas in mind for what I'd do with a place of my own for years, and now I'm actually looking at making it happen.  Some are ridiculous and I know I'm not really serious, like digging secret tunnels, or creating a secret laboratory (I have zero chemistry skills, so why would I need a lab?  Aside from the awesome factor, of course.)


But a few ideas will be worth the effort.  For example, I love plants.  My intention is to create an edible yard.  Fruit trees along the back alley, blueberries along the sides.  Salmon berries and huckleberries in the shade and under trees.  Strawberries as a ground cover, raspberries on wires along the fence.  A few veggie beds, and voila!  


Oh but it's work, you say.  I can hear the grumblings of experienced home owners, who try to scare first-timers with horror stories about the volume of effort it takes to maintain a home.  It's like the expected it to be easy or something, like there is some yard fairy who isn't holding up her end of the bargain.  But I like to build things.  I like to garden.  I know how to work hard, and my hands are already calloused.

Perhaps my first project, apart from getting roots in the ground, is to build a fence across the back.  The house has fencing along three sides, but not the back.  Lisa found a picture of a fence that she liked:   

Looks doable.  I like that it comes from recycled materials, that it doesn't use a ton of wood, and that I have the carpentry skills to make this.  The only question is whether it's the appropriate fence.  Would it look too weird to have something like this running across the back yard?  Also, I like living fences and vertical gardens.  How can I take this design and integrate living plants into it?