The Dispatch wrote Rescued from rougher days, neighborhood thrives as it did a century ago
Sunday, September 7, 2008
BY SHERRI WILLIAMS
Queen Anne manses tower over quaint cottages and rentals on the streets of Victorian Village. The diverse housing stock dates to the late 19th century, when the mix of large homes, row houses, doubles and cottages resulted from “a mix of people with money, and people who worked for people with money,” said Rob Pettit, a Victorian Village Society board member.
Today, Victorian Village is still home to a diverse group: families and singles, owners and renters, and gays and straights, many of whom describe the community as cosmopolitan, progressive and tolerant.
But where today there are stately homes and a cosmopolitan charisma, 20 years ago there was blight and crime. The decline began 80 years ago, according to the Victorian Village Society, when the automobile helped create suburbs to the north and northwest. By the 1970s, large houses had been divided into apartments. Others were boarded and vacated.
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