Oak Hill-Jackson wants to build on NewBo’s progress

CEDAR RAPIDS - Freda Long has plenty of history with the corner of 12th Avenue and 15th Street SE.

'I grew up just across the street over there,” Long said, pointing from the front of her shop, Freda's Beauty Rama, toward the Oak Hill Manor apartments on the other side of 12th Avenue.

When Long, 83, was born there, the subsidized apartments were decades in the future. The block then was much like the rest of the Oak Hill-Jackson neighborhood - single-family homes, many of whose occupants, including Long's father and other relatives, worked in the nearby Wilson meatpacking plant or other factories within walking distance.

'My brothers worked at Quaker Oats, Penick and Ford (starch plant), and Wilson,” Long recalled.

Neighborhood kids attended Tyler Elementary School, now Metro High School.

'It has changed a lot,” Long said of her neighborhood. 'Most of them that has moved in here (say), ‘Oh, this is nice.' It ain't nothing like it used to be, and I grew up in it.”

But there's new life in the old neighborhood. A few blocks west of Long's shop, Ben Kaplan leaves his apartment every weekday morning for his job in the Geonetric office building at 415 12th Ave. SE.

'I love walking to work,” said Kaplan, 30, a videographer-photographer for NewBoCo, the not-for-profit housed in the Geonetric building. He's lived in the Adam building, one of the Oak Hill Brickstone apartments along Sixth Street SE, since it opened in 2011.

Even a relative newcomer, he can point out the changes since he's moved to the neighborhood.

'This building wasn't here, that building across the street wasn't here,” Kaplan said, pointing across the street from the Geonetric break room. 'NewBo market wasn't here. CSPS wasn't open yet. It was just Parlor City and the Chrome Horse.”

Revitalization of the New Bohemia/Czech Village area has been a prominent feature of the city's recovery from the Cedar River's 2008 flood. Residents of Oak Hill-Jackson, the historically working-class neighborhood that includes NewBo, hope to maintain and expand the momentum.

Oak Hill-Jackson recorded some 1,500 residents in the 2010 Census. Of its 841 homes and apartments, 256 were owner-occupied.

'Most of the good things about it have stayed mostly intact,” Michael Richards said. 'This is a neighborhood built around family connections.”

Richards, 67, and his wife, Lynette Richards, came to the neighborhood in the late 1970s, when he became director of the Jane Boyd Community House. Lynette, 66, president of the Oak Hill-Jackson Neighborhood Association, was a guidance counselor at Metro High School for 17 years.

As the jobs that supported middle-class lives left - the Wilson plant closed in 1990 - many longtime residents moved with them. Oak Hill Manor displaced homes, including the one where Long grew up, and the flood claimed more in the blocks near NewBo.

The Brickstones, by Des Moines-based Hatch Development, includes 128 apartments in three buildings. To qualify for the affordable housing tax incentives that made them possible, tenant incomes are limited to 60 percent of the market's median, or $33,500.

'We had no idea who we would attract” when the first building opened, said Dale Todd, former City Council member and Hatch's vice president for development.

Todd said the buildings' vacancy rates are low, with a stable population - 'this mix of older folks who are retired, and young kids. They work at Mercy (Medical Center), they work at Parlor City, they work at NewBoCo (the New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative).”

Affordable housing is key to the neighborhood's future, said Linn County Commissioner Stacey Walker. He grew up in the neighborhood, part of the county's District 2.

'My hope is that the neighborhood can continue to be developed in a way that is sustainable and aligned with the values and wishes of the people who have been living there for generations,” Walker wrote in an email. 'We cannot expect to maintain the culture of the neighborhood by erecting luxurious condominiums that only a small segment of the population can afford.”

Neighborhood residents often mention the absence of a convenient grocery store. Ready access to affordable, healthy food was cited as a factor in the development of NewBo City Market, but residents give the market mixed reviews.

'I don't find a lot of vegetables down there,” said DeeDee Davis, 73. 'It's expensive, too.”

So Davis and other neighbors come to the Richards's shady backyard on Tuesday mornings, when produce from Oak Hill's community garden and other donors is set out for free distribution.

'I just look forward to her putting out her vegetables,” said Davis, a retired postal worker. 'I'd think if a small store came in here, it would do pretty good.”

NewBo City Market's board and staff are aware of their Oak Hill neighbors and 'focused on rebuilding” its role as a provider of health food, Executive Director Scott Kruger said. Finding an open day on the calendars of the area's growers is a big challenge.

'We have to find the right day to bring farmers in, (that's) the hurdle,” Kruger said. 'There's so much competition (from other markets) and only so many farmers.”

Kruger said Oak Hill neighbors will see efforts to improve connections.

'I've got a number of board members and community partners looking at our neighbors, (asking) ‘How can we make this a better place to live?'” he said. NewBo is 'equal parts tourist destination and equal parts live, work and play for everybody.”

City Council Member Pat Shey, whose district includes the neighborhood, said the area lacks the population to support a grocery store.

'The experts say too many places try to lead with retail, but it's really (residential) rooftops,” Shey said. 'Retail's going to follow rooftops.”

The Richards and other residents distribute produce from the neighborhood's community garden. A market gardener also donates the surplus from a weekly community-supported agriculture drop-off.

Shey believes the neighborhood has avoided some negative influences - 'tattoo parlors, check-cashing businesses, pawnshops and cigarette or liquor outlets.” He said the neighborhood has the potential for good 'connectivity.”

'Oak Hill is centrally located next to downtown, medical district (and) Czech Village, with great access to river, trails, interstate,” Shey wrote in an email.

Construction is scheduled to begin this fall on a new headquarters for the Linn County Public Health and Child and Youth Development Services in the 1000 block between Sixth and Seventh streets SE. As a result of neighbors' input, the building will include a playground, gymnasium and community rooms available after business hours.

And the neighborhood was included as one of The History Center's walking tours last month.

Michael Richards said mutual respect among the neighborhood's longtime residents helps keep it safe.

'It isn't about poverty, it's about connections,” he said.

One connection is at Freda's, where Long's granddaughter and neighborhood resident, Octavia Cox, is preparing a business plan to take over the shop.

'I want to bring back all those things she used to do,” said Cox, 21. 'Fashion shows, barbecues. Expand it, and make it more diverse, so that everyone's welcome. I think that would be fun to do, to bring that back into the community.”

Freda's still is something of a gathering place, especially for younger residents of Oak Hill Manor. Long stocks a modest assortment of candy, snacks and frozen treats in the front of the shop.

'A lot of people come through here,” Cox said. 'You have the kids who come in and get candy, you have the people waiting for the bus outside, you have people who come in and talk to Grandma. Even if they're out of town, they want to come down and see how she's doing.”

Long knew she wanted to style hair when she graduated from high school in 1952.

'I wanted to stay in Cedar Rapids and go to (beauty) school,” she said. 'When I went down there to sign up to go to school, they let me know they don't take blacks. They said you've got to find a black school.”

So Long trained at a Des Moines school. She returned to her hometown after stints in Chicago and Detroit. She worked at other salons until the 1980s, when a friend pointed out the corner store.

'She says, ‘Freda, what are you doing now? Why don't you take that building next door and make that into a beauty shop?'” Long said. 'I've been here ever since.”

Long comes in on Fridays for a handful of faithful customers.

'I still do some of my seniors who will not go to a younger beautician,” she said. 'Just to get out of the house.”

Cox's decision to go to beauty school instead of pursuing a volleyball scholarship 'shocked” her grandmother.

'I said, ‘Where are you going to work?'” Long said. 'She said, ‘With you.'”

'I worked other places, but I thought, why do this when I can work with my grandma?'” Cox said. 'This is where I grew up. When I was little I just sat under Grandma, and all of the ladies and guys who came through here,

'I watched them work. It's funny because Grandma didn't realize I paid attention to it.”