Neighbourhood sends sympathy to Big Apple

By Sandra Thomas-Staff writer

Members of an East Side neighbourhood group have sent an open letter and sympathy card to New York City pledging emotional and financial support for relief efforts in the wake of last week's terrorist attack.

Mountain View Neighbourhood Group, representing residents of the 33rd Avenue and Fraser area, also promised to build a memorial in memory of the more than 5,000 people who died Sept. 11, when terrorists crashed two hijacked airplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.

"Our neighbourhood slogan is 'Friends Across Fences,' wrote the group. "Today, we would like to extend that to 'Friends Across Borders.' Your struggle is our struggle. When respect and love bind us, we will always win."

On Friday, the group held a long-planned neighbourhood breakfast with a last-minute change in theme. The event was originally scheduled to mark the group's winning of a CBC Radio-sponsored contest on great neighbourhoods, but more than 500 people arrived to sign a sympathy card created by a local artist, to donate money to the Red Cross Relief Fund and to bring small, smooth stones for the planned memorial.

"We had to do something," said Tom Little, spokesman for the group. "The breakfast had been planned for a couple of weeks, but all our plans went 'boom' on Tuesday and we knew we didn't want to have a party. Instead we decided to make it a fundraiser and donate the proceeds to the [American] Red Cross relief fund."

Little said the group won the prize for its efforts to rid the neighbourhood of a growing drug and prostitute problem, clean up the streets and revitalize business. What started last year with a small neighbourhood barbecue to discuss the problems grew into a movement to reclaim the neighbourhood that saw regular clean ups, street marches and a neighbourhod watch program that was eventually responsible for the arrest of almost 50 suspects.

Little said the group even worked with a prostitute support group in an attempt to get some some of the women off the street. "We felt like we couldn't just move them out of our neighbourhood. That doesn't solve any problems."

Next on the agenda is a traffic calming circle at the intersection of 28th Avenue and Prince Albert Street, which Little said would be an ideal spot for a memorial.

"I imagine these memorials will be going up all over the world. We just want to do our part."