Regarding the article ”GBA brainstorms ways to boost biz in the area” [Aug. 24], I have lived on River Street in Greenfield for over 40 years, and have seen many changes in the neighborhood, which includes Mill Street and Deerfield Street. If the people who referred to this area as a “slum and blight community” had taken the time to walk down the streets and talked to residents, they’d have seen that most property owners have done much work to improve the neighborhood.

Homes have been painted and repaired; yards are clean, with tended lawns and flower gardens, because our homes are too valuable to be neglected. We may be called a “marginal” neighborhood by real estate agents, a term I have always found insulting and condescending, but the vast majority of residents are working people who understand the value of a well-kept home.

The planners may have good ideas, but maybe before adding more retail stores and taking away some much-needed affordable housing, how about trying to fill the vacant storefronts on Main Street? There certainly are enough of them, and as for the many cars traveling through this corridor, many of them are going too fast to stop or are on their way to and from work. In addition, parking would be a nightmare, unlike Main Street with the parking garage, the multitude of empty street spaces, and the former Wilson’s lot.

Painting murals would be fine, but the question is, where? Cleaning the railroad overpass is a good idea, and maybe that would be a place for murals, but they would be overshadowed by the giant cannabis and other billboards that cover the beautiful stone walls all up and down Deerfield street.

Cleaning the weeds by the river would help, but I have asked the DPW to clean the weeds in the gutter on the River/Mill Street bridge a number of times but they are still thriving, and some sidewalks on Deerfield Street are so overgrown as to be impassable in many places. That is not a criticism of the very busy DPW, but simply a reality. This “corridor” may indeed be a gateway to Greenfield, but it’s a somewhat neglected one.

These are just a few thoughts that came to mind when I read that I am living in a slum and blighted area. This description may be a clever way to get funding, but for those of us who live here it is nonetheless insulting.

Barry McColgan

Greenfield