Wellington · Living

Wellington Street has never been more fascinating to me. Take these quotes from the garden tour book, one describing the space at the Columbus end of Wellington, the other the space at the far (park) end:

"The Victorian, gothic style building was destroyed by fire many years ago. The vacant lot evolved into a horseshoe pitching area, complete with old sofas and miscellaneous chairs. ... [a] developer needed the land for staging. Couches, chairs, and horseshoes gave away to machines, disruption, and a ravaged piece of land. The developer left the entire parcel enclosed with chain link and no access. A few neighbors cut an opening and the path was made. Other like-minded South Enders began dropping off plants..."

"Wellington Street was a 'no man's land' back in the 1960s— the place where you might recover your stolen car. In the late '70s, the building at 32 Wellington burned, and, when the City razed the building, a headless body was found. It was never identified."

The garden tour this year went heavily into Wellington Street places, very likely due to the large amount of my immediate neighbors who work on the Land Trust, Wellington Green, and other South End community boards. I can't believe how much I got to find out about them.

My neighbors at 11, 13, 15, and 17 Wellington Street knocked down the fences between their back gardens and have been sharing one large 80-ft wide garden space, with four harmonious styles, for years.

My neighbors at 8 Wellington have an amazing roof-top deck garden that they've been tending for a decade. They had a photo album of their garden with shots of 111 Huntington slowly filling in as the pictures progressed. Their house is absolutely fabulous (had to go through it to the roof), and the roof garden the talk of the tour.

I swear, my empty window boxes are positively SHAMING me right now. I'm flushing red just thinking about them. I live on a street where the community broke into someone else's lot to guerrilla garden it, and I'm sitting there with empty window boxes right across from the scene of their struggle. Who knows, they may break in and take over...

Written from stop #20 (ignore the second floor).