Steve Bale - Second Vice President

 

When I persuaded Pat Bale to buy our home and move with me and our three year old daughter to the Northside in 1977, I was confident I had recruited a dedicated urban pioneer on this adventure.  When I came from my plaster repair job in the dining room to the kitchen and saw the tears as she dragged indoor-outdoor carpet out the back door revealing a worn, unattractive linoleum floor, I wondered if I'd taken us a little too far into the frontier!

We both admired historic homes but ours had to accommodate living in it while we renovated it and Pat Bale was fortunately much more realistic and insistent about that issue.  Evenings, weekends and holidays included ongoing renovation after dinner and time with our daughter since we were both employed outside the home as well as within the home.

Bill and Sally Johnston helped us find our home.  We had finally resorted to knocking on doors, introducing ourselves and explaining our interest.  Bill thought John and Betty Rogers were preparing to sell this home she had inherited from her father so we rang her doorbell, introduced ourselves and after several months reached agreement to purchase the home.  The reaction of neighbors in our former neighborhood, parents, relatives, and co-workers was interesting.  Publicity about the Northside as a residential community at that time was very negative and suburban living was considered preferable.  Bill and Sally's experience with their son and daughter growing up downtown had been very positive and allayed our concerns so off we went.  Bill and Sally moved from Third to Short Street and have been instrumental to the preservation and improvement of the Northside.

Third Street did and does now command attention.  John and Betty Rogers did not mention that artist Henry Faulkner would be our neighbor next door along with his goat Alice, featured in numerous paintings, and multiple cats and dogs along with his dilapidated home which could have won the sweeps on "Hoarders" had it been a show back then.  I refuse to own his art which I admire but do credit him with my detailed knowledge and experience with the Department of Code Enforcement.  It works, but it requires citizen involvement.

Downtown groceries are not new - they're back.  Hume's Grocery was in the space next to Hideaway (before it was Green Lantern) and Vernon always wore a white jacket and white ice-cream parlor style hat.  Wood floors, white ceramic refrigerators, wood display shelves and push button cash register.  Across the street, where the Corner Market now stands, was a gas station with flower boxes below the windows.  Cecil had to quit selling gas because the owner would not replace the underground tanks to conform to EPA standards.  He would do repairs and oil changes, but, alas, that would not feed the bulldog.

The Northside Neighborhood Association has been the catalyst for the landscape you see and enjoy today.  We became involved with the effort by the members to have the area zoned historic which fortunately succeeded.  Otherwise, the view could be very, very different.  The steps and precautions to eliminate or deliberations to change any part of this irreplaceable architectural landscape are not obstacles to ownership and renovation of your home but a filter through the Board of Architectural Review to transfer stewardship.