Quality Hill Association Gets Writeup on Success

Posted in: NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket
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Neighborhood group returns to Quality Hill E-mail
on 02-07-2009 01:38  

 

By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET - In today's busy, computer-driven lifestyles, "being neighborly" sounds like a quaint practice from the past. However, residents of Quality Hill are finding there are many advantages to making an effort to know one another.

Loosely picking up on a past format, a group of like-minded homeowners has formed a Quality Hill neighborhood alliance. Since last spring, members have reached out to fellow residents of this 20-block enclave from Walcott and Summit streets to the beginning of Armistice Boulevard to promote the idea of looking out for one another and working together.
According to Joe Asermely and Alana Riley, who have spearheaded the alliance effort, the group has held a series of monthly meetings at the nearby St. Joseph Church on Walcott Street and has established its own Web site to streamline communications.
The alliance held a successful neighborhood clean-up in the fall, and also formed a "crime watch" in response to some area vandalism and break-ins. In addition, around Thanksgiving, the group took on two community service projects, organizing a successful canned food drive to benefit the Pawtucket soup kitchen and a winter coat collection that helped the city-wide Warm A Heart coat drive.
Asermely, who lives on Walnut Street, said that when he first moved into the area about a decade ago, an active Quality Hill Neighborhood Association was in place. Interest and attendance at meetings dwindled, however, and the association eventually disbanded.
He said the new group is by design structured more informally than the association, which had a slate of officers and other procedures. "For now, we just want to be a group of people who care about the neighborhood," he said.
Both Asermely and Riley said the new cohesive effort was sparked by a series of minor crimes. They contacted Dist. 4 City Councilor John J. Barry III, who put them in touch with members of the Pawtucket Police Department.
Major Arthur Martins, Sgt. Edward St. Pierre and Patrol Officer Kenneth Provost of the community police unit met with residents, providing them with guidelines on how to set up an effective crime watch and neighborhood alliance.
Asermely credited Barry in particular with helping get the crime watch established, and for responding quickly to various issues and concerns. "He has been a valuable asset to us," Asermely said.
As part of the alliance, there are 10 individuals who have volunteered to be "block captains" assigned to a certain number of streets. These individuals are responsible for making themselves known and, in turn, getting to know the neighbors living nearby, and for being the conduit of communication.
"They are essentially the ‘go to' person," said Riley. She added, however, that residents are still encouraged to contact the police directly for concerns of a criminal nature.
Riley, who works as a computer technician, helped set up the Web site as an effective means of communicating with neighborhood residents about group meetings and other activities. Members who wish to provide their e-mail addresses receive regular updates on the alliance's news.
Riley said that several other Quality Hill residents, such as Mary Healey and Agueda Del Borgo, have also been key to getting the association off the ground. "Most of the people I speak with think it's awesome to have something like this in the neighborhood. They're excited about it," she said.
Asermely thinks the alliance works to create unity among the people who live and work in the area and helps instill a sense of pride. He noted that many residents, including the students and staff of St. Raphael Academy, turned out to help pull weeds from sidewalks, pick up litter and do other improvements in last fall's neighborhood clean-up efforts, and said another such spruce-up is being planned for the spring.
Asermely was pleasantly surprised by the number of residents who participated in the food drive. Group members dropped off flyers and a grocery bag at each house, then drove around and collected the donated goods. "We filled two trunkloads with food for the soup kitchen," he said proudly.
The Quality Hill neighborhood alliance is holding its next meeting on Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph Church on Walcott Street. New members are always encouraged to attend, Asermely said.

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Quality Hill: History blends with diversity in Pawtucket

 

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 8, 2009

 

By Christine Dunn

Journal Staff Writer

 

Standing guard on Maynard Street.

Owners of historic buildings in any section of Pawtucket can apply to have their property included in the city's local historic overlay district. An annual $700 credit in local property taxes is one of the benefits, according to planning director Michael D. Cassidy.

Quality Hill, which has been called the College Hill of Pawtucket, has a large inventory of historic houses, including a number of Greek Revival-, late Victorian- and Federal-style residences. It is also a National Register of Historic Places historic district.

Walcott Street, which has been called the Benefit Street of Pawtucket, was laid out early in the 18th century and has long been a central street in the neighborhood. Beginning in the early 1800s, many of the city's elite chose to build expansive and fashionable houses there.

By the 1920s, "the entire neighborhood was filled with large and often handsome houses fronting tree-lined residential streets," according to a report from the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission.

 

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Quality Hill, in Pawtucket

 

One of the neighborhood's noted homes is the 1910 William Park House at 24 Walnut St. that was featured last year on HGTV's If Walls Could Talk show. Owner Joe Asermely bought the Tudor-style house in 1998 and has extensively restored it.

Another landmark building in Quality Hill is the Read-Ott Mansion on Walcott Street, built in 1842 by hardware merchant John Blake Read. It was later owned by Joseph Ott, founder of the Royal Weaving Co.

In the early 1960s, the house was purchased by Pawtucket's Greek Orthodox congregation, and it was used as a parish house for many years. Today, the building cannot be used because it does not meet the standards of the state's fire code.

Cassidy said Quality Hill has a mix of single-family, multifamily and rental housing. It also has a neighborhood association, led by Alana Riley (http://qualityhill.wordpress. com/about/), who started an effort to revive the group after moving to Quality Hill last year.

Riley said she has focused her attention on community efforts, including starting a Crime Watch group and leading a coat drive and a food drive for the soup kitchen at St. Joseph Church.

Cottage Street and Route 95 form the western border of the neighborhood, which is also roughly bordered by Lyon, Bend, and Potter streets.

McCoy Stadium and the Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island are near Quality Hill, but the neighborhood's largest institutional presence is St. Raphael Academy, a Catholic high school that owns a number of buildings on Walcott Street.

There were just three single-family houses listed for sale in Quality Hill last week: a 1937 Colonial at 89 Walcott St., priced at $239,900; a 1900 Colonial at 240 Walcott St., being offered as a short sale at $269,900; and a 1926 Colonial at 12 Walnut St., priced at $299,900.

There were eight multifamily properties listed for sale in last week in Quality Hill, including a number of short-sale or foreclosed properties. Prices ranged from $97,900 for a 1920 bank-owned four-family to $349,000 for a six-unit property built in 1910 at 84 Spring St.

POPULATION:

(Pawtucket, 2000) 72,958

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Pawtucket, 2008) $177,000

INTERESTING FACT:

Quality Hill was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

cdunn@projo.com

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Nice part of the city and great to walk or drive thru. Kudos to the Crime Watch group

Nice piece...live near there...but they do good stuff for the short time involved

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