A CHANGE FOR `THE HILL'

Many Residents See Improvement In A Schenectady Neighborhood Known
For Crime And Violence.

SCHENECTADY - Daisy Smythe knows what crime is like in Hamilton Hill.

In 2002, gunfire roused her from her Schenectady Street home in time
to see gunmen fleeing a murder scene next door and her
then-7-year-old adopted son, Savaion Parson, hiding from flying
bullets in the driveway that separates the two homes.

"There came a point where I couldn't let my foster children and
grandchildren go out onto the porch alone or ride their bikes," the
73-year-old woman known as Grandma said. "When they were out, I was
out, and when I had to come in they had to come in. Repeatedly, as
fast as I would buy them a bicycle, a scooter, skates, whatever, when
they went out to play, it would be stolen."

Smythe wanted to move away then, but she's not in such a rush
anymore. Hamilton Hill, she said, seems to be a little better. She
lets the children play outside again. Gone are the desperate crack
addicts who used to pass her porch asking if she had drugs to sell.

Smythe is witnessing a modest trend: After decades of growth in
neighborhood crime, some of Hamilton Hill's major crimes are
dropping. The changes are subtle and some crimes such as rape and
robbery still hit high points in 2006.

But murders in the neighborhood smaller than a square mile dropped
from five in 2002 to zero last year, though the trend reversed this
year with three of the city's five homicides taking place in Hamilton Hill.

Aggravated assault has dropped during the last two years. Larcenies
are down from a peak of 262 in 2004 to 149 through October of this year.

Many people living and working here insist they feel safer than they
did just a few short years ago and believe the neighborhood is on the rebound.

Mahmood Ali smiles broadly as he stands behind the counter of his
Craig Deli and Grocery and discusses neighborhood changes.

"No people outside, no drug dealers," said Ali, a native of Yemen who
lives above his store. It's a big difference, he said, from when drug
dealers and other criminals ruled the corner outside his business.

"Now nobody. I sleep good," he said.

Molaine Gilmore, 55, who lives on Emmett Street near busy Craig
Street, says this past summer was the first in recent memory when
noise and people loitering on her block weren't a problem.

"Right now I can look from one end to the other and not see a soul in
sight," she said.

Residents and city officials hope stabilizing house values, increased
home ownership led by the continuing influx of Guyanese families and
surveillance cameras fixed on trouble spots are having an impact.

But for decades, "The Hill" as many locals call it, was anything but peaceful.

Drug dealers and prostitutes infiltrated what once was a
working-class neighborhood of mostly older two-family wood and
vinyl-clad homes squeezed onto narrow lots. New dealers quickly
replaced those police arrested.

The intersection of Emmett and Steuben streets became a crime
epicenter, where groups of armed drug dealers openly plied their
trade at all hours of the day.

"This was what you would call the belly of the beast," said Leroy
Fogle, a reformed drug dealer and gang member who runs a youth
program on the Hill. "It was like 42nd Street (in New York City),
where cars would drive up and you would have dudes go and serve."

Cheryle Voris, 60, has lived on Emmett Street with her family for
nearly four decades. She remembers those dark days well. In 2002,
16-year-old Leonder Goodwin was shot dead in front of her house by
two men after the teen's jewelry.

The eight years from 1994 to 2002 were a "living hell," she said. The
traditional urban woes of suburban flight, job loss, poverty, crack
cocaine and gang activity came to define the neighborhood.

Lincoln Avenue in the heart of Hamilton Hill became so forlorn that
houses cost next to nothing.

Ronald Reape got his for $1,500 in 1996.

"It was a decision to get a good deal and live in the wild, wild
West, or live somewhere else more expensive," the 43-year-old
contractor said. At the time he bought his home, Reape said, roughly
every third home on his block was abandoned.

Hamilton Hill wasn't always that way. The neighborhood overlooking
the downtown General Electric plant grew in the early 20th century.
Blocks upon blocks of wood-framed homes were built to house the
masses of laborers.

Earlier this decade, the lure of dirt-cheap properties attracted
buyers. Guyanese immigrants from Queens, courted by city officials
and downstate investors, converted cheap property in the neighborhood
into owner-occupied homes and rental properties.

The once-anemic real estate market has seen a resurgence, according
to Patrick Smith, a Bicentennial Realty sales agent who has sold
homes on the Hill since 2001. Today, he said, homes on Lincoln Avenue
sell for between $65,000 and $11O,000.

An Emmett Street property sold for $137,800, the highest for the Hill
this year, he said. Despite the optimism, statistics paint a
conflicting picture. Murders and assaults are declining, as are some
property crimes like burglary and larceny. This decade, rape, robbery
and car theft all peaked in 2006. In Mont Pleasant, the neighborhood
to the south of Hamilton Hill, the rate for many major crimes also
peaked in 2006.

Residents in Mont Pleasant, on Central State Street and on the
residential corridor along Eastern Avenue complain crime is becoming
more visible in their neighborhoods.

Assistant Schenectady Police Chief Michael Seber agrees the Hill is
not as "prominent in crime as it once was." But other areas are
seeing the effects of transient criminal activity.

Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said criminals are more
mobile today now than ever since most have access to vehicles.

"It provides a means to go anywhere they want and to escape the area
quickly," added Bennett.

Nine new police recruits hit the streets two weeks ago, Bennett said,
and he expects the new class now going through the academy will
follow suit by Labor Day. The added manpower, he said, will allow the
department to focus more on community policing and ongoing efforts to
foster better relations with local people, to help in crime-fighting.

Albany Law School law professor Daniel Moriarty says numbers alone
don't always give a full picture. Especially not when residents
accustomed to the almost-daily sounds of gunfire, emergency vehicles
and blood-stained sidewalks see those things subside.

"These are more visceral facts that they would probably know about
the conditions of life that the stats don't capture," Moriarty said.

"The people would be feeling and judging things not included in any
category. To some extent, the way you feel is a function of attitude
and perception."

There is universal agreement that home ownership is the key to
improving the quality of life and restoring pride on the Hill.

"When you see people like Guyanese folks moving in, fixing up places
and living there, block by block, you will see pockets of streets
returning to normal activity," Schenectady County District Attorney
Robert Carney said.

From his office at Schenectady police headquarters, Rick Voris has
an eye-in-the-sky view of the neighborhood. Voris, who lives on the
same Emmett Street block as his mother, Cheryle, oversees the
district attorney's experimental neighborhood video camera program.
Nine cameras keep watch over Hamilton Hill, three more are trained on
Mont Pleasant, and another four have been installed in the Vale neighborhood.

On a recent morning, the sharp images from the nine public
surveillance cameras on Hamilton Hill revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

One of those cameras is near the corner of Steuben and Emmett streets.

For years, the area around Tony's Market was a magnet for trouble.
Though police never investigated crimes directly connected to the 858
Emmett St. store, its location was a regular gathering spot. By
mid-2004, officers were being called to the store daily.

But the number of calls started dropping after a security camera was
installed at the corner in 2004. By October of this year, police were
handling just two calls a month at the intersection.

Carney, Mayor Brian U. Stratton and others argue that much of the
violence in the Hill is largely drug dealers and addicts targeting
each other. Residents still complain that outsiders from New York
City and other downstate areas bring crime to the neighborhood.
Scattered drug rehabilitation centers also draw potential trouble, they say.

Police are troubled by the proliferation of guns on the streets. And
some people on the Hill mistrust the police department, which in
recent years has been beset by scandal and the arrest of several
officers. Some residents fear they'll be seen in the neighborhood as
snitches if they discuss crime with the authorities.

"It's not that people don't want to tell the police anything; they
don't know the good guys from the bad guys," Reape, the homeowner,
said. "They don't know who they're talking to."

After 47 years at Ralph's Dry Cleaners, Bertha Comanzo, 82, measures
progress by the drop-off in dealers and users she sees shuffling past
her laundry at Albany and Craig streets.

The neighborhood, she said, is still living down its reputation for violence.

"It's going to take a while before you change the image and it's
going to take decent people to change the image of the Hill," Comanzo
added. "That's what it's going to take to change this place, family
not single people, not drug dealers because families have a different
outlook on life."

Over the 15 years she's lived on Schenectady Street, Daisy Smythe
said her block evolved from family-friendly to dangerous and slowly
back to peaceful.

Though she couldn't afford to leave when her adopted son was nearly
shot in 2002, Smythe has the option now. Her grandson, former
Schenectady High School and University of Massachusetts basketball
star Rashaun Freeman, plays professional basketball in Paris. He
wants to buy her a home in a better neighborhood. She expects that
she'll eventually leave, but for now, she's happy.

"I see a dramatic positive change, and the last couple of summers
have been almost like it was when I came here," Smythe said. "I am
able to sit out there, the kids are able to play outside, and people
are back to collecting bikes, toys and stuff that belongs to my kids,
and bringing them back."

"I don't have to lock my back gate and put up 'No Trespassing' signs,
I've gotten rid of my two 100-pound pit bulls. For a while, they
ruled the joint."