San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
COMMUNITY IS AT CROSSROADS IN CREATING ‘FOUR CORNERS OF LIFE’
Murals, new housing developments, increased police presence mark changes at Euclid and Imperial avenues
With a paintbrush in hand, Kim Phillips-pea adds color to a mural she is painting near one of San Diego’s most infamous intersections.
Phillips-pea and a group of local artists called Southeast Art Team are painting a mural that depicts businesses the community would like to see in the neighborhood — a coffee shop, a bookstore, a retail shop and a club for artists.
The mural is going up on a boarded-up, abandoned building near the corner of Euclid and Imperial avenues, a part of the Lincoln Park neighborhood that residents are calling the “Four
Corners of Life.”
It wasn’t always called that. When Phillips-pea grew up near the neighborhood, she remembered the intersection was called “the Four Corners of Death,” because it was a place where rival gangs often clashed. The nickname shaped how people viewed the area years ago, she said, and sometimes it continues to characterize the community today.
That’s why neighborhood residents like Phillips-pea have been working for nearly a decade to revitalize the four corners — to change the narrative.
“We don’t want people to be afraid,” Phillips-pea said. “We can’t run from where we live.”
Phillips-pea said she wants her
and other young people to grow up feeling their community offers positive opportunities.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” she said, as her 9-year-old son waited in her car for her to finish painting.
Over the last 10 years, organizations and residents have been trying to take ownership of the area, unofficially rechristening it the “Four Corners of Life.”
Though crime around the neighborhood has not disappeared, community efforts are paying off, they say. The area is attracting artists, some housing development and an increased police presence that they hope is addressing homelessness at the intersection.
Lincoln Park resident Andrea Hetheru gets a little emotional talking about the changes she sees when driving past the four corners.
The 16-year resident said that late last year the area was prone to illegal dumping and was a hot spot for drug use and homeless encampments. Now, it’s nothing like that.
The mural, the absence of trash and illicit activity, and the installation of small lights on trees are little signs that things are changing, she said. But there is still a lot of work ahead.
“If I compare it to how it has been in the last year, I feel like I’m in heaven. But if I compare it to what I think it should look like, it’s not even close,” Hetheru said.
On a recent day, cars drove up and down the main thoroughfare while customers bought food at a taco stand at the corner. People pumped gas at the Arco station and, across the street, a man sat in his lowrider playing music in front of the Green Cat Liquors store. A woman and her children walked by and looked at the mural.
A history of gang violence
The intersection of Imperial and Euclid avenues in Lincoln Park is not in the center of southeast San Diego. But from the late 1980s into the 1990s it was viewed as a focal point where territories of various rival gangs converged.
Back then, at least 35 street gangs were operating in the neighborhoods of Encanto, Skyline, Paradise Hills, Valencia Park, Lincoln Park and Emerald Hills, according to a 1988 San Diego Union article.
That year, a police officer was killed during a foot chase with local gang members. In 2003, two women were killed in the crossfire between rival gangs in Lincoln Park. In 2010, the violence gained national attention and a Lincoln Park gang was featured in the History Channel’s “Gangland” show.
Residents still are unsure about who coined the “Four Corners of Death” nickname, but it stuck.
Today, crime records paint a mixed picture of progress. There are fewer murders and violent gang activities, residents say, but less serious crimes persist.
Two census block groups — small geographic areas inside cities and counties — connect to the four corners intersection, creating a square south of Imperial Avenue, west of South Euclid Avenue, north of Logan Aveebration, nue and east of Interstate 805.
According to data reported by the San Diego Police Department, a total of 1,600 crimes were reported in the area from 2013 through 2019. Overall crime has increased over the past seven years by about 33 percent, with nearly 300 incidents last year, though most were nonviolent offenses, such as fraud, theft, vandalism, embezzlement and malicious mischief.
‘Peace in Southeast’
Nearly nine years ago, 100 community members and leaders stood at Imperial and Euclid avenues holding signs that read, “Peace in Southeast,” and “Guns kill dreams.”
There had been an increase in gang-related shootings in the area in 2011 and the residents were trying to reclaim their community. They began the push to rename the four corners.
The nonprofit Paving Great Futures was one of the groups launching a stillannual celebration called the Four Corners of Life Celson
to help dispel the neighborhood’s negative reputation. Armand King, the organization’s chief operating officer, grew up in the area.
“I don’t need our kids walking through the neighborhood knowing ‘I live in the Four Corners of Death,’ ” King said.
He said there is no reason the nickname should have stuck around as long as it did, but it shows how the community was overlooked for many years. He said the negative name has depressed investment and development near the four corners.
Local housing developer Robert Ito has experienced that firsthand.
Ito, who grew up in Encanto, recently lost money on a housing project near the four corners after an investor made a site visit and saw people sitting near the intersection, drinking and doing drugs.
Ito said it became clear to him the community needs to focus on cleaning up and investing in the neighborhood themselves.
That could be challenging.
U.S. Census Bureau data for 2018 show more than half the 860 households in the area have annual incomes below $30,000. Another 42 percent have incomes between $30,000 and $99,000.
The population in the Lincoln Park census blocks is younger compared with the rest of the county, with nearly 60 percent under the age of 35. Less than half the county’s population is under 35.
Of the 1,800 area residents who are 25 and older, less than 6 percent have bachelor’s degrees or a higher level of education.
There’s also a higher concentration of racial minorities in those two census blocks than in the entire city. More than 60 percent of the 3,450 residents are Hispanic; nearly 30 percent are Black, 8 percent are Asian and 3 percent are White.
Nearly 1 in 3 residents were born outside the United States, census data show.
Revitalizing image
The area was once
bustling with businesses, said Barry Pollard, executive director of the nonprofit Urban Collaborative Project, but many businesses there closed because of the gang violence.
Over the years, the corner’s problems have morphed away from violence toward homelessness.
Pollard organized the Euclid and Imperial Activation Team, a group of community members, city representatives, police officers and mental health service providers, who work together on issues of homelessness and drug-use in the area.
With community support, the police department in the past month has placed an emphasis on patrolling the four corners and offering services to people who hang around, said Jennifer Gregory, a community relations officer with the San Diego Police Department.
The community team is seeking creative ways to attract businesses, organize events and add art to the area. Ito, the developer of the slated housing complex, commissioned the Southeast Art Team to paint the mural to transform the blighted building that currently stands on Imperial Avenue.
People will see progress in the mural, Pollard said, and in a new 78-unit affordable senior housing complex at least a year out from breaking ground.
“Most people have never seen it this way,” Pollard said, adding that there is a lot of work ahead to ensure it’s sustainable.
Phillips-pea and artist Raquel Rhone, part of the Southeast Art Team, say they plan to open an art gallery in the neighborhood in late October. They also plan to organize an art walk through the community.
Phillips-pea said it’s wonderful to see the neighborhood come to life with art and community efforts.
“This is what is bringing attention to the area ... versus the gangs, the killings, murders and prostitution,” Phillips-pea said.