Weinland Park leader led renewal of neighborhood
JOYCE HUGHES /
Joyce Hughes, for years a tireless advocate for the Weinland Park neighborhood in Columbus where she grew up, died in her childhood home on Tuesday. She was 70.
Niece Marchon Hughes said her aunt had been dealing with pelvic cancer. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Hughes was a former University Area commissioner who once led the Weinland Park Community Civic Association. She worked to slow down traffic on busy Summit and 4th streets, fought to eliminate crime and blight, and helped guide the redevelopment of what for years had been a rundown, gangplagued area southeast of the Ohio State campus into one where dozens of new homes have been built or renovated, attracting new residents.
“She is Weinland Park,” said Lisa Boggs, a Hilltop neighborhood leader.
Hughes told The Dispatch for a 2010 story that her parents bought the North 6th Street house where she lived when Hughes was just 6 months old. Her father laid ties for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Her mother was a homemaker. She said the neighborhood then was a safe one, where residents worked for nearby industries such as Timken, a roller-bearing maker, and looked out for one another.
She worked to make it that way again as an adult.
“She was a lion for the city of Columbus, a lion for Weinland Park,” said Brandyn McElroy, the former civic association leader who succeeded Hughes in 2014. “When she entered a room, there was immediate respect for her.”
Doreen Uhas Sauer, who leads the University Area Commission, called Hughes a consensus builder who saw all sides of an issue.
“I really do think of her as the angel of civility,” she said.
Hughes not only helped those in her own neighborhood, but encouraged other neighborhood leaders as well.
Boggs, who leads a block watch on the Hilltop, said that she used to see Hughes at city events. Some years ago, Boggs told her about drug dealers next door.
“I wanted to move,” Boggs said. “Joyce was like, ‘You’ve got to stick up for your neighborhood. If you’re not going to do it, who will?’”