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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 1996)
* I D ■ A Daily Nebraskan Special Report After decades of carrying the label of undesirable, a historic Lincoln neighborhood may not be what some believe. Rethinking Malone Matt Miller/DN HUGH AND LEOLA BULLOCK stand near where their first home used to sit at 22nd and T streets. The couple lived in the Malone neighborhood when discriminatory lending practices of the 1950s kept Lincoln’s blacks from buying elsewhere. f ♦ Pag* 10 ‘ A study of computerized crime records from the Lincoln Police Department shows Malone's rate ranks low compared to eight other Lincoln neighborhoods. ♦ Pag* 12 A young couple trying to escape the racist South of the 1940s came to Lincoln to find the Good Life. Having lived in Lincoln for almost a half century, they have watched their old neighborhood change. # Pag* 12 The city and the j§ University of Nebraska-Lincoln have had plans that would have changed the face of Malone forever. u Perceptions from past haunt area By Matthew Waite Copyright 1996Daily Nebraskan It may not have looked pretty, but for Hugh and Leola Bullock, it was home — a small, weath ered white house on the comer of 22nd and T streets. Shortly after arriving from Mississippi in 1950, the Bullocks discovered Lincoln had firmly entrenched perceptions about their new neighborhood: Malone, or ‘T-Town” as it was called,-was the ghetto. Only black people lived there. It was rife with the uneducated poor. They lived amid squalor in run-down homes. And most of all, it was the one place to avoid — sunup or sundown. ‘T-Town” was dangerous, a rough area awash in crime. 1 Nearly half a century later, those perceptions still; haunt the Malone neighborhood, one of the capital city’s oldest, in,an area, stretching from 19th to 27th streets i and QtoY streets. < But many of those deeply rooted perceptions, based cm an extensive analysis of current data by the Daily Ne- i braskan, are dramatically at odds with the facts. Malone, ] according to recent statistics, is among Lincoln’s most < ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Yet it is largely white < —more than 70 percent Its adult residents are well edu- i cated — almost half have been to college. And perhaps most surprising of all, Malone is among 1 Lincoln’s safest neighboihoods. In fact when compared to eight other Lincoln neighbor hoods, Malone ranked near the bottom in nine major crime categories, according to 1995 computerized Lincoln Police . Department recoids obtained by the E)ailyNebraskaa But one perception that remains is as valid now as Mjot Miller/DN JAMES CONROX owner of the old Rachal’s lot* is trying » make way for a homeless shelter at 20th and R streets. vhen the Bullocks first arrived: Poverty. With a median ndividual income of $12,917, Malone is Lincoln’s poor est neighborhood, according to 1990 census figures. And there is a strong link between those age-old percep ions and Malone’s lingering poverty, according to sodolo psts, law enforcement officials and civic and minority lead aty, triggering a series of debilitating consequences for Malone esidents. Those consequences include: • A reluctance of businesses to invest in die neigh borhood. • Suppressed property values. • A lack of medical and other essential services. • A reinforcement of negative stereotypes and lin gering racism. Please see MALONE on 10 Boy steals school bus; booked on 8 charges By Chad Lorenz Senior Reporter A 14-year-old Lincoln boy was booked on eight criminal charges Wednesday after using a knife to steal a school bus at Culler Middle School. The eighth-grader rode to the school at 5201 Vine St. on the full-sized passenger school bus, according to police reports. After his classmates got off, the boy ap proached the 44-year-old bus driver with a knife, Lincoln police Sgt. Ann Heermann said. Principal Ross Dirks said he was supervis ing students when the bus driver, Robert Offenbacker, rushed over to him. “He said, ‘A student has my bus,’” Dirks said. Dirks ran to the bus, knocked on the glass door and yelled to the boy asking if they could talk, he said. The boy mouthed “What?” and started driving away, Dirks said. Police spent the next hour trying to track the bus. Officers were called to 52nd Street and Wilsliire Boulevard where witoessestold th^ _r.. . the bus had sideswiped a parked car,Heermann said. • - Using the bus’s radio, police kept periodic contact with the boy, Heermann said. Associate Principal Pam Carmichael said the Please see BUS on 8 Registration service lets students check final grades by phone By Erin Schulte Senior Reporter Instead of sweating the holiday break wait ing for final grades to appear in the mailbox, give NRoll a jingle. The automatic registration service can now be used to check final grades as soon as Dec. 18. Earl Hawkey, director of Registration and Records, said Information Services has been working since early this summer to upgrade the NRoll system for final grades. Final grades, as they become available, will be posted after 6:30 p.m. every day from Dec. 18 to Dec. 27. Normally, grades are sent out soon after the new year begins. students can check their grades rrom / a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 2 p.m. to midnight on Sunday. The grade inquiry feature works as follows: • Call the NRoll number, 472-7272. • Press “2” for grades. • Enter the term code “971” for the fall 19% semester. • Enter your student-identification number. • Enter your NRoll personal-identification number. _l_ • When finished, simply hang up. Most campuses with touch-tone registration also offer the grade-inquiry service, Hawkey said, including the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Getting the program up and running took longer than expected because programmers had to stop work during NRoll registration slots, Please see GRADES on 8
