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Crime has fallen citywide from 1,302 incidents in 2008 to 880 incidents in 2014, according to the mayor's office.Today, there are block parties in the West Ward. Crumbling homes have been snapped up, dusted off or rebuilt. In the West Ward, it's always two steps forward and one step back, said Larry Porter, who in 1990 bought and refurbished an old bar and turned it into Porters' Pub.Porter says more and more people are driving over the hump <a href=http://www.alportico.net/page.php?sale=True-Religion-For-Babies>True Religion For Babies</a> on Northampton street meaning the imaginary line on Northampton Street where downtown ends and the West Ward begins to visit local restaurants.'Wonderful place to grow up'The West Ward is bounded east and west by Sixth Street and 15th Street respectively, south by the Lehigh River and north by Bushkill Creek. About 16,000 of the city's 26,000 residents live there.Unlike College Hill, which grew around the Lafayette College campus, the West Ward grew from Easton's natural outgrowth of the city's first 1,000 acres.Business owners built more palatial homes on the western outskirts of the city, Holden said. For example, local silk mill owner Herman Simon first owned a home in the West Ward before building his more extravagant mansion now a historic landmark on North Third Street.Working-class people built row homes and more modest single-family dwellings to fill in the gaps, Holden said.When she was growing up in the West Ward, families still lived in those homes. It was a wonderful place to grow up, she said.Local artist Anthony Marraccini graduated from Easton Area High School in 1989, and for the past two years has lived at a home at Sixth and Ferry streets on the edge of the West Ward.Years ago, Easton's downtown was more of a problem spot, Marraccini said, and the West Ward, while always working class, didn't have such a bad reputation.Panto didn't grow up in the West Ward, but he attended a West Ward school and played basketball as a youth there.It wasn't perfect, he said, but people didn't wave guns. Today, the housing vacancy rate is about 50 percent higher in the West Ward than in the rest of Easton, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Families who live in the West Ward tend to make less money than their counterparts elsewhere in the city.Nearly half the properties in the West Ward are rentals, according to the survey. And many residents say one of the biggest problems the <a href=http://www.alportico.net/page.php?sale=Gucci-Glasses>Gucci Glasses</a> neighborhood faces is absentee landlords who let properties deteriorate or allow too many tenants to live in one spot.Panto said the violence commonly isn't caused by residents of the West Ward. Rather, out-of-towners use the city's proximity to Route 22 to zip into town, sell drugs and leave.Marraccini says the problems of the West Ward are part of the natural evolution of cities. I think it's a combination of things, Marraccini said. The rise of suburbia. Gradual decline. You're left with what you're left with. Fighting 'Sleaston' Be good friends with your neighbors, Micki Katz told the crowd at the Easton Area Community Center on Monday night, even if they're carrying guns. A few of the dozens of West Ward residents who'd poured into the Washington Street building chuckled.Katz, 72, lives on 13th Street.She says she sees people with weapons and drugs, and urban violence near her front stoop. I call it Sleaston, she quipped.Her survival tip: Treat your neighbors with kindness. They won't shoot you then, she said.Holden and Sophia Feller, the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership's urban agriculture coordinator, organized the meeting in the wake of the shootings. Holden said she wasn't sure what to expect. But when she arrived at the community center around 7 p.m., a crowd had already formed at the door. West Warders of all stripes filled seats in the community room. There were veterans like Katz, <a href=http://www.radiorcs.com/page.php?sale=Jimmy-Choo-South-Africa>Jimmy Choo South Africa</a> who seemed to have mastered a gallows humor about the neighborhood. Younger residents, artists who'd bought old row homes and cleaned them up, also joined in the discussion, mingling with the West Ward's working class.The city sent its own retinue that included Panto, Administrator Glenn Steckman, Easton Police Chief Carl Scalzo and Captain Scott Casterline. We're here to listen to you, Panto told the crowd.They discussed rebuilding the local neighborhood watch. Some residents talked about the need to install more porch lights to illuminate dark spots. Others talked about adding speed bumps to public thoroughfares (not legal, Panto said) or adding stop signs to every crossroads in the West Ward to slow traffic.Steckman told residents how to lodge complaints on the city's website. Police officers talked about doing more to increase their visibility.
