Regarding the announced program to paint house numbers on the top front step of each house in our area, using `bright yellow’ paint, I for one am less than enthusiastic, and for two reasons.
Numbering houses in bright yellow – like rows of army barracks — has got to give an overall tacky and tasteless appearance to a neighborhood that regards itself as a historic district.
Secondly, such a localized program to facilitate ready police identification of addresses, serves to focus our area as one beset by problems of crime and social irresponsibility — and isn’t that what ‘redlining’ is all about?
Certainly there is a problem for police (and others) in identifying addresses in St. Louis, but I believe this problem should be handled on a city-wide basis, through the legislative process of discussion and enactment of appropriate ordinances.
Larry Kotthoff
Originally published in The Paper, December 1977.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1977_12.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
