City police officers being recruited to live in Towerville neighborhood

By Phyllis Sides

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:45 PM CDT

Journal Times

RACINE

- City of Racine police officers recently received a special invitation to an open house by Neighborhood Housing Services of Southeast Wisconsin.

NHS is recruiting police officers to live in the Towerview neighborhood. The open house will be held today at 915 11th St. from 1 to 3 p.m. Work was recently completed on a newly constructed home, said Rachel Westergren, community builder with NHS.

"The neighborhood we call Towerview is a 100-block residential neighborhood along Lake Michigan just south of Racine's Downtown center," Westergren said. "It runs from Ninth Street on the north to 21st Street on the south and from Lake Michigan west to approximately Racine Street. From the 1850s to the 1920s many successful entrepreneurs built their homes here and can be found well preserved. The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed SC Johnson Research Tower stands in the center of Towerview, and the Southside Historic District has been on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1977."

The lakefront is east of the neighborhood and the Lake Michigan Pathway provides nine miles of lakefront access for cyclists and walkers, Westergren said. Other amenities include Dekoven Woods, south of the neighborhood, which provides a unique urban green space where neighbors can reserve a garden plot. The Dekoven Center is another neighbor amenity, Westergren said. The center is open to the public and invites individuals and groups of all faiths.

The Towerview neighborhood was first inhabited by Italian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Hungarian and Greek immigrants, Westergren said. "Today the residents of Towerview's tree-lined streets continue to represent the diversity of the city of Racine."

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