Volunteers clean up Pingree neighborhood - KMSP-TV

Volunteers were out on Saturday breathing some new life into a forgotten Detroit neighborhood. They say the city won't help clean up the 2,000 block of Pingree, so they're doing it themselves.

Click on the video player to watch Robin Schwartz's Fox 2 follow-up

Fresh new boards will cover up years of deterioration and decay. Volunteers with the Grand River Creative Corridor got to work Saturday cleaning up a section of Pingree. The street has seen better days. During the 1967 riots, many homes in the once prosperous neighborhood burned to the ground and it's never been the same.

"I think it's criminal," said one long time resident about the blight all around her. "It's a shame and a lot of things need to be done that have not been done."

Neighbors say they've tried for years to get help from the city but nothing's happened. Until now.

"You have pockets doing really well, Downtown, Midtown, there's a lot of excitement," said cleanup organizer Derek Weaver. "But I think people forget the actual neighborhoods of Detroit."

Weaver is heading up the effort to board up abandoned homes and paint them. There are only four houses left on the block where people actually live. The Detroit Mower Gang also turned an overgrown park into usable space again. The volunteers want to save the neighborhood and bring it back.

"I like my neighborhood," said Kenneth Lee. "I'm a Detroiter through and through and I just don't like that my side of town has gone down so drastically."