As the downtown renaissance continues, we have seen an increased focus on public art opportunities. Public art projects nourish our city, fostering creativity, expressing our values and simply making us happy. The Finding Time Public Art series of 2012 helped us celebrate our bicentennial and in 2013, the Long Street Cultural Wall will add art and beauty to an important infrastructure project.

Designed by artists Larry Winston Collins and Kojo Kmau, the Long Street Cultural Wall will be erected on the south side of the Long Street Bridge, which is part of the Columbus Crossroads construction project.  The artwork will celebrate the history of the Bronzeville (King Lincoln District) with a mixture of black and white photographs and wood carvings. Each of the 60 four by eight foot panels will feature digitally reproduced art mounted to the 240-foot long wall. The panels will also have night-time lighting.

The project received final approval from the Columbus Arts Commission on January 24 of this year and completion of the wall is expected by late fall.

The Capital Crossroads SID Safety Ambassadors are always ready to lend a hand. Though that help often takes the form of providing safety escorts or supporting the security efforts in buildings throughout the SID, one day this winter Ambassador Team Leader Josh Horn took things a step further.

A woman walking downtown was the victim of a purse snatching. Though such instances are pretty rare downtown, often the chances of finding the lost property and apprehending the criminal are slim, but not on Josh’s watch. He noticed a man walking with what appeared to be a woman’s purse and who, when spotted, took off running. A man driving by confirmed that the purse had just been snatched. Josh immediately flagged down a police cruiser who used Josh’s description of the suspect and the direction he was headed to apprehend the suspect. The woman’s purse was safely returned.

The victim later wrote to Josh and the SID to thank him for his efforts. She explained that the police officer praised Josh’s efforts, noting that without his intervention, the purse likely would not have been returned and the suspect most likely would not have been caught.

 Ambassador Josh Horn exemplifies how Capital Crossroads SID is at your service.

The relationship between disorder and crime is an obvious one, and downtown it manifests itself most apparently with public consumption of alcohol. Public intoxication leads to panhandling, public urination, assaults, menacing behavior and other problems. It also results in disorder that invites other criminal behavior, especially if the initial disorder escapes notice by the authorities. By tolerating what might be considered nuisance issues, the stage is set for escalating criminal behavior. 

The book, Fixing Broken Windows, documents the relationship between disorder and serious crime. Where cities and transit authorities take a "zero tolerance" approach to disorder, crime plummets. In New Your City, felonies declined by 75 percent in the subway system within four years of beginning such an approach.

While most retail stores in Downtown Columbus do not carry alcoholic products that tend to be abused in public (single servings of beer, energy drinks that contain alcohol, cheap bottles of liquor, "40-ouncers," "tall boys," cheap fortified wines and more), the one or two stores that do contribute to disorder in the area. Every store needs to refrain from selling the types of alcoholic products that create problems. And those business owners (and landlords) who continue to promote the sale of single-serve alcoholic beverages need to understand that the downtown community finds this practice unacceptable.