The City of Washington has, at long last, begun to clean up its previously forgotten neighborhoods.

Structures that have long defied the laws of gravity by not falling down on their own are being identified as uninhabitable and unsafe. Increasingly, they are being boarded up against the repeated intrusions of squatters and drug dealers and their clients.

Best of all, those places are being tagged for early demolition. Tuesday, it was a house without a roof on McCarrel Avenue. Later this spring, it'll be a former Packard dealership/auto body shop on Donnan Avenue. Late last year, a house on Canton Avenue and Gordon Alley and another on East Wylie and Sammy Angott Way came down in hours after being empty, vacant and wide open for years.

This is precisely what the city has needed for quite some time, although a good, stiff wind on many occasions would have accomplished it faster.

In addition to the strident commitment to the benefit and beautification of its residential neighborhoods, not just to the beautiful but underutilized downtown, the city could use a ground-level clean-up campaign.

Washington needs a Boris Weinstein, a self-proclaimed "Army of One" in the never-ending war of litter in Pittsburgh.

The tireless 76-year-old Weinstein is litter's worst enemy. He engineered the clean up of his beloved Shadyside. He created the Citizens Against Litter campaign that fully participates in his city's quirkily-named "Redd Up" campaign April 18-20, and is active in more than 60 suburban communities in Allegheny County with a dozen more in neighboring Beaver County.

"We have 150 neighborhoods where volunteers are already picking up litter," the retired advertising agency executive and public relations guru said Wednesday. "This fall, I plan to organize volunteers in 250 more neighborhoods in time for the city's 250th anniversary.

"And then, after that, I plan to organize Citizens Against Litter campaigns throughout the 14-county Greater Pittsburgh marketing Region, including down there in Washington County if you need help."

Need help, Boris? Are you kidding? There are areas down here that have to undergo some serious cleaning just to qualify to be labeled as "blighted."

"When I stared this thing in 1995, I was on my own, but in my mind I divided Shadyside (pop. 13,000) into 17 zones. When word got out about what I was doing and people started to volunteer, I assigned them to the zones where they lived.

"I told them it was like playing football. Just stay in your zone, that's all you have to do. Clean up your zone and other people will clean up their zone, and the next thing you know, the whole neighborhood (in his case, Shadyside) will get cleaned up.

"It's that simple. One person doesn't have to do it all. In your city, you'd need about 50 or 75 volunteers to do it," he said.

The city is doing its part. Citizens should do theirs.

Byron Smialek can be reached at bsmialek@observer-reporter.com

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