Photo by Bruce Rushton When the city sued two years ago to force fixes to this house, it discovered that the owner had died in 1964. Eyesores can last years in Springfield. Consider 2809 Poplar Avenue. In lieu of shingles, a sheet of plastic is nailed to part of the roof. A green notice posted by city inspectors who declared the building unsafe has faded from the sun. Roxana Talley, who has lived next door for two decades, said that the last resident moved a couple years ago after spending the last year or so living in a shed in the backyard because the house wasn t habitable. When he turned 62, Talley says, he moved into a high-rise apartment in another part of town.
Bally Vaughn Back in the day, Bally Vaughn, an apartment complex on Washington Street, was the place to be. It was one of the nicer apartment complexes in town, recalls former Ward 8 Ald. Kris Theilen. When I got out of college in 1995, Bally Vaughn was right up there with Chatham Hills and other apartments that young people wanted to live in. No more. Built in the 1960s, Bally Vaughn since has been marked by crime, loud parties, complaints to police and chain-link fence, which went up after the complex shut down seven years ago. Vacant ever since, Bally Vaughn went into foreclosure before being sold at auction in 2017 to a Florida owner who vows better things.
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