Sitting on her front step at 2442 N. 31st St., Raynette Perry nods to a group of passing children before glancing back down to the PathMark circular in her hands. Nearly everyone who walks by has something to say to Miss Perry, as they call her, and many stop to inquire as to her health. 

Perry, a teacher at Wright School located at 27th and Dauphin streets, bought her house in 1978 and has lived in it ever since.  She was no stranger to the block when she purchased her house. She was born at the Richard Allen Houses and grew up down the street at 2459 N. 31st St. In fact, the four years Perry attended Ohio State University were the only days she left the neighborhood. 

“We call this block the suburbs,” Perry said with a smile. “There’s not a lot of action and it’s quiet.  You go around the corner, there’s action and a whole lot of noise.” 

Perry lives with her son, two grandchildren, and their mother.  “My son’s not going to leave his mother,” she explains.  “He went to Florida for about two years, but he came back when I got sick and hasn’t left since.”

After scolding her 13-year-old grandson Brandon for climbing over the porch railing, Perry begins to recount the changes her beloved neighborhood has gone through over the years.  

“When my family first moved in here, in the 1950s, it was mostly white,” Perry said.  “First there were a lot of Germans, then Jews.  When the Jews left, it became mostly black.”  The population of Strawberry Mansion has remained that way, and is now nearly 98 percent African-American. 

As she talks of the changes that have occurred, Perry’s almost toothless grin-- she wears false teeth when teaching so as not to scare her students--begins to fade. 

“It used to be mostly homeowners and two-parent families,” she says.  “People moved away, a lot of homes weren’t bought, and they fell apart.  Now we have very few homebuyers.  It’s a bunch of renters and single-parent houses.” 

This last is said with regret, as she points to the houses on the block that are occupiedby owners. It is less than a third.

“A lot of people don’t care, they don’t put themselves into their houses,” Perry said with a sad smile.  “Homeowners do a little bette –most of them care about their property.” 

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