A Sight For Sore Quigley Eyes

  

For years it has been a corner of just weeds, tilled earth, weeds again and tilled earth again. It has been that way ever since the last of the area’s fig orchards were taken out some fifty-five years ago. I’m talking about the northwest corner of Dakota and Fruit.

Heck, I’m willing to bet even Al Radka drove by that intersection forty years ago wondering “When are they going to finally do something with that empty lot?" Well they are finally doing something.

The “they" in this project is the Fresno Unified School District. Bulldozers have now begun clearing out the property, making way for a new school that’s slated to be called Phoenix Elementary Academy and Pinnacle Middle School Academy.

New school buildings will be a welcome sight in the “spotty" Quigley
Park Neighborhood. But one wonders if they thought about the liquor store (the old Bottle-n-Cork) directly across from the school site. But there is a Fresno County Library next door so…I guess…it cancels that out?

Even though they had to tear down the Mount Zion Church that was in the Western corner of the lot (they were able to move to another location), it’s good to see the empty corner finally getting developed. Hopefully this will start a trend to search out long empty corners of Fresno and turn them into something positive.

Unfortunately for us, Al Radka isn’t around to finally see them do something with that lot, but at least the Ghost of Al Radka is. Maybe Al’s ghost can start haunting empty Fresno corners till something gets built. I suggest the Southwest corner of Palm and Shields for starters.