Dignowity Comeback
By:  Michael Valdes

For eight years, local artists, neighborhood residents, and complete
strangers have gathered for the annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby.
 
It is not the kind of gathering the park had become known for. 

"We had a lot of drug transactions in the park.  Lots of prostitution. 

And so the idea was to reclaim it for the community," says Rina Moreno, the Director of the event. 

"We
have had people approach us and say that they moved in to the
neighborhood because they had seen information about the Pushcart
Derby. 

They had seen blogs, or pictures, or video and they said, that's where we want to live."
 
If you take a closer look, the real race seems to be taking place all around the historic park. 

In the historic Dignowity Hill Neighborhood.
 
"We gotta improve the infrastructure first before we will get more people moving into the neighborhood," says Juan Garcia. 

"Fixing the sidewalks. Fixing the streets."
 
Garcia knows all about the changes. He is the Neighborhood Association President.

Garcia
and his wife, Barbara, completely renovated a more than century old
home five years ago and are now watching the same thing happen all
around them.
 
As he walks the streets, he can point out house after house that has repainted, redone, or completely renovated. 

"We
are getting an interesting mix of young professionals and working
people and just people who love old houses," says Garcia. 

"We have a great sense of community in this neighborhood. People watch out for each other."
 
Dignowity Hill was San Antonio's first exclusive residential neighborhood in the late 1800's. 

It was built on a large hill just East of Downtown. 

But the railroad, warehouses, time and crime all took their toll. 

Garcia admits those problems are not completely gone.
 
But now the effort to save the neighborhood seems to have some new fighters. 

"This is our event. This is something that we are very proud of," says Gregorio Velasquez about the Pushcart Derby.
 
Velasquez is the Vice-Principal at nearby Bowden Elementary. 

He says the derby and the neighborhood are pushing forward together. 

"This
May that just passed, we started something that was called the Bowden
2-Fun Run.  It was a two mile run.  We started at our school.  We came
running through the neighborhood.  Through the park.  On the bridge and
then back.  And we had over three-hundred people participate."
 
The hope is, more will continue to join the race to push Dignowity Hill back to the top. 

"You just can not get the kind of beauty that you get in this kind of neighborhood with the homes and the people. 

The people are awesome," says Moreno.Dignowity Comeback