New city bus shelter already target of vandals
By Matt Shaw
Published in News on May 11, 2005 1:51 PM
Residents of Seymour Homes waited for years for their Gateway bus shelter. It took a vandal only days to find it.
Over the weekend, someone broke out a 5-foot-by-3-foot window panel on the shelter. The damage will cost more than $200 to repair.
The shelter had been installed Thursday and was heavily used during Friday's heavy rains.
"It's disappointing," said Stephen Wright, Gateway's executive director. "They had been expecting the shelter for so long, we finally get it up, and then this happens."
Seymour Homes employees had swept up the debris before Wright arrived. He could not tell how the window had been broken, he said.
The vandalism will not slow the current work to put up 11 shelters. As of Tuesday, city employees had erected five and will have two more up by week's end, Wright said.
Gateway is having to alter its plans for three of the locations, but that should not prevent all the shelters being completed by July 1, Wright said.
The shelter sites are the Wayne County Office Building (Social Service and Health departments), K-Mart, Piggly Wiggly on Lionel Street, Eastpointe mental health agency, Courtyard Apartments, and Seymour Homes, Westhaven, Fairview, Lincoln Homes, Woodcrest and Elmwood Terrace public housing units.
If people see anyone damaging a shelter, Wright urged them to call 911. Call Gateway at 736-1374 to report existing damage.