The buildings themselves are a pale, unchanging beige, but the burst of color—magenta, almost rose pink—was visible from halfway down the block. As I walked down Church Street from Union Station, I saw the curl of color take shape on the second story wall of the last unit. It was a small mural of a tree, clumps of bright leaves and branches reaching up. The painting filled the side of a wall that, even from a distance, I could see bore deep cracks and tracks of rain and dirt. Where the tree limbs ended, the signs of disrepair crept out.

Last month, previously ignored residents of these Church Street housing developments started fighting this dilapidation in more tangible ways, on a far broader scale—they took legal action against the private owner. The city faces the challenge of relocating 289 families, and these families face the challenge of leaving their homes. In this week’s front, Lily Sawyer-Kaplan, ES ’17, explores the future of the residents and the fate of buildings that they will soon leave behind.

Elsewhere in the paper, Taylor Eldridge, BR ’16, condemns Yale’s response to a recent altercation in the context of violence against Black Americans. In Culture, Julia Hamer-Light, SM ’18, brings issues of racial bias and mass incarceration to light in a discussion of a recent Artspace conference. And Natalie Yang, ES ’18, asks us to move beyond passive reading to action. Take her advice–read us this week, then don’t just think about it. Talk about it.