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A road's name spells change
By SASHA TALCOTT LARGO -- Ten years ago, some neighbors called this Ridgecrest parking lot next to the railroad tracks "the corner drugstore." A steady stream of white faces cruised slowly through this black neighborhood looking for crack, finding it all too easily. Outside the pool hall, groups of teenagers hung out, smoking weed, drinking beer and selling dope to whoever passed. Through it all, Chester Gooden stayed. He and his wife, Corrine Gooden, read the Bible on their porch each morning and bought food for the drug addicts who asked for help. Until his death at 95 two years ago, Chester Gooden refused to give up on the neighborhood he had helped establish. On Saturday, Pinellas County will honor the Goodens' neighborhood activism by changing the name of Baskin Crossing Road to Gooden Crossing, marking the culmination of nearly 75 years of the Goodens' unflagging community activism. "I hear people speak about how Dr. Martin Luther King was a great man. Well, my father was a great man," said Delores Gooden-Helm, Gooden's daughter who still lives on the family property. "That was his love: his church, his community and his family." With the Goodens' leadership, Ridgecrest beat back drug dealers and has experienced small signs of a renaissance. New houses and streetlights are going up. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has increased police presence in the neighborhood. The community has a long way to go, but Chester Gooden's family said it's a start. The renamed street, they said, symbolizes a greater transformation within this historically black unincorporated community west of Ulmerton Road.
"It was a great place growing up," said Elizabeth Helm-Frazier, 41, a master sergeant in the Army and the Goodens' oldest grandchild. "I do think that, in time, it will get better. They are making progress out there now. I think this street will help." A little historyIn 1936, 30-year-old Chester Gooden paid $800 for 10 acres of land in the middle of citrus groves and cow pastures, miles away from a little city called Largo that was just beginning to bloom. Over the years, he sold the land to black families shut out by the segregated housing market. In 1944, he donated a parcel of land to establish St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church. He and his wife opened a grocery store in the 1960s, then later turned the building into a pool hall. As crime escalated over the past two decades, Chester Gooden served on the neighborhood watch association, helping the Sheriff's Office push drug dealers back. The Goodens encouraged police to cite the dealers for trespass and loitering on their property. Eventually, the family decided to close the pool hall and allow the church to occupy the building. Drug dealers stopped congregating in the parking lot. Inch by inch, the neighborhood began to regain ground. "My grandfather said, 'I'm not going to let them defeat me,' " said Gooden's grandson, Johnie Helm, who managed the pool hall on his grandfather's property during the 1980s and 1990s. "He knew that it was either make a change and get the property value back up, or lose what he had fought for for years." Even when Ridgecrest neighborhood deteriorated, Chester Gooden continued to reach out to his community, giving residents credit at the grocery store, helping them with rent, encouraging them to stop doing drugs. Ridgecrest resident Fred Marshall Sr., a former crack user who has been clean for more than four years, said Gooden would greet him each morning, smile and, on occasion, encourage him to return to his Christian faith. "He was like, 'Marshall, I know your family. You weren't raised that way.' " said Marshall, who in his spare time teaches neighborhood youths to fill out job applications. "Even when I was high as a kite, Mr. Chester would say, 'Hang in there. The Lord's with you. Keep your head up.' " Granddaughter Helm-Frazier said she came up with the idea for a street renaming in May after reading a story about a street named for Malcolm X. She gathered signatures of approval from 33 of 34 local property owners. In August, the Pinellas County Commission passed a resolution in favor of the name change. Soon after, the city of Largo, which owns part of the street, also voted to change the name to Gooden Crossing. "I picked the street because it's where my grandparents made such a difference," said Helm-Frazier, who plans to retire from the armed forces next year and move back to Ridgecrest. "Drugs or no drugs, we grew up there." Chester Gooden died at home on Feb. 1, 2001. Corrine Gooden died in 1992. The neighborhoodIn Ridgecrest, car drivers honk and wave as they pass neighbors standing outside. Residents rarely lock their doors. Burglary is infrequent. But as a group of neighbors stands outside the old Gooden Grocery, a white woman careens by on a bicycle, heading deeper into the neighborhood. At least once each day, neighbors say, she pedals into Ridgecrest looking for drugs. Five minutes later, the woman comes back. She stops to chat with the people outside the store, then pedals over the railroad tracks, disappearing from sight. Watching the woman grimly, grandson Helm counts her visit as a positive: Before, there would have been dozens of drug deals visible in the area around his grandfather's property. Now, there is just one. "Now, I think he'd be satisfied," said Helm of his grandfather. "It's improving. We're finally being recognized by the county as something they have to deal with." The street renaming ceremony is at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church in Largo. Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris is scheduled to speak.
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