by Allan Appel | Sep 6, 2011 9:33 am

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Posted to: City Point, Kimberly Square, The Hill

Not only did woodworker and handyman Jim VanCampen build Bobby Cook a super hi-bike out of two broken ones; he taught Bobby how to do his own repairs. Their collaboration went on display at a block party that was part of a two-wheeled approach to building community.

Bobby (at left in photo, with VanCampen) brought “Bobalee,” as he calls the mobile creation, to a bike race Monday during Greenwich Avenue’s first-ever block party organized to help transform a tough corner of the City Point/ Kimberly Square neighborhood.

VanCampen lives with community activist Leslie Blatteau in a house on Greenwich between First and Second Streets just down from the Galvin Park playground. Last summer he started helping kids fix their flat tires. He went on to do modest repairs on their bikes and teach them how in the process.

It caught on especially as VanCampen began to build zany bikes like Bobby Cook’s out of two broken cycles that Bobby’s friend kept in his basement. Bobby, a Roberto Clemente student, is so proud of the bike he named it “Bobbalee.”

Now the front yard and sidewalk of 490 Greenwich is bike repair central.

“Some of the kids didn’t know how to use a screw driver or wrench,” said VanCampen, who does his woodworking in a West Haven shop. His hope is that some of the older kids will start teaching the younger.

It was natural that when his partner Leslie Blatteau got the idea to organize a block party for the kids of Greenwich Avenue, the bike clinic should become the, er, the hub of the wheel.

Labor Day afternoon some 40 kids zoomed around on bikes of various sizes and shapes, while an equal number of adults brought out fried chicken, rice, and a delicious pineapple upside down cake.

Neighbors who know each other only on sight for years or only casually, like Chris Schaefer and Oscar Rodriguez, got a chance to deepen the relationship.

“We’ve waved at each other for 20 years,” said Schaefer. Knowing people increases safety, he added.

Both these men have lived on and near Greenwich for more than two decades, and neither could remember when there was a block party, ever.

The idea came out of conversation spawned by the National Night Out meeting at the nearby substation on Howard Avenue on Aug. 3.

At that charged meeting, Mayor John DeStefano took heat from neighbors for not doing enough to help stem the tide of violence assailing parts of the Hill, including Greenwich Avenue.

Although Blatteau herself did not attend, Hill/City Point Neighborhood Action Group president Kris Sainsbury did.

As she organized kids running races and tried to figure out how to clear the pathways for the bike race Monday, Blatteau recalled that immediately after that meeting Sainsbury sent out an email saying the way a neighborhood gets attention is through doing things for itself. Like a block party.

Hill Alderman Jorge Perez said that while many streets in the Hill hold block parties, like Rosette and Arthur, one simply hadn’t occurred on Greenwich, even though the proximity of Galvin Park and its new splash pad at the corner of First Street makes it a natural location.

Sainsbury suggested that until recently the block was just too rough and plagued by drugs and crime. No longer.

“That email [Kris Sainsbury’s] kicked me in the butt,” said Blatteau.

Next year, Sainsbury suggested, the party might well have as its centerpiece or theme a kind of formal parade of bikes, both regular ones and whacky ones, promenading from Kimberly to Second Street.

Dave McCoart, who is struggling to reopen his hurricane-damaged Sage grill at City Point’s harbor, dropped by to lend his support, and more. Sainsbury said McCoart is interested in sponsoring a City Point float in next year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Who knows? she said. Maybe bikes will be on it.

Meanwhile Bobby Cook took a break from the races to make a confession. Even though he tries to fix his own bike now using what Jim VanCampen has taught him, truth is “I’m not into bikes. I’m into dancing.”