MANSFIELD — The Fourth Street massage parlor owner asked the police officer why her business was suddenly being raided.
“There’s a new law,” the officer said, “you can’t operate a brothel so close to the mayor’s new carrousel.”
It was a joking remark in 1991, but it rang close to the truth.
The Richland Carrousel Park, which opened 30 years ago today, ushered in a new era in many ways for downtown Mansfield, including a crackdown on what many called a “red-light district,” home to prostitution, drugs, gambling and other vice-related crimes.
Downtown Mansfield in the 1970s and 1980s was a far different place than it is today — night and day different.
I arrived in the city in January 1990, a new health reporter for the Mansfield News Journal. The standing joke was Editor Tom Brennan hired the unhealthiest person he could find as a health reporter.
Within a few months, I was transitioned to cover cops and courts. In Mansfield at that time, it was the busiest beat in the old newsroom bullpen.
Much of my work was focused in downtown Mansfield, a sea of gritty bars, closed-up businesses, boarded up buildings and crime. It was an eye opener for a 29-year-old reporter who just relocated here from a small newspaper in northwest Ohio.
One of the first contacts/sources I developed on the beat was Phil Messer, then a lieutenant in charge of METRICH, who later retired as the department’s chief.
I caught up with Messer last week while working on stories related to the 30th anniversary of the carrousel. He credited former Mansfield Mayor Ed Meehan and local businessman John Fernyak for turning around the downtown.
“The mayor had a vision of what the city could be,” Messer said. “John Fernyak, in my opinion, was the spark that began to turn Mansfield around to make it what it is today. I give him most of the credit.
“Sometimes it’s hard to visualize what can be when you’re drowning in things like street prostitution, street crimes and strong-armed robberies,” Messer recalled.
“We were struggling for money and manpower as a department and we were just trying to keep our heads above water.”
It was a three-pronged effort. Build the carrousel and begin to change the culture of downtown. That would encourage more private investment.
At the same time, it was up to Messer, new Chief Lawrence Harper and the MPD to clean up an area that was soaked in crime.
When Fernyak and others proposed the carrousel, a joint public/private partnership with Meehan and the city was launched. Messer recalled the partnership included a crackdown on crime in the downtown ordered by the mayor.
“Foot patrols, lots of resources on surveillance, putting pressure on liquor-permit holders not to allow illegal activity, stopping gambling and prostitution,” Messer said.
“It was ‘zero tolerance’ type of enforcement. Nobody gets a warning.”
Messer and the MPD quickly learned many of those being arrested came from outside of Mansfield, even from outside Richland County. He estimated about 80 percent of the men frequenting massage parlors and soliciting prostitutes were not local residents.
“People came here for (vice),” he said. “That’s not the reputation you want for your hometown. Ed Meehan didn’t want people just coming downtown to drink. He wanted to see families downtown.”
As a reporter, I tagged along on some of these enforcement efforts, which made for interesting late-night stories and questions about what it would take to clean up the mess. That late-night work included covering the raid of the massage parlor I mentioned at the beginning of this column.
Remarkably, the physical clean up and remodeling of the buildings, along with the change in culture and the increased law enforcement, worked as advertised.
Today, the Richland Carrousel District is a far different place than I encountered as a reporter 31 years ago. It’s a vibrant area of shops and stores and restaurants/bars. Gone are boarded-up windows, vacant storefronts and brothels posing as massage parlors.
The successful Final Friday celebrations, which draw thousands downtown to The Brickyard to hear live outdoor music and have a good time, could never have happened when I first came to town. Few felt it was a safe place to be, especially on a Friday night.
Don’t get me wrong. I certainly understand there are still issues in Mansfield with drugs, guns, crime and more.
But the simple fact is if you are a reporter assigned to cover cops and courts these days, the downtown these days is a far less lively place.
And that’s just fine with me.