This column requires a reader blessed with imagination. Look at the accompanying photo and consider how beautiful this house in the 400 block of Greenwood Ave. Trenton must have been three or four decades back. In your mind’s eye, give this house a paint job. Wow, that’s an attractive color. And, the columns? Amazing. Look closely at the decorative addition called a capital above the column. Beautiful craftsmanship. These ginormous houses dot Greenwood Ave. with several still inhabited on this busy city roadway. If location remains key to selling homes, consider that this house falls apart two blocks from Trenton Transit Center. It’s the perfect house for a commuter working in Philadelphia or New York City. It’s difficult to understand the anger cultivated in city officials when a person suggests Trenton needs a plan to prevent (look at the photo, please) situations such as this. Would love to have a tour of this house, just to see how much damage has occurred over decades — and to imagine how beautiful this residence must have been. Walks to the Trenton Transit Center almost always include considerations about this housing masterpiece. Personal autumn decorations include pumpkins on the porch area for Halloween and Thanksgiving. And, Christmas? Go ahead, imagine how beautiful your decorations would look. Perhaps you wrapped the columns with garland or framed the house with lights. Finally, look at the deterioration, the collapsed porch roof and wood damaged by decades of weather. Abandoned houses like this exist throughout the capital city while more join the list weekly. Allowing an entire block to deteriorate and empty then leveling houses in once proud neighborhoods ranks as a poor plan. Mind you, this current administration inherited housing circumstances but leaders can implement new ideas and strategies for saving houses. L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at [email protected].