People ducked behind cars. Mothers covered their children. And as the shots rang out, Alec Greenwald and his seven-months-pregnant wife, Zoia Cisneros, hit the hardwood floors in their apartment above Southside Pizza at 20th and Carpenter streets. "It was just like right now," he says, standing in his kitchen making tuna melts on a Friday. "We were just getting ready to cook dinner."

FIGHTING WORDS: Zoia Cisneros and Alec Greenwald, in front of their protest sign. Photo By: Michael koehler

While nobody was hurt, the Jan. 13 spray of gunfire was the second time Greenwald and Cisneros heard shots in a few weeks. After moping around the house Saturday, Cisneros glanced up at a calendar showing the defiant work of artist Jean Michel Basquiat and immediately knew what to do. "Why don't we make a protest sign?" she said. "We are both passionate people. And we had to do something."

Inspired by a quote she found in a magazine about fighting youth violence, Cisneros cut letters out of the colorful, chaotic images in last year's Basquiat calendar. "If I could change into a bullet, nobody would lose their lives," the sign read.

That's exactly the type of behavior Mayor Street was talking about a few weeks ago when he visited six churches, including nearby St. Charles Borromeo, to tout his Safer Streets program. There, he urged residents to take an active part in their communities. So, the couple carefully pasted the letters onto a curtain and duct-taped the fabric to the street-level, clear glass door to their place.

The trouble started nearly a month later.

The broker who manages their apartment drove by and noticed the sign. He demanded it come down. "It's considered defacing because it's not a professional-looking sign," says Richard Moore of Best City Homes. "It's not the message, it's how it's written."

But 17th District Police Capt. Kevin Bethel disagrees.

"It's ironic," he says, "that a couple would now take the opportunity to do that and have their landlord say, 'Don't do that.'"

He doesn't see why they should remove a symbol of solidarity and inspiration at a time when the neighborhood is struggling to develop a new identity in the face of gentrification as well as ongoing violence.

After the second bout of gunshots, the couple asked Moore, who manages other units in the area, about breaking their lease. But he wanted proof, as in police reports, documenting the violence. "Maybe he thinks because we're protesting the violence, people will know there's violence and they won't come around here," Greenwald says.

But it's unclear exactly what is motivating Moore.

At first he didn't even read the quote; he was more concerned that the sign didn't match the newly renovated facade. Then he conceded that his position has something to do with the message. "If someone wants to put a sign up, they should have run it by us, considering the sensitivity of the subject," he says. Moore says he's unaware that the city designated an area south of the apartment, roughly from 15th to 32nd streets and Washington to Snyder streets, a "hot spot" of criminal activity.

Moore told Greenwald the sign is a violation of the lease agreement and threatened to have a maintenance crew remove it—and charge them for the service call—if it wasn't gone in two days. As of press time, the sign was still there and the couple, both public school teachers, had no intention of backing down.

In the meantime, groups like the South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA) want to ease longtime residents' worries about all the construction and new neighbors. "Their biggest concerns are quality of life issues," says Eve Lewis, director of the neighborhood program at SOSNA. "Crime, trash, drugs, parking, taxes."

Bethel plans to attend a town hall meeting hosted by SOSNA at Graduate Hospital on March 8, to encourage residents to report crimes they witness and make sure the neighborhood evolves along with the development.

"To have renters who are actually stakeholders and have an interest," Bethel says, "that's something that landlords should take as a positive, not a negative."