In the life of some neighborhoods, a time comes when the social order falls apart, when the balance between those doing good things and those doing bad things shifts the wrong way, and the block becomes known as a place to do wrong.

In one east side neighborhood, just far enough in from one of the city’s few main arteries to avoid getting caught, the curbsides have become a stop for those with a prostitute and no money for a room to take them to.

Someone here took matters into their own hands and posted this homemade sign on a tottering old fence, an effort to use politeness to persuade the vulgar, to confront lawbreakers with nothing more powerful than a sincere plea. It’s a last attempt at restoring basic decency in their part of the city when there’s nothing left to try because nothing else has worked.

Some neighborhoods are called bad because a preponderance of poorly behaving people holds sway there, and sets the tone for the whole area. But as this sign shows, though the remaining residents lay low, they’re still there, trying in small ways to bring back some measure of normal life.