Tempe is changing the Ave again. We’re getting a “gateway sign.”

I put gateway in quotes because Mill Ave doesn’t need one.

You know when you’ve crossed over. The buildings change. The trees change. The street changes its mind about what kind of place it is. You can feel it through the windshield. You don’t need a spectacle to tell you that you’ve arrived.

I’ve spent enough years driving my cab up and down those red bricks to watch the Ave molt more than once. I can’t say every change has been good. I can’t say every change has even been necessary. What I miss most are the people. Sometimes the places too.

Long Wong’s. Rúla Búla. A few old ghosts still know those names.

According to the city, the new sign will hang just north of University Drive: giant metal letters spelling “MILL AVE,” floating about 20 feet above the street between two 27-foot pylons, each letter around 4 feet tall. High enough to clear the streetcar and its cables. High enough nobody’s going to miss it.

It’s public art. Fine. I don’t have a beef with public art.

What I have a beef with is the way City Hall keeps talking about community pride while treating actual community like litter that drifted in on the wind.

Mayor Corey Woods said the sign honors the significance of Mill Avenue, and the city says it wants public spaces that reflect community pride and elevate the Mill Avenue experience for all.

Great. Then open up actual public space.

Stop harassing street rats. Stop treating the red bricks like they’re only public when someone is shopping. Make room for concerts. Make room for art. Make room for the kids with patched jeans, the old burnouts, the weirdos, the broke, the loud, the stubborn, the people who actually keep the Ave from feeling like an outdoor mall with better lighting.

Mill was never colorful because it was polished. It was colorful because people lived on it.

That’s the part these improvements keep missing. You can welcome outsiders, tourists, students, whomsoever’s passing through. But you can’t keep doing that while sweeping away the people who wear the dust of the Ave on their jeans and then pretend you’re honoring the place. We are part of the street.

Installation starts with closures from on Sunday to Monday, April 13, while crews put in the pylons. The sign itself is scheduled to be hung early on April 20.

You’ll find me watching from my cab on the day they hang it.

Come find me. Bring hot cocoa. We can sit there and reminisce about how the Ave has changed, what it’s lost, and what parts of it the city still hasn’t learned to see.