Regular Reader wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
You have to get east of Ridge for it to get really dicey. I have a hard time viewing that stretch of Howard at Custer/Damen as being "bad" since I grew up right there. But yeah, east of Chicago/Clark on Howard is about as rugged as a neighborhood gets on the North side.
(I know you laughed at that whilst posting)
Rough rugged and raw.... right?!?
A friend of mine lives out in Boston now. Growing up she lived at Dobson and Ridge, a half block north of Howard. When she was in town a couple summers ago she took the El down to one of the museums with her sister and I took her 8 or 9 year old son out to Arlington with me. After the races I called her and said we would pick her up at the Howard station. I parked facing west on Howard at about Paulina and waited for her to come out of the station.
Now, this kid is being raised in about as liberal a way possible in early 21st century America. When his mother takes him on "vacation" he has to sleep on boards in places like Costa Rica or rural Michoacan and take Spanish classes. His best friends are a couple black kids with Panamanian parents. So he isn't going to jump to some racist conclusions upon seeing some black or Hispanic faces.
But even at 8 or 9 his instincts told him we were in an unsafe place. I could tell he was nervous as his eyes kept darting around. Me, I'm a Howard Street guy. I might even title my memoir
Howard Street Stories. But even though I'm not afraid, I am wary. There are all kinds of nuts and gangbangers and drug dealers over there. I knew he was a little scared so I told him to keep his eyes peeled because he might see a rat. That got him a little excited so I asked him if he had ever seen a rat before. He answered, "Not in the wild."
Anyway, his mom comes off the train and I see her going in her purse and handing cash to an old lady. Sometimes there's a fine line between liberal and idiotic. The best case is probably that there is going to be a line of people looking for your cash. The worst is you get a knife or a gun stuck in your ribs. Thankfully, neither happened to her. But the kid became agitated and began yelling, "Mom! Mom!, Come on!" I like to joke that even an eight year old from Andover, MA had enough sense to know how fucked up Howard Street is the first time he ever saw it and without anyone telling him when his mother who grew up right down the block was oblivious.