My dad's family are from the Mobile area (they're Creek) and I remember being a kid visiting some rough areas. My dad is back in Alabama living in the country, but I haven't been there for 40 years.
Growing up in San Francisco in the late 60s and 70s there were still areas similar to the photos of Camden in the Fillmore, Western Addition and Hunter's Point. I know that's hard to believe for folks who migrated to SF in the mid-80s onward, but it's one of the reasons my mother moved us out of the City in 1973.
Even when I moved back 10 years later, I carried a car antenna up my sleeve when walking in my Western Addition neighborhood to use as a defensive weapon. There were houses on my block of Hayes Street that were twin to those in Camden. Last I drove past my old apartment a year or so ago, there was a cafe with sidewalk tables half a block away. The mind boggles.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-01-17 08:51 pm (UTC)Growing up in San Francisco in the late 60s and 70s there were still areas similar to the photos of Camden in the Fillmore, Western Addition and Hunter's Point. I know that's hard to believe for folks who migrated to SF in the mid-80s onward, but it's one of the reasons my mother moved us out of the City in 1973.
Even when I moved back 10 years later, I carried a car antenna up my sleeve when walking in my Western Addition neighborhood to use as a defensive weapon. There were houses on my block of Hayes Street that were twin to those in Camden. Last I drove past my old apartment a year or so ago, there was a cafe with sidewalk tables half a block away. The mind boggles.