I recently saw a podcast clip of someone talking about visiting “thieves dens” in times square and hells kitchen being covered in needles and addicts in the 80s and fell down a youtube rabbit hole of looking at videos of places like the bronx in the 80s and am mind-blown how much things have changed. Does anyone have other good stories of those more gritty cities in places that are now way different?
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“Good” anecdotes no.
I just remember downtown Indianapolis being a ghost town at night, largely due to crime.
My good friend who lived her young life in Manhattan remembers crack dealers on both corners of her block. Her parent’s neighborhood now is one of the best in the US.
The fall in violent crime has been a blessing for the US. The idea of a “gritty 70s or 80s” is not anything good. The fact we are passed that is wonderful.
Born in 81. Lived in Brooklyn till 1986. My mother was born and raised in NYC – Hell’s Kitchen in the 50s and 60s. My parents decided our family needed to not live in the city anymore and relocated us to New England. I have vague memories of a buildibg on our block burning down not too long before we left. As an adult, knowing what I know now I have to assume it was an arson, maybe for insurance money. I’ve also heard stories about my mom owning a car in her 20s and walking up to it while someone was actively stripping it for parts and wheels by the side of the road.
Are you sure they didn’t say “drug den?” Because “thieves den” sounds like something from a fantasy novel. “Drug den” is an actual term.
Nothin grittier than bourbon street on Mardi Gras in early 80s. Used to walk down the sidewalk and if you weren’t carful you could slip on one or ten of the thousands whippit canisters that were in the gutter
Anecdotes? I dunno. It was what it was. I used to bring my college friends to Times Square to look at all the fake ID and peep show places. I don’t think it was any worse than parts of Amsterdam that I saw at around the same time.
When I was in junior high and early high school I sometimes had older guys follow me when I was going to get a bus home but I knew what to watch out for. Sometimes they offered me money, but you just tell ’em no. It was a matter of making sure you didn’t go down the more empty streets, if you have to wait outside be near the kind of storefront women will be in and out of. Don’t look timid
“Streetwise” Trailer
https://youtu.be/MWhExsCeoqI?si=ekk77nkh3dqfkO8h
I’m the early 90s my friends and I were semi feral during the summer. Riding our bikes all over our small-town. Our downtown was dead. A major department store had closed down, there were alot of boarded up stores and shut down construction sites.
Come visit Philly
The 80s in Pittsburgh were rough. Steel mills closed, whole towns fell into disrepair. Aliquippa, Pa had a lively downtown, once the mill closed everybody that could packed up and left. What was left looked bombed out for years.
There was ‘Streetwise’ following teens in Seattle 1984. It was a pretty shitty doc considering I was a homeless teen in Seattle in 1985-1986 and it wasn’t what life was like.
I remember there was one guy named Blue who was an absolute psychopath. He would take over abandoned homes and get his followers to join him then set the whole thing up in booby traps. He was a curb stomper. He would shove a guys face onto the edge of a curb and stomp the back of his head. It was a thing with the heavy boots that you see in grunge. He was also known for fucking anything stationary like light poles.
I remember being in a traffic jam at the entrance of the Lincoln tunnel (New York city) at about 10 at night circa 1980, and there were hookers running in and out of cars sucking dicks and whatnot. Very enlightening for a sheltered 10yo girl from the burbs.
Los Angeles was the scene of a giant gang war in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Even kids at my suburban high school got caught up in it.
I was a very young soldier, stationed at the presidio of San Francisco. Took a bus, got off at the wrong stop. Was trying to ask for directions. Accidentally interrupted a crack deal. Apologized once I realized that. Nice young crack deal man understood I needed to be somewhere else. Escorted me to correct bus stop. Stayed till I was safely on bus. He was lovely
Lot of homeless around now. Seems like history is repeating itself.
I lived in a trailer park that was ran by the hells angels. They didn’t really fuck with regular people (as long as they paid their rent on time, which was all of like $150 a month). That said, I do recall several very brutal “buisiness related disputes” occurring in broad daylight. Somebody returned from a drug deal with a lighter than expected bag or something and like a dozen bigass biker gang members beat the absolute shit out of him in front of god and everybody. I’m talking, the guy was on the ground and they were taking turns sitting on his chest punching him in the face so hard his head was bouncing off the ground.
Was like 8 years old and my parents made me go inside. I remember kinda just thinking like “huh, guess I don’t wanna ever do whatever it is he did.”
Oddly, they were super nice to all us broke ass kids who ran feral around the place. They’d always give us candy and ice cream and shit. One of them had this massive pet iguana, thing was like 6 feet long, he’d bring it outside and let us gather round and pet it. There was zero risk of a molester abducting any kids in that trailer park, the hells angels policed the immiediate area pretty tightly. Parents could let us just run around barefoot and unsupervised and just do whatever we wanted with zero fear.
Dad got a better job and moved us out of there as fast as he could, but for like two years when I was a kid it was 100% a “rural ghetto” lifestyle.
idk if anything about this story is particularly 80’s, but yeah. Not all of us 80’s and 90’s kids had gen-x parents getting rich off the dot com boom and buying us game boys and nintendos and all that other shit you see in nostalgia clips on tiktok 🤣
Let’s see, Times Square was all porno theaters and you didn’t go past 7th Avenue if you weren’t looking for hookers or drugs. It blows my mind how gentrified the High Line area is now. Full on “Capitol” vibes for me. By 1987, Harlem wasn’t the bad area people made it out to be but the South Bronx sure was. Probably the saddest thing of all is that one could actually afford to live in Long Island City/Astoria. 😢
In 6th grade I lived in “the Valley” (yes, the Valley Girl valley). I had friends who were already dating gang members at 12 years old. (1982). _And didn’t think much about it._ Yikes.
Lots, and I mean lots of hard drugs and alcohol in high school. People always say we look “old” in videos. Cocaine was common, so yeah, we did look hard.
Idk about other generations, but GenX did not enjoy extended innocence as children.
No one went to downtown San Diego in the 1990s unless you wanted to get a lady of the night or get mugged, or get mugged by a lady of the night.
PETCO Park completely changed the area for the better.
I lived in a very rural area, and when you say “gritty” I would apply it to be more literal, as the scariest thing that happened there was the Satanic Panic. (Spoiler alert-nothing happened.)
I remember the 80’s and 90’s being completely coated in cigarette smoke. Good Lord, it was everywhere. Everyone smoked and no one washed walls. Every indoor space was hazy. Everyone smoked, and my mom and brother smoked like chimneys.
Because the cigs and the coffee pot were going all day, I still smell cigarette smoke when I drink strong black coffee. The two scents are indelibly intertwined in my brain.
In Detroit two men robbed a crack house and burned it down. They didn’t clear the house well and someone died. They were found not guilty by saying they did their best and only wanted the Crack house out of their neighborhood. Wasn’t uncommon for hundreds of structure fires to occur on devils night from the mid 80s until the late 90s. Growing up the news would do big updates on Halloween about how few arson happened the night before
The sign at the corner of the street I grew up on would constantly be tagged to read “blood killa ave.”
They bulldozed all those houses and rebuilt them as “luxury units” a little before 08, I think the avg property value is now above 2 million a piece.
But but but Joe Biden’s America is the worst we’ve ever seen I thought! /s
Google “Combat Zone Boston.”