some history

When I was at rehearsal on Wednesday Derek told me a little about the neighborhood to which I just moved. We live in this little one and a half square block area that has all sorts of beautiful old town houses and is even a "boulevard" historic neighborhood.
Now it seems a bit out of place because the rest of the neighborhood around it is either new condos (last 5 years I would say) to the east of us, or a mix of really "city" feeling things. There are two salvation army home/places to get a room, the mercy home for children, the Mexican embassy (out there on Ashland totally don't expect it) and there's the magnet school and the police training academy. Nothing resembling the lovely townhouses and treed streets we live on.

Apparently most of the area was razed (there was a disagreement between Will and Derek about why) I think in the 60s. Either it was for urban renewal, or it was because of the riots. After M.L. King died apparently parts of the city were just torn up from the rioting (someone correct me if I'm wrong about the source of the riots) Anyhow our little area was saved apparently because it was the red light district, and the police protected it?...? According to Derek there were some well know Madames living there well into the 80s. Kind of cool huh...historically speaking.

One of the many things that I love about this place is that from the porch the alley way in back is not neatly done. It curves around, there are legitimate separate apartments over garages, you can see in peoples back yards, and there are all sorts of different porches.