Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Gentrification in The City
So....I am still living in my little in-law. You know the one with the sinking toilet.
It should come as no surprise that any place that features a sinking toilet isn't in the best of neighborhoods. Yet I still found the emotions to be surprised after seeing my cross street featured on the news this morning. Apparently there was an early morning shooting and the trains were skipping by my stop while the police "collected evidence". Sure enough when I left the house 15 minutes later, the police had partioned off a part of the street for an entire block.
As I waited for the train, I began to wonder when the neighborhood I lived was going to turn around. The houses are gorgeous and relatively cheap. The neighborhood, while not centrally located is close to both highways that cut through the City. It was a shame that all attempts at gentrification seemed tohave no impact. When I got on the train, my mind was quickly made to eat my earlier thoughts. Sitting across from me (oh why was that the free seat!) were clearly two crackheads.
Mind you I came to work early this morning. We had a meeting and I needed to be here at 7 am to prepare. The only people on the train were people on their way to work and the crackheads that were sitting across from me. Of course I wondered where two crackheads could be going so early and I wanted to keep my valuables so I was watching and listening to them like a hawk. I was floored when one crackhead awoke the other from his drug induced sleep (he had been fading in and out of consciousness) to excitedly exclaim that this was their stop. Why was I floored? They were going to Starbucks!!
It's nice to know that gentrification has made some headway.
It should come as no surprise that any place that features a sinking toilet isn't in the best of neighborhoods. Yet I still found the emotions to be surprised after seeing my cross street featured on the news this morning. Apparently there was an early morning shooting and the trains were skipping by my stop while the police "collected evidence". Sure enough when I left the house 15 minutes later, the police had partioned off a part of the street for an entire block.
As I waited for the train, I began to wonder when the neighborhood I lived was going to turn around. The houses are gorgeous and relatively cheap. The neighborhood, while not centrally located is close to both highways that cut through the City. It was a shame that all attempts at gentrification seemed tohave no impact. When I got on the train, my mind was quickly made to eat my earlier thoughts. Sitting across from me (oh why was that the free seat!) were clearly two crackheads.
Mind you I came to work early this morning. We had a meeting and I needed to be here at 7 am to prepare. The only people on the train were people on their way to work and the crackheads that were sitting across from me. Of course I wondered where two crackheads could be going so early and I wanted to keep my valuables so I was watching and listening to them like a hawk. I was floored when one crackhead awoke the other from his drug induced sleep (he had been fading in and out of consciousness) to excitedly exclaim that this was their stop. Why was I floored? They were going to Starbucks!!
It's nice to know that gentrification has made some headway.
