What’s the Worst Neighborhood You’ve Lived In?
Posted by Cap in Even More Ramblings |It was about three o’ clock in the afternoon when I heard it. The sounds of tires screeching on pavement accompanied by a blaring popping noise that sounded like an extremely loud car engine backfiring. I crawled up to my bedroom window, peeked out through the curtains and saw a car doing an extremely dangerously U-turn with a passenger literally riding “shotgun.” As the passenger held a shotgun in one hand and leaned out the passenger window, the car semi-lost control and rammed into the “Welcome to Santa Ana” city sign. Eventually, the car regain control and immediately sped off down the street.
I was about fourteen years-old, and it was at that moment that I realized that I’m living in a not-so-safe neighborhood. Drive-by shootings were not exactly an oddity in the area, but seeing it in person in the afternoon instead of hearing it at the wee hours during the night was definitely a game changer.
Within years, my family and I moved to a nicer neighborhood. The crime rate was lower, the sounds of late-night drive-bys was almost non-existent, and the ironic thing was that the new house is only a five minute drive away from the old one.
Whenever I tell the above story to people, the reaction is either wide-eye horror mixed with jaws dropping or the responses will be something along the lines of “Oh yeah? Well this place I lived at…”
Throughout my life, I’ve always lived in middle-class neighborhoods. The neighborhood mentioned above was lower-middle class. It was far from being the slums, but it wasn’t exactly Beverly Hills either. Despite the occasional drive-bys, we never did felt that our lives were in real danger. You practice common sense, don’t attract attention to yourself at odd places, and you mind your own business when you’re suppose to.
Even now, I still don’t feel that the neighborhood was a complete crap-shack, but if someone was to ask me about the worst place I’ve lived in, then this neighborhood would definitely be on top of the list.
What’s the worst neighborhood you’ve lived in? What circumstances, if any, put you and your family there?
photo credit: thechannelc
21 Comments to “What’s the Worst Neighborhood You’ve Lived In?”
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April 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
i think i can top that story through my 1-year stint in pomona where there was a drive-by shooting three houses down from me and a naked crackhead who was running down the street, in the middle of the day, and decided to prevail upon me…grab me and try to pull me to her lair
i luckily got away and moved back to the OC :)
April 9th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Interesting topic. I attended a year of law school in the Boston area before dropping out. I lived at that time in a small basement apartment in Revere Beach, MA, rented to me by a middle-aged Jewish divorcee who ran a phone card scam from her home and let her friend cheat on his wife with his girlfriend in her spare bedroom every Wednesday afternoon. .Another renter there was an unwed, pregnant teenager who regularly drank beer.
the view from the front of the house looked out on chain link fencing that encircled a parking lot for a dog racetrack and planes from Logan Airport regularly droned overhead.
Even my cat hated it. I attempted to put a garden in the backyard, and the cat freaked out after stepping in dogshit that was hidden by tall weeds and broken glass.
Not someplace i want to remember. i only took it cus i didn’t have much time to find a place and the rent was cheap.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:59 am
The WORST neighborhood I’ve lived IN has to be Willow Grove, PA.
Noisy upstairs neighbors who threatened me when I asked them to keep it down, and trashed the place when they left. Bordering on a seedy area that I avoided like the plague. Luckily, nothing too bad.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Thanks Eric. I was also going to point out if someone wants readers on their blog, they would have more success using the correct words in a sentence. WORST and AT distracted me greatly.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
foodie & fern: yeah you guys definitely win that one. things are usually pretty bad when you get unsolicited tackling by a naked person or know the unnecessary intimate details of roommates. argh.
eric: thanks for that, i knew something was off w/ the headline as I kept repeating it in my head. fixed! will get my tense issue fixed one of these days, hopefully. if i remember right you mentioned grammar issues long ago too, or maybe it was another eric. thanks either way :)
April 9th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I may have the winner. I lived in a hole of a town call Schenectady, NY when I was just out of college. It was cheap, it was convenient to a lot. I lived downstairs from friends. We made jokes of the questionable neighbors until one day there was a bicycle by shooting next door. Yes I said bicycle by shooting. A teenager pedaled up and emptied his pistol into the porch full of guys next door. Fun, fun. I moved about two months later when I got a “real” job.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Worst neighborhood was in the first and only house I have bought. Turn of the century neighborhood (early 1900′s) About one week after we bought it, big time drug bust across the street – complete with Black SUV’s with darkened windows, cops in ski-masks with “police” emblazoned on their black t-shirts and Immigration service following closely behind. Gun shots a nightly occurrence, drive-by down the street. More amusing night was when one guy was chasing another guy down the street with a cast iron skillet … yelling at him. Next door neighbors were renters…. used to get drunk every weekend and would begin fightin’ and busting up the furniture. The woman next door ended dying of a “heart attack” at age 31…. Police helicopters flying over with lit up spot lights flew over several times a week. Ahhh the good ol’ days…. 20 years later living in the same place… streets have slowed to a calm dullness. Home prices and property taxes have jumped waaaaay up there. Oddly, these days I sort of miss the life in the streets… but at least had good return on the investment. And face it sometimes the good ol’ days look good only after past memories fade…… :D
April 10th, 2009 at 10:46 am
haha, oh man that “shotgun” part is crazy! i actually lived near Santa Ana too when i was around 14, but i don’t remember it being too shoddy. of course, our ages my be different and all. plus, we were living on a military base so i always felt safe ;)
don’t think i’ve ever lived in a horrible area, but i’ve certainly been through a few!
April 10th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
foodie.. hah i grew up in that pomona
April 11th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Ah, the fond memories of Pomona.
My grandpappy was born in Pomona in 1906 and he was a cowboy on the Diamond Bar Ranch.
I can remember picnicing in the poison oak at Ganeesha Park, getting chased by gang-bangers at the LA County Fair and mosquito-infested fishing trips to Puddingstone Lake. I almost miss it.
I actually grew up in Ontario, which still had some crime, but it was quite a but nicer than Pomona or Santa Ana. I moved to the OC after graduating from high school and I feel a bit safer now.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:18 am
I liked your story here.. I have grown up in a similar place .. my nieghbourhood gave me some valuable lessons in life.. thanks for sharing this..
April 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
West Philly—46th & Chester
As a grad student living with my girlfriend. Attempted break-in–they spent an ungodly amount of time trying to pry apart the window bars to get into an apartment with two old black and white tvs, and an incredibly cheap stereo. A neighbor who regularily would yell upstairs for someone to let them in. Crack vial tops in bags in our front garden. The sound of gunshots in the night. Everyone who lived there had robbery/holdup stories. Neighbors in the back building who felt the weekend started on Thursday night and would party accordingly–their music would be played so loud that my windows would vibrate—-strangely enougth the cops couldn’t seem to locate the party so they had to ring my bell at 3 AM to be given directions. Seeing the next block up appear on an episode of COPS. And the piece de resistance —-getting held up on our front stoop!!!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I lived in West Philly, at about 48th and Springfield. I thought it was a great neighborhood, although it was very block-by-block: 48th and Baltimore was just down the way and not at all safe; I think people got shot outside that chicken place several times during the 9 or 10 months I was there.
My favorite parts were the trolley conductor scolding guys for smoking joints on the trolley, or one guy a few blocks away shooting a neighbor in an argument over shoveling the sidewalks. And the abandoned buildings everywhere — even in ’99.
And yeah, my car got stolen. But the rent was $300 a month and it was right near the trolley, and the restaurants were good, and I loved it. It was a great block in a rough area but it was vibrant and diverse. When I moved to Boston I missed it terribly.
April 19th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
My husband and I and my sister and her husband lived in the same neighborhood about six months apart. My sister’s house was robbed in broad daylight, and the officer who came to take the report told her she needed to move because the police were actually afraid to come into the neighborhood. What makes this really sad is that the area was once the best the city had to offer, and major movie stars and the very rich had lived there. The houses, which had become run-down for the most part, were huge and one could tell they’d been quite beautiful way back when. sigh.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Oh do I have stories to tell. I need to organize them for when I get back.
1) Corona Queens, NY during the crack/cocaine days
2) Jamaica, Queens, NY during the crack, New Jack City, guns hayday
3) New Orleans during college
Personally, New Orleans was the worst. There was a pimp, a whorehouse and the police staation directly across the street. That’s all I can say.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
In the 70′s, I lived with my great grandmother in an area by the ship canal. We didn’t have a/c or heat. Drunks would regularly pass out in the front yard. The next door neighbor, Alfred, was stabbed 17 times for his Slurpee. When she passed away, someone robbed the house when we had the funeral.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Forgot to mention this was in Houston, Texas.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I lived in a couple areas around Denver that were kind of sketchy. I have had a couple of nights waking up to the sounds of gunshots and tires squealing in two different locations there but did not run to my window to see what was up.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:05 am
The worst neighborhood I lived in was on the boarder of Washington Heights and Harlem on 146st Street & Broadway in New York. It was about 1983 when crack/cocaine hit the streets big time. Every morning their were to things that were common on the way to school, 1) empty crack viles 2) candles being burnt on the corner with R.I.P signs by them. There were so many shootings/shoot outs that for years I was not able to go to sleep unless I heard guns being unloaded. In the 20 years that I lived in that building there were at least 3 murders inside and multiple shootings outside of it. That is also around the time that Giuliani (I think) came out with a special taskforce to counter drugs. It was called TNT. Also around the time 30 police officers from the local precinct were arrested for corruption ranging from drug dealing to extortion. The list goes on and on. You name I have seen or heard of it, sad isnt it?
July 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I lived in a cute old house in the Tower Districa of Fresno, CA. Loved the area, but at this time, the block I lived on was not so nice. The 1920′s house I lived in had been divided into 5 apartments. Unfortunately, the “studio” apt at the back of the house was not recognized by the post office. (Something about zoning, the house was only able to support 4 residences.) The man who had moved into it would stand by the mailboxes many an afternoon to yell at the poor mailman, who could do nothing about it. The house had no AC, so to keep cool on 90 plus degree nights we put ice in the swamp cooler and opened the bedroom window so the slightly cooler damp air would blow over us. Unfortunately, we lived a few houses up from the methedone clinic and across the street from a drug dealer, so every morning, when I woke, there would be a group of junkies outside my open bedroom window, who had gotten their shot at the clinic and then went to the dealer to get their real fix before hanging out in the cool air from my swamp cooler. It was wierd to say the least, but they were mostly harmless. I almost miss that wierd little apartment… Not quite enough to move back, even though the area has cleaned up a lot these days.
January 28th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
My current neighborhood in Santa Fe is fine most of the year, but things get crazy in the summer. The next door neighbor runs drugs and prostitutes and has random people crash with him, sometimes for months. They have nightly parties and toss their empties over the wall into our yard. Once at about 3:00 a.m., one of the prostitutes knifed another one and there was a lot of screaming, an ambulance and several police cars.
Another neighbor gets drunk and wanders around the neighborhood shouting and throwing things at houses and cars.
In the past three years, there have been three SWAT incidents with portions of the street being closed off and officers in flak jackets with helmets and shields swarming around. In addition, there is an auto shop across the street that was raided twice by ATF last year.
There have also been unpleasant incidents with assorted crazy neighbors and the occasional loose, aggressive pit bull. I have high hopes for the future, though. :>