Skid row
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- For the 80's rock band see Skid Row (heavy metal band). For other uses of the term Skid Row see Skid Row (disambiguation).
The American term skid row or skid road is used to refer to a rundown or dilapidated urban area. There are neighborhoods formally identified as Skid Row in Seattle and Los Angeles, as well as informally identified districts in almost every major American city, such as The Bowery in New York City. The term was memorialized in the song "Skid Row" from the musical Little Shop of Horrors.
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[edit] History
The first skid row was Skid Road (Yesler Way) in Seattle, where logs were skidded into the water on a corduroy road for delivery to Henry Yesler's lumber mills. During the Great Depression, the area went into decline, and "skid row" became synonymous with "bad neighborhood."
The Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, whose Skid Row is on the north end of Main Street around Hastings Street, more commonly called the Downtown Eastside, holds that their own Skid Row was the first. Seattle and Vancouver are geographical and cultural neighbours, and their Skid Rows went through roughly parallel development.
[edit] Seattle
Seattle's Skid Row today has been gentrified, and in 1970 was designated the Pioneer Square Historic District.
[edit] Vancouver
A portion of Vancouver's Skid Row, Gastown, has also been rejuvenated but exists in an uneasy coexistence with the Downtown Eastside, a nearby low-rent district along East Hastings Street which is infamous for its open drug markets, public drug use, prostitution, and high rate of HIV and AIDS infection among residents. The poorest urban area in Canada,[citation needed] it is wedged between Downtown, Chinatown and Gastown. These areas are frequented by tourists, and East Hastings Street is a major transportation throughfare. These avenues of exposure make the Downtown Eastside a highly visible example of a skid row, known to both city residents and casual visitors.
[edit] Los Angeles
Los Angeles's Skid Row, in an area of downtown Los Angeles also known as Central City East, is home to one of the largest stable populations of transient persons (homeless) in the United States. Informal population estimates range from 7,000 to 8,000. First-time visitors to this area are often shocked by the sight of the cardboard box and camping tents lining the sidewalks; the juxtaposition with the gleaming glass-sheathed skyscrapers on nearby Bunker Hill is quite striking. A common joke about the high prices of houses and taxes in Los Angeles city and county is that "you can't even buy a cardboard box for that price" (with "that price" being a budget that would pay for housing in many other parts of the country). L.A.'s Skid Row is sometimes called "the Nickel," because it is centered on Fifth Street. Most of the city's homeless and social service providers (such as Frontline Foundation, Midnight Mission, Union Rescue Mission and Downtown Women's Center) are based on Skid Row. While downtown Los Angeles has gone through a revitalization in recent years, development has mostly skipped over the Skid Row neighborhood. In 2005 and 2006, several local hospitals and suburban law enforcement agencies were accused by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and other officials of transporting those homeless people in their care to Skid Row. [1] [2] According to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the official boundaries of skid row are Third and Seventh Streets to the north and south and Alameda and Main Streets to the east and west, respectively. [3]
The name is official enough that fire engines and ambulances serving the neighborhood have historically had "Skid Row" emblazoned on their sides. On 1 June 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported[4] that fire officials plan to change the legend on the vehicles to read "Central City East". Many residents support the change, but it is opposed by firefighters and some residents who take pride in the sense that they live in a tough place.
- Compare Millionaires' Mile
