Memory Lane

During my adult life I’ve had a bunch of different apartments around Philadelphia. Yesterday I walked through one of my old neighborhoods for the first time since I lived there six years ago. Well, I’ve been around the area since then, but yesterday I walked down a street I used to walk on at least twice a day just about every day. Walking that way took me about half a block out of my way, but I was curious about the differences I would see in the area and curious about how the memories would feel.

When I lived there, it was not one of the greatest neighborhoods and its still not, though a few blocks away gentrification/development is in full swing. Walking down the main street from the train to my apartment, there was never much to look at. Abandoned buildings and vacant storefronts lined the street. Yesterday there were some noticeable differences. Several of the once vacant buildings are homes to stores and several are being worked on and it seems that soon the will house business. There was one block sized building that had been condemned – now there’s just a field there. I couldn’t remember exactly where the laundromat I used to go to was, but there’s either a fast food place or a parking lot there now.

Overall, the walk was kind of depressing. Despite the new development, an overwhelming amount of the buildings and stores are empty. A lot of the businesses open are the types you’d expect to find in a low-income neighborhood – businesses that are bad for the health and/or finances of their customers. I couldn’t help thinking of the future of this area. It will not stay the same. many more stores will be opened, buildings will be rehabbed, the streets will be cleaned. The problem is that it will not benefit the long-time residents who live there now. They will be convinced, coerced, and forced into moving out. The city and its businesses will not waste time, money and effort trying to improve the current population, they will bring in a new one, one with money to spend.

While one part of my mind was concerned with the socioeconomic past and future of this area, another part was strolling down memory lane. I was thinking back to the time in my life when i lived in that area. I remembered a song that I wrote during that time. I was walking home from the train when the idea came to me and as soon as I got home I wrote it down and fleshed it out. I wonder if I still have it . . . I remembered the job I was working at the time. Around that time was when I first started hanging at the Crimson Moon . . .

Its always interesting to visit a place of your past.