The Seedy Side of Town

[Roehclay]

ummm wasn't that the wicked wandas at the end of the 8th street bridge ? i never found it to be a bad place 25 years ago Had a very dear old friend there i called friend named Gabby

[leighant]

jkeaton mentioned the "positive scene" of person helping motorist. This is not seedy side of town, but a bit of social commentary in modeling.
Convertible with three young women, and one middle-aged woman stopped at gas station asking directions. The attendant and the mechanic have both gone out to help...and talk with the ladies. And the station owner is coming out to tell everybody else to get back to work, HE will help the ladies.

http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/ack.jpg

http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/acl.jpg

[Anonymous]

Ya, he did do his share of Urban Renewal, First Phase...didn't he.[:)]

[lupo]

QUOTE: Just an observation, but European cities haven't decayed from the inside out since the 20's because during WWII, the Alies started the first phase of Urban Renewal, "Bring down the old".

do not forget the actions of a certain german reichskanselier that is responsible for the destruction of city centers in a lot of european towns, due to his actions a lot of towns got new modernised streetplans, replacing the maze of narrow ancient streets by more american style planning and building. In other towns a lot of ancient buildings get restored, or they build complete new buildings behind the ancient facades.

another thing what was going on in many european cities is a changing function: round the turn of the century when the industrialisation really took of, people lived in the city centres and traveled to the outskirts of town to go to work, when they earned more they moved to newly build suburbs with "better" housing, leaving the innercity houses to anyone wanted to live in it.
Decay started, and nowadays lots of these old houses are torn down and replaced with office buildings, stores, parkings and the workers travel from the suburbs into the city centers to go to work.

[johncolley]

Oh, for pete's sake...Walthers has a threesome of tenements to hang laundry from, Poppa Wheelies biker bar is a must as are some additional taverns, one could make any of several buildings a liquor store, some empty storefronts and a couple of "seedy" hotels. Maybe an abandoned gas station, and a boarded up house or two. What do most Amtrack riders see on their way into any major city?

[Anonymous]

I work on the south side of Chicago. It's seedy areas came about because of all the steel mills that closed(not the total reason, but a good part of it). Anyway, just remember to include that abandoned spur line or torn up yard that used to service what kept the neighborhood "alive" in the past, in your model.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jkeaton

Tatans, your experience of small towns is the diametric opposite of mine - having personally experienced people rallying together "after the barn burned down", and people "getting involved" - so much so that the chief complaint of newcomers was that there was no privacy, everybody knew everybody else's business and lives too well! As to free food and medicine - doctors who treated people and didn't bill them, and casseroles and sacks of groceries that turn up on doorsteps fulfill the same functions, in a less public way.

European cities don't decay in the centre because they don't have freeways running through the centre of their cities - the same effect can be seen in Vancouver, Canada, which is the only major North American city without a downtown freeway - and has only a very small "wrong side of the tracks" - which doesn't have abandoned buildings or dereliction in the way most US cities do.

To take this back to modelling, I do agree that Sellios is often "over the top" - but I always thought that was the charm of his version of selective compression, wherein he picked the memorable scenes and selectively compressed the more boring bits of his urban landscapes. We do tend to remember the unusual, and including the unusual or cute makes our layouts all the more memorable. Doing the details in this way can be negative - like the dog peeing on the bum - or positive if you prefer. I want to have a scene where the wife is kissing her husband goodbye on the station platform - or at the front door - where there's a guy in a pick-up stopped to help a motorist with a flat-tire - and where two neighbours hanging out laundry are chatting over the fence, or from one balcony to another. Such micro-scenes make our layouts more "real" - we just have to chose what we find intriguing.

Just an observation, but European cities haven't decayed from the inside out since the 20's because during WWII, the Alies started the first phase of Urban Renewal, "Bring down the old".[:D]

[Anonymous]

The DPM kits have tremendous potential and lend themselves to infinite kitbashing - shorten them, wrap them around corners creating a corner building, stack them on top to create taller structures, transfer the cornices from one to another, add roof top clutter like Art Currens did in so many of his artricles in MR long ago, and so on. And don't let the names that DPM has garnered them with dictate what the particular store, residence, or industrial building is all about - a clothing store could be a real estate office, a townhouse a flop house, a trucking terminal a plumbing supplier. . . They're appropriate for scenes set from 1900 to present day. And their engraving is first rate. All that is needed is a bit of immagination, some paint and some weathering.
They work for jist about any locale in North America, too. Good stuff, and I agree, they're perfect for a starting point when doing "the seedy side of town".
BILL

[Anonymous]

One thing that is always interesting is the archetecture in the "seedier" parts of town. If you look closely you will see trim and molding that would cost an arm and a leg to install in a new house. The number of small shops can also be interesting and as pointed out above give a neighborhood somesort of ethnic flair so often missing in our models. The DPM kits would be perfect to model such a neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

In many respects you're all correct, as it also depends on where you look and in what era. Inner city decay has been an ongoing pattern long before freeways. . .Look at old photos of the south side of Chicago, in New York City in neighborhods like Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, Harlem, the south Bronx, & my old neighborhood (Jackson Heights in Queens), or the north side of Boston, Compton & Watts in LA, the Mission District in San Francisco, and everywhere else. It's a natural and unfortunate progression of events - some socio-economic, some due to legislation that drives away certain industries, immigration patterns, and when the real estate market is on the upswing or a downturn. Also, some political regimes either help or hinder the preservation of inner city areas; look what Rudi had done in NYC, and contrast that w/ Mayor Linsey's time in office when NYC went BK and turned into a cesspool - thankfully it's returning to it's former greatness. . .

And small towns - take a hard look at what happened all over the South when the mills went off shore, or in the rust belt when similar happened to their often one major employer, and all of a sudden, unemployment hit 25%. And small towns are attracting third world immigrants, especially Asians and Hispanics who are setting up shops, raising families, and melding into the local scene, just as the Irish, Poles, Italians, and the others did 50 -100 yrs ago. Small towns are what you make of them - charming, quaint, provincial, judgemental, sometimes brutal to newcomers. And forget having a private life - you'll be in a glass house with somebody always peeking and occasionally lofting a stone at it !
BILL

[PennsyHoosier]

Lupo, that is starting to change. It is increasingly the case that valuable real estate is purchased and the building on it simply torn down and replaced. In other cases, older buildings are renovated with some really amazing results. On the near north side of Chicago there are many instances of this, some of which involve railroads. That might make for an interesting contrast. A neighborhood that is in the process of regentrification--new buildings, renovated buildings and old run down buildings all in the same setting.

[lupo]

QUOTE: What brought this to mind was talking Europeans who holiday in North America cannot understand the inner decay of cities here(I guess they don't allow them in Europe)

IMO one of the reasons is that in europe space is very valuable, and very scarce, when a building is in decay it is cheaper to clear the lot and build a new, than it is buy new land, and what I saw in the US is often nobody bothers to clear up the mess, it is cheaper to move a few miles down the street and start building on a clean new site.

[jkeaton]

Tatans, your experience of small towns is the diametric opposite of mine - having personally experienced people rallying together "after the barn burned down", and people "getting involved" - so much so that the chief complaint of newcomers was that there was no privacy, everybody knew everybody else's business and lives too well! As to free food and medicine - doctors who treated people and didn't bill them, and casseroles and sacks of groceries that turn up on doorsteps fulfill the same functions, in a less public way.

European cities don't decay in the centre because they don't have freeways running through the centre of their cities - the same effect can be seen in Vancouver, Canada, which is the only major North American city without a downtown freeway - and has only a very small "wrong side of the tracks" - which doesn't have abandoned buildings or dereliction in the way most US cities do.

To take this back to modelling, I do agree that Sellios is often "over the top" - but I always thought that was the charm of his version of selective compression, wherein he picked the memorable scenes and selectively compressed the more boring bits of his urban landscapes. We do tend to remember the unusual, and including the unusual or cute makes our layouts all the more memorable. Doing the details in this way can be negative - like the dog peeing on the bum - or positive if you prefer. I want to have a scene where the wife is kissing her husband goodbye on the station platform - or at the front door - where there's a guy in a pick-up stopped to help a motorist with a flat-tire - and where two neighbours hanging out laundry are chatting over the fence, or from one balcony to another. Such micro-scenes make our layouts more "real" - we just have to chose what we find intriguing.

[tatans]

Just a note: It would seem that people reading this forum who live in small towns will have no concept of the conditions in certain areas of large cities, small towns have no slums or ghettos, no crack houses, no chippies on the corner selling themselves for dope money, never see whole blocks abandoned, burned empty factories, beggars, etc. etc. Nor do they see large segments of immigrant populations or minorities(or majorities either) My lengthy experience in various small towns was a very insular existance. There were no free corner clinics treating people with no means of medical support, no free food lines, soup kitchens. They just do not or cannot exist in a small rural community-hence the migration to large urban areas. As for the wonderful stories we hear about the whole town gathering for support when Clem's barn burns down, this may happen occasionaly, but a monetary crisis, an addiction, illness, social strife, you're on your own, even though this benevolent myth is still perpetuated. It seem no one wants to get involved or it's not my business I haven't quite figured this one out yet . I'm not knocking this lifestyle,(I'm actually moving to a small village next year) and I'm fully aware of the differences of lifestyle. What brought this to mind was talking Europeans who holiday in North America cannot understand the inner decay of cities here(I guess they don't allow them in Europe) just a note on a great forum. Remember Disneyland does'nt have "The Seedy Side of Town" yet.

[tatans]

QUOTE: Originally posted by lupo

Some other questions pop up:
who or what decided wich was the GOOD or the BAD side of the tracks?
Has that to do with the side the station building is situated?
Reading through all your descriptions about lively city scenes, the lots of signs on the buildings, how about the use of animated neon signs, were they around in the early 60-ies?

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Lupo: Neon has been around since the 1850's, the 1st neon sign was in Paris Invented by Georges Claude on Dec.11,1910. The first sign in the U.S. was for Packard Motor Cars.

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by lupo

another issue that could raise some eybrows on this topic is graffiti, wheater it is good or bad , nowadays it is there, when did this pop up, when spraycans were not around were there guys running around with buckets of paint ?
another modelling idea: a crew halfway through painting their piece beneath a bridge, or decorating a rusty boxcar sitting in a overgrown siding.

Lupo,

Graffitti as an "art form" really didn't pick up until the cheap and readily available rattlecan appeared on the market (sometime in the late 1960s). But grafitti itself has been around since the dawn of time. Technically, cave drawings are grafitti, and there has been a lot of (mostly lewd!) grafitti found dug into the walls of Pompeii. From what I've seen of 1930s-1950s grafitti, most of it was done by brush or chalk, and was sorta rare. Posters everywhere was much more common.

[lupo]

another issue that could raise some eybrows on this topic is graffiti, wheater it is good or bad , nowadays it is there, when did this pop up, when spraycans were not around were there guys running around with buckets of paint ?
another modelling idea: a crew halfway through painting their piece beneath a bridge, or decorating a rusty boxcar sitting in a overgrown siding.

[Jetrock]

One thing about those kinds of neighborhoods--they evolve in a process known as gentrification. Typically at various points in history when youth cultures arise, young college-age folks tend to move to the cheapest-rent areas they can find, which are typically the more ethnic or more dangerous neighborhoods. Once enough of them move into an area, businesses appealing to this population tend to open (coffee shops, record stores, tattoo/piercing parlors, nightclubs.) Eventually these areas may become hip and trendy, resulting in an increase in rents--typically the original population is often forced out of the neighborhood by rising rents, and eventually most of the hipsters are displaced as well (they, like the original population, tend to follow the cheap rent. Every great "underground scene" started in a place that had cheap rent, which allows aspiring musicians, artists, etcetera, to work part-time or get by on public assistance, allowing them to spend their free time in creative pursuits.) Once the area becomes hip, yuppies and others with money move in, renovating older buildings, raising rents and land values higher, and the edgier businesses get supplanted by expensive restaurants and boutiques. In the meantime, often the suburbs they fled get more run-down. So the "side of the tracks" can change over time.

As far as which side became the "wrong side", typically this had little to do with the tracks themselves--the tracks merely become a convenient geographic boundary separating richer neighborhoods from poorer ones.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by RedLeader

You guys don't wanna know how "bad" neighborhoods are in Colombia...[V]
Worn out structures, overpopulated with prostitutes, drugadicts, pro killers, gangs and urban guerrillas. No police in here only military and antinarcotics elite forces. A few 80's cars owned by the drug dealers and pimps. Bumbs eating from garbage cans and pregnant women all beaten up running behind naked kids. The hole scene is a kafkian nightmare. True reality of thrid world countries...

P.d. Sorry it wasn't my intention to get political in this thread...

No problem, we're just kicking this skidrow thing around to get some ideas anyway. No one takes any of this really serious. We all know the Depression left its mark all over the world, it just took a lot longer for some areas to recover than others.[:D]

[RedLeader]

You guys don't wanna know how "bad" neighborhoods are in Colombia...[V]
Worn out structures, overpopulated with prostitutes, drugadicts, pro killers, gangs and urban guerrillas. No police in here only military and antinarcotics elite forces. A few 80's cars owned by the drug dealers and pimps. Bumbs eating from garbage cans and pregnant women all beaten up running behind naked kids. The hole scene is a kafkian nightmare. True reality of thrid world countries...

P.d. Sorry it wasn't my intention to get political in this thread...

[Anonymous]

Dan -
How you described Memphis isn't too far afield than what parts of Newark resembled in the '60s, esp. after the unfortunate riots. And when Utica, NY embarked on an "urban renewal" (sic) campaign almost a half century ago and after all the mills closed down and moved south and later offshore, they tore down a lot of older very seedy parts of town, and took longer to rebuild them than the DOT in North Carolina takes to pave a highway - a big joke in that State, since it takes the NC DOT years to simply widen a five mile stretch of road as any NC resident will attest to - in fact - modeling such a scene accurately (in NC) would have one guy digging with a shovel, five other workers staring into the hole, and three or four bosses standing around totally disinterested slurping on their Mountain Dew.
BILL

[Anonymous]

All great ideas and thoughts and ya, maybe George Sellios did go over the top, but not by much. I was born in Memphis Tenn and still remember the filth and garbage and grime that was down town, back street Memphis at that time. Back in the late 40's and early to mid 50's, most large "deep south" southern cities were still in a state of depression and very high un-employment. They never really recovered from the depression years of the thirties and "urban renewal" was very much out of the question. you could even walk down main street Memphis and encounter hookers plying their trade in broad daylight, mostly to Navy guys from the Millington Navel Air Station who were in town on liberty. The stench was unbelievable and there was busted streets and sidewalks everywhere. Vacant lots were full of garbage and broken down or stripped cars. The streets were full of tra***hat the city couldn't afford to remove on a regular basis. Most homes in the surrounding area, were old wood structures that were built long before WWII. If you walked down Mainstreet, at almost every intersection, you would encounter Hookers on at least 2 street corners, Street Corner Evangelist , trying to save everyone who would listen, on another corner, and on the 4th street corner, would be bums trying to separate you from your loose change and proclaiming the end of the world on at least 3 differant days. It was really bad times in the Deep South. It wasn't until the late 60's or early 70's that Urban Renewal really took off in those Deep Southern cities with, I believe, Atlanta GA leading the way.The Northeastern Cities had been on that trek far longer and were years ahead of the South in getting rid of the old, rundown, depression era parts of these cities. George really isn't that far over the top for a depression era layout.

[Anonymous]

Lupo - Neon has been around for decades - mostly little signs in shop windows outlining the shop's name or some slogan about the shop. Some larger rooftop signs existed, but not sure if they used neon, as the construction of those neon signs was relatively fragile and susceptible to damage from the weather and vandals. Some biilboard type signs were lit up with conventional incadescent bulbs like spot or flood lamps, but most were not. A lighted sign in front of a church or a large cross on top that was lit up wouldn't be out of place on certain denominations. Got to be politically correct here ! LOL

As far as Jetrock's comment re: the lack of vehicles in very poor neighborhoods - I somewhat disagree - even in NYC where I grew up, and reasonably close to the PRR's Sunnyside Yards, and within spitting distance from the elevated IRT subway line, many folks had cars - mostly older ones - at least in the '50s before parking spaces and garages cost almost as much as rent.

In cities that I have lived in, or near by - in north Jersey, Bridgeport/New Haven, Tampa, and Orlando, SanFrancisco/San Jose, Los Angeles/Orange County, Dallas/FortWorth, Raleigh/Durham. and where I'm at now - Atlanta - there were, and are vehicles in 'seedy' inner-city neighborhoods, for many of the cities I mentioned with the exception of NY had fairly lousy public transportation systems in the '50s and '60s. - the era that you're modeling. If anything, public transportation isn't much improved in most cities now. . .

Granted - there was very few nice cars or trucks evident unless one were implying the sterotypical drug dealer's or pimp's ride, but if there was - let's use an example - a plumbing supplier in the neighborhood (why does the movie "Goodby Columbus" come to mind ?) the owner probably lived in a better part of town, and most likely didn't take a city bus to his business every day. He may have had a new Buick or a Cadillac, or a new GMC truck today. Also, many poorer folks don't always have their prioities sorted out, and a shiny car was a status symbol back then as it is now.

There are many older small single family residences scattered throughout seedy parts of some towns - often right near the tracks, as that's where many communities began in order to have access to taking the train or to nearby places of employment - it's not uncommon at all to see cars in front of these homes, or parked in narrow driveways on narrower lots, sometimes instead with an access to a small garage from an alley behind the home, and in between the neighbors behind them. Lots of these still in LA, Dallas (they still build alleys behind homes in Dallas), and on Long Island, like my aunt's home was in Jamaica - not your 'garden spot' then or now.

Next time you're watching a cops and robbers sitcom filmed in LA and they conduct the requisite weekly chase scene, watch for these alleys (as they always seem to end up racing down them, and shooting across intersections narrowly avoiding a collision, and inevidedibly, either the cop or the robber slams into something, jumps a fence, runs thru a backyard, and you know the rest of the story. . .) Those alleys are often littered with tdented up trash cans, cardboard cartons, abandoned cars, busted up fences, and beat up looking dogs.
BILL

[lupo]

Some other questions pop up:
who or what decided wich was the GOOD or the BAD side of the tracks?
Has that to do with the side the station building is situated?
Reading through all your descriptions about lively city scenes, the lots of signs on the buildings, how about the use of animated neon signs, were they around in the early 60-ies?

[Anonymous]

I think why some modelers have scenes from this side of town is they are visually interesting, lots of things to model and for visitors to see. I don't think a row of nice tidy homes with manicured lawns and picket fences would be very interesting to model. But to each his own!

As has been mentioned, the scenes that George Sellios modes are mostly over the top, exaggerated visions of what may have been. Just like his kits - way too many vents, stacks, signs, etc. But they sure are neat!

Bob Boudreau

[krump]

btw - the "other" side of the tracks in this area, happens to be the expensive condos and private luxury homes on the waterfront, lakeshore area, near the wharf - Guess I live on the wrong side of the tracks... rats!!!... (there goes one now) [sigh]

[Jetrock]

lupo: Folks in that building probably didn't OWN cars in the 1950's--they took the bus (or the trolley, if their city still had one.)

It seems like when this sort of subject gets mentioned everyone's minds go immediately into the gutter (crime, vice, drugs, bodily functions) but there are also some interesting modeling opportunities for modeling the "wrong side of the tracks" if looked at from a different perspective.

Homes and land near railroad tracks tended to be inexpensive because it was often noisy and sooty. Industries tended to be near the tracks, too. So, for those looking for work at those industries but unable to pay higher rents, homes near the tracks became an acceptable alternative. Such neighborhoods were often ethnic enclaves of various sorts.

In Sacramento, where I live and what I model, there was a neighborhood called "The West End" on the side of town nearest the Southern Pacific yard and shops area, the city wharf, and the interurban belt line (which I model and have yammered on about quite a bit now.) The West End was actually a collection of smaller neighborhoods, including distinct Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Portugese neighborhoods, with a number of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (largely migrant farm workers) and African-Americans (although they apparently didn't have a particular neighborhood at the time.) The buildings in this neighborhood tended to be older and generally a bit run-down, characterized by two or three story buildings with retail on the first floor and apartments on the second.

Sure, it was also considered a crime-ridden area with prostitution and underground gambling and other forms of vice--but it was primarily a place where people lived, worked and spent their time, in close-knit, mutually supportive communities.

This neighborhood was wiped out in the 1960's due to a dramatic "urban renewal" program that razed many blocks of people's homes and businesses, as well as an interstate highway that ran directly through the heart of many West End neighborhoods.

Now, think about the possibilities of looking not at the "seamier" aspects of this rougher, lower-rent side of town, and instead at the unique modeling opportunities. Many cities had ethnic neighborhoods--if your layout is set anytime before the 1950's or 60's, or perhaps even later, imagine an HO scale Chinatown, or Little Italy, or other ethnic neighborhood. Business signs in Chinese, Spanish, Italian or any other language will add a flair, as will a few non-white HO scale figures (You don't see many of those, do you? But a little paint is all you need to make your road's demographics more realistic.)

The buildings may not be the newest or quite as fresh of paint, but they could quite often be very well-maintained and orderly (although a bit of scruff adds a certain charm.) Street scenes ranging from a stickball game in a vacant lot to a Chinese New Year celebration crowd to a few Orthodox Jews in black discussing the Torah in front of a delicatessen.

And, of course, neighborhoods like this are the ones most likely to be close to the railroad tracks, thus making them easy to justify if we have limited space for buildings.

[joseph2]

My hometown once had four railroads plus an interurban.So no matter where a person lived,they came from the wrong side of the tracks.Would like to put a bar on the layout,the one from the first Star Wars movie. Joe G.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by lupo

Thanks for sharing those memories and stories about that side of town, guys !
these stories are very inspiring to someone that grew on a very rural, very quite little village, ( pop 600 ) on the coastline of a small island in the southwest of Holland.
( my grandfather sold wooden shoes in the village shop, how corny can you get! )

maybe that's why modelling those big US cities are so interesting to me!
there is such a big contrast !

If I want to see a rural community I look outside, do not have to build me a model of that!
btw there were no trains on my island as well

I think I got a pair of those wooden shoes, God do my arches ache and my corns hurt.[:D][:D][:D]