I took a nostalgia trip today, to Main Street in downtown Passaic. This was where my mother and father used to shop back when I was a kid. The first of the big highway malls were just starting out at the time (around 1962-63). We eventually took to the malls, with all of our fellow suburbanites, leaving Main Street to the poor and working-class folk of urban Passaic.
Well, Main Street is still there, as can be seen in the pix below. It looks and sounds quite a bit different today; Spanish language and Latin music fill the air, and the stores are certainly more colorful looking, if a bit more raffish. The big office building with the funny tower on the top is empty now, awaiting an uncertain future. My mother once worked there. The YMCA and Salvation Army are also still there, as can be seen. You also see the usual hotel for urban transients. The fancy restaurants have been replaced with fast food and ‘adult entertainment’ bars. And the last movie theater (the Montauk) has bitten the dust; even porno couldn’t sustain it. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see that Main Street still has a pulse.
Jim,
Once again, great pix! You really know how to capture a scene.
I too get nostalgic about the neighborhood I lived in before I left home at sixteen. It too has gone the way of most urban areas–an entirely different group of people, a few places change, some are gone, things are added–but by and large, except for the people, it stays the same.
When I lived in my “old neighborhood,” it was a German ghetto. Well, we didn’t call it that, but church services were in German, people spoke German, etc. Now it’s mostly Spanish–at least the last time I checked.
I find myself thinking that the people who seem to get themselves all frazzled about English being the “official” language of the U.S., etc., obviously have no clue of recent American history. When the Italians came over, Italian was spoken; we spoke German, etc. As the generations advance, the people become AMERICANS!
And gradually over time (it has taken so long) the Blacks become integrated; and maybe some day nobody will notice what color anybody is.
MCS
Comment by MCS — May 26, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
Jim,
Once again, great pix! You really know how to capture a scene.
I too get nostalgic about the neighborhood I lived in before I left home at sixteen. It too has gone the way of most urban areas–an entirely different group of people, a few places change, some are gone, things are added–but by and large, except for the people, it stays the same.
When I lived in my “old neighborhood,” it was a German ghetto. Well, we didn’t call it that, but church services were in German, people spoke German, etc. Now it’s mostly Spanish–at least the last time I checked.
I find myself thinking that the people who seem to get themselves all frazzled about English being the “official” language of the U.S., etc., obviously have no clue of recent American history. When the Italians came over, Italian was spoken; we spoke German, etc. As the generations advance, the people become AMERICANS!
And gradually over time (it has taken so long) the Blacks become integrated; and maybe some day nobody will notice what color anybody is.
MCS
Comment by MCS — May 26, 2008 @ 2:53 pm