Originally Posted by
wipekitty
My street is fantastic
It's a numbered street on the grid system, about a half mile south of the downtown area. My block is all single-family homes with small yards, and surrounding blocks are a mix of single-family, multi-family, and mid-rise buildings for seniors and the disabled. I'm near both the VFW/Eagle's Club and Legion post. My street is a short walk or ride to hospitals, downtown, and three colleges.
We have a sidewalk, and there's a fair amount of foot and bike traffic. About two years ago, the city installed lights bright enough to light the sidewalk at night, resulting in more college students walking past my house to visit the bars.
Being in a fairly small town, it is dead quiet.
As I've mention before I am very familiar with your neighborhood having lived there from ages 7-13 over 50 years ago. I lived in the big house on top of the hill and I wonder now how I survived because I would ride my bike down the alley onto the "busy" street--compared to yours--and never got hit by a car. They've torn down some older houses to encourage families to move in. My best friend growing up lived in the house that now looks like a log cabin. Down the block from there was Ralph's IGA store which is now a second hand clothing store. I got most of my early bikes as a kid at Smith's Bicycle Shop which used to be across the street from what is now a middle school but used to be a junior high school when I went there. Back then there was no mall and everything was downtown--Sears, JC Penny, Wards, and Woolworths as well as grocery stores--all within walking distance which was great because we didn't have a car. One of the things I remember the most are the smells of the neighbor--baking bread from the bakery which to this day still takes me back to when I was a kid and that was the best smell there. The smell of the hops from the brewery was not bad, not good, but when the wind is from the right direction the smell from the waste water treatment plant was awful. Today it's so often that sulfur smell. Yours is a very old neighborhood in the city and it has changed over the years but I still think it's nice and when I ride my bike through there I remember so much.