Skid Row - Definition and Overview

Skid Row is also the name of an American Heavy Metal band.

The American term skid row is used to refer to the rundown area of a city where alcoholics and vagrants congregate. The first skid row was Skid Road (Yesler Way) in Seattle, where logs were skidded into the water for delivery to Henry Yesler's lumber mills. After the onset of the Great Depression, the area went into decline, and skid row became synonomous with being a bad neighborhood.

There is a formally identified Skid Row in Seattle and Los Angeles as well as informally identified districts in almost every major American city.

Seattle's Skid Row has been gentrified, and in 1970 was designated as the Pioneer Square Historic District.

Los Angeles's Skid Row, in the Wholesale District (an industrial district), is located southeast of the downtown area and is home to one of the largest stable populations of transient persons in the United States. Informal population estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. First-time visitors to this area are often shocked by the sight of the cardboard box shantytowns 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 limits is that, "you can't even buy a cardboard box for that price", for "that price" being a mentioned expensive house price. However, some of the people on Skid Row use tents rather than boxes.

External links and references

• Some Seattle history (http://www.historylink.org/_output.cfm?file_id=1041)
• More history (http://www.nwsource.com/visitorsguide/neighborhoods/pioneersquare_overview.html)
• Online tour of Los Angeles Skid Row (http://www.usc.edu/dept/geography/losangeles/lawalk/skid/)