Drove past an old neighborhood and wow have things changed

[Exterous]

The nearby bowling alley closed not long after we had moved in. (The drug trade behind the building didn't seem affected) It sat abandoned for many years as did the Kmart and old grocery store across the street. The apartment complexes were old and shabby (often with bars on the lower level) and restaurants came and went in the blink of an eye - so fast that they usually didn't have time to get a new sign up. It was just a roof banner over the banner of the last failed restaurant. Nothing other than two gas stations and a liquor shop could take hold

Drove past today and holy crap! There is a nice new Fresh Thyme (Trader Joe's like) grocery store where the bowling alley was (They must have bulldozed it at some point), a home decor place where Kmart was, a fancy looking strip mall with several restaurants in it that had 'real' signs. All the apartment buildings along the road have clearly had a lot of work done on them along with fresh paint.

It's nice to see the area doing well after so many years of having so many abandoned buildings. I'll admit I am a little jealous that those things weren't there when we lived there. That said I'm not sure if I could have afforded to live there if that was the case.

 

[pmv]

Whenever I see my old neighbourhoods I get depressed at how much they have changed...even if it's in some ways for the better. Much of those places are unrecognizable, entire buildings gone, streets remodeled, and even the demographics of the population dramatically changed (gentrification, essentially, and symptomatic of the shift from a time - in my childhood - when the city was depopulating to now, where the population has grown to a record level).

Both my old schools have been physically demolished (granted, at one time I'd have paid real money to have driven the bulldozer myself, but now it's finally happened it makes me sad!).

Objectively perhaps the areas are nicer, but it feels like one's past being erased, as if it never happened. The only constant in this world is change.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Checked back with my old apartment. The place is a dump. No sign of real management. Fences are overgrown. Parking lot features lots of junkers. Doors not staying shut. General air of dilapidation.

In my time, it was respectable. Neat, but nothing fancy. No junky autos. Guess it was circling the drain. My car did get broken into once.

Neighborhood still looks the same. My favorite Chinese takeout restaurant has upgraded from borderline dumpy to surprisingly upscale - at least the dining area. One overpass has turned into an underpass. The store I worked at after losing my real job is closed and empty - but that's in another part of the city.

If we're talking personal town of origin, well that's doing fine - lots of new construction this past decade.

Whenever I see my old neighbourhoods I get depressed at how much they have changed...even if it's in some ways for the better. Much of those places are unrecognizable, entire buildings gone, streets remodeled, and even the demographics of the population dramatically changed (gentrification, essentially, and symptomatic of the shift from a time - in my childhood - when the city was depopulating to now, where the population has grown to a record level).

Both my old schools have been physically demolished (granted, at one time I'd have paid real money to have driven the bulldozer myself, but now it's finally happened it makes me sad!).

Objectively perhaps the areas are nicer, but it feels like one's past being erased, as if it never happened. The only constant in this world is change.

Take a picture. It'll last longer.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've been watching my city change so much too as the years go by. So much stuff is being changed, especially in the past decade or so. Places that I remember being there since as long as I was old enough to have memories (given they were there before I was born). Funny enough I always tell myself I should take pictures of stuff like that, but never do, because I don't really want to be seen out in public taking pictures of buildings or in some case schools. People might just find it weird. One thing I need to do though is put a camera on my dash and just drive around. Some guy did that in the 90's and shared the video years back and it was super nostalgic to watch that. See stuff that I totally forgot about that was there before.

My high school was a brand new building, I even helped move all the stuff from the old school as a summer job. So it's kind of nostalgic to pass there. Elementary school is the same too, it brings a bittersweet nostalgia to pass by there because I got bulled there a lot. But it's neat to consider the fact that back then I was in such a hard place and the concept of adulthood and getting over this situation felt so far away. But I'm here now and things are better. The trees we raised money to get planted are also all there and taller, so that's cool to see. Interestingly it's not a school anymore, it's owned by a community centre, which their building had a fire and got torn down, that building is super nostalgic too because it's always been there for as long as I remember. I went there a lot for school activities and what not. And now it's just an empty lot. Was sad to see it go. The sign is still there though, I really need to take a pic of that. That sign is just so iconic, like we'd pass it all the time as a kid and it's still the same it was then. Just a bit more rusty. They still use it too.

Hey at least we got street view now!

Sign i was talking about with empty lot where building used to be: https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.4761...4!1sV1EjAhQMY1tfzUu6hL-HTQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Wish they had that back when I was a kid, and that they kept historical records, that would be so cool.

Elementary school: https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.4710...4!1s1yuUZxSHnx_TCA_PMnDocg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Totally remember sitting on those bars waiting for the bus, and people pushing me to the ground etc. It's a bittersweet nostalgia.

All my other schools got torn down though, Wish I had pics of them for nostalgia sake. Not a lot of pictures exist of those buildings, or a lot of stuff from back then really.

 

[snoopy7548]

My hometown hasn't changed much - a new road here or there, some fresh paint, a couple of closed businesses, but it's still the same. My parents just moved so I'll likely never visit again (unless I want to drive ~2.5 hours for nostalgia.)

The old neighborhood the last time I saw it was still the same as it ever was, and all the schools were there.

It is very weird to think that another family is living in "my" house.

 

[Exterous]

It is very weird to think that another family is living in "my" house.

Yeah - I won't drive past the previous house we owned (I mean I would if I had to) and wouldn't go in for a look around if invited. We put a lot of time and effort into our house so I have no desire to see if they ruined* any of our work

*which could also be the result of bad taste instead of physical destruction

 

[Humpy]

The neighborhood I grew up in was brand new at the time, most of the trees were little, lots of businesses, a new shopping center with popular stores and restaurants etc.

20 years later it's all but abandoned as the sprawl crept further North.

 

[pmv]

Hey at least we got street view now!

Sign i was talking about with empty lot where building used to be: https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.4761...4!1sV1EjAhQMY1tfzUu6hL-HTQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Wish they had that back when I was a kid, and that they kept historical records, that would be so cool.

If by 'that' in your last sentence you mean 'streetview', I agree. So often I pass a new building development in an area I used to know and realise I can't remember what was there before! (I just know it wasn't what's there now).

Future generations will be able to see exactly how things have changed from their youth. Perhaps future historians will suffer not from a scarcity of material about our lives but from a surfeit of it. Archeology will mean digging through mountains of data, not dirt.

Unless the vast amount of images and documents we produce all end up unreadable due to DRM and format changes.

My old school only existed under that name in its original form for about a decade. I think they realised it had all been a terrible mistake! Later even the buildings (brand new when I went there) were demolished.

My childhood home appeared on one of those house sale web sites. The interior was unrecognisable, had had a lot of work done on it. Clearly those who owned it since had way more money than my parents did! Just massively nicer than I remember it! Wish I was wealthy enough to buy it, but house prices have increased astronomically since then, at least five-fold in real terms. Nobody can afford to own property where they grew up!

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'd rather have a bowling alley than a grocery store....the food is typically better.

#nachos

 

[spacejamz]

I grew up in Gary, Indiana...(from 1972-1977). We left before it went down tubes.