combat zone
- place:
Boston
related links:
http://parole.aporee.org/files/ga12/combat-zone_boston.jpg
(combat zone boston: Well, I don't know what to think of that. When I moved back to California from Boston there was a series of prostitute murders in the Combat Zone. I always sort of liked the sleaze and lights. It was definitely fun for photography. But it seems like every city needs to occasionally "clean up" it's downtown. When I was in high school the Broadway/North Beach part of San Francisco was pretty scummy- like the Combat Zone. Now it's just a little racy- good for tourism but it doesn't really offend anyone any more. Progress.
Thanks for the update. I moved back to California in '91 and haven't been to Boston since. It's probably about time I go take a look again.
It's funny that you went to high school right by all of that. Your parents must have been thrilled!
John
)
related words:
porno district (definition)
- echo:
Combat Zone Rebound?BOSTON -- For years it seemed as Boston's Combat Zone -- a sleazy, dirty and, at times, violent set of downtown streets -- was all but gone.But the retreat of the red-light district may be short-lived. Two of the last surviving outposts of the Combat Zone, a strip club and a pornographic book shop, have asked permission to expand.The requests have alarmed residents of the city's Chinatown section, who for years fought to rid the neighborhood of the porn businesses that concentrated there in the 1970s."Things had been getting better and now people are worried they are gearing back up again," said Stephanie Fan, a board member of the Chinese Historical Center.The city liquor commission this week refused to give the Glass Slipper -- the city's only strip club -- permission to serve alcohol to twice the number of patrons it does now, citing local opposition and a lack of a public need. But the club may appeal.Meanwhile, Liberty Book II is awaiting word on its request to become a strip club as well.Once a crime-ridden, bawdy few blocks packed with nude dance clubs, adult theaters, bars, porn shops and prostitutes, the Combat Zone has been shedding its seedy character for years.Boston's sleazier elements moved in during the 1970s when their old neighborhood a few blocks north, adjacent to the site of the Boston Massacre and colonial-era Faneuil Hall, was razed to make way for a sprawling government center and new city hall.A short walk from the Federal-era homes of Beacon Hill, the Combat Zone was a place many residents chose to avoid."I remember being out together as a family and hoping we would not run into bottle-throwing fights," Fan said. "The Combat Zone was between us and the Boston Common, the only place we could go for some green space."Years of grassroots activism by Chinatown residents and aggressive police work helped rejuvenate the area.Emerson College installed a new dormitory in the neighborhood, Suffolk University moved administrative officers there, and a $300 million entertainment complex is under consideration by city officials.A lawyer for Liberty Book II and the Glass Slipper said city zoning laws give the businesses a legal right to operate."These applicants are two businesses who have been doing business in these locations for a long time," Kenneth Tatarian said. "They are regulated, and have an established right to do business there."Thomas Lee, pastor of the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church, said safety issues should overrule archaic zoning laws.Strip club patrons cruise the streets looking for prostitutes, which leads to harassment of residents as well as used condoms and drug paraphernalia strewn on sidewalks and in gutters, he said."I think we know that these businesses cannot completely control the people that come in and out no matter how well they are run," Lee said.
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