East Street

Walking down East Street makes you wonder. The dull, orange street lamps cast thin shadows of lonely figures, wandering, wondering, in the dark, cold night. The buildings are mostly empty; either for rent or abandoned. There is something inexplicably frightening about an abandoned building. Why should it be frightening? It’s the same building it was when people were there. When offices provided livelihoods and retirement plans for men and women with sick children and invalid parents, those buildings weren’t scary or decrepit. They were shining fortresses of hope, and promise for the future. Maybe it’s the decrepitude that makes you wonder. East Street is full of it. Burnt out homes, dime-a-dozen apartment complexes. Every structure gray, each one blending in with the others and their dusty, broken windows, and dirty, off-white paint peeling off of the rotted, wooden railings. All of this, standing in ironic testament to the super-rich and their ever expanding fortunes. The wonders of capitalism. Surely, East Street could provide fuel for anyone’s socialist fire, but that isn’t the right reaction. That’s not what old East Street is trying to say. The thoughts continue to pour in, and suddenly the realization comes. Like a wave of clarity settling upon the conscious, washing away the misleading generalizations and biases. East Street was once alive. The families and communities like blood to the body. The fear one feels on East Street is analogous to that of glancing upon a dead person, or animal. It rouses the instinctual fear of death. East Street is dead.