Talkin' about depressing places to live, Neatorama reader Michael submitted his wife Desy's blog, 56 Houses Left, about what remains of Carrollton subdivision in Bridgeton, Missouri. The place where she and thousands of other people grew up.
The subdivision was bought out by Lambert Airport for a runway expansion. Nearly 1,900 homes were bought out and since then crushed by bulldozers and trucked away. As of October 9, 2007, only 56 houses remained:
This is where I grew up… and over the past decade, a little bit is erased away each day. It used to not have much significance in my life. After all, I knew this would come… ‘they’ have been talking about it ever since the early 90s. Even then, even when they took my friends’ houses, or the house where my cousins
lived, or my teacher’s house… I was still too young to grasp it… too young to sit up and pay attention…. to care. It wasn’t until I saw the wrecking crew blow through my old bedroom on October 24th, 2006 when finally it all came slamming into my face- this place, this land was all I ever really known. My house, my friends’ and my families’ homes, my sidewalks, pools, parks, churches, schools, businesses… everything… gone. Soon, I will never be able to come back to this place again. If I have kids, I will never be able to show them where I came from. They will never know the place where I once played… the place where I once dreamed of one day leaving… This place that now I come back to wonder what exactly happened… and why. (Link to this Post)
Just a couple of week ago, Desy wrote something ironically poignant:
The article today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch puts Lambert International, and with it the fate of Carrollton, into startling perspective.
It is true, and now there is even more evidence- the destruction of our homes was, officially, for no reason. According to the article, the airport has been classified as simply a ‘mid-sized’ airport since 2003. In 2003, the new runway was barely started and many houses on the south still remained. Aside from hardship cases, my mom’s side of Carrollton was not approached for buy-out in 2003. She was not approached until 2006. Nearly all of my friend’s houses were still standing in 2003. All of the destruction could have been stopped when the officials realized that Lambert will NEVER fill the numbers of flights they had in the 1990s. Even those flights were executed without the shiny new runway that now sits uselessly in Bridgeton.
Its a brutal shock to me that they could take everything away, without doing their homework, without doing the research or checking their facts, but take it all for landlust and false pretenses. All that had existed from my childhood has been bulldozed down to dirt and busted roads, all for absolutely nothing. (Link to this Post)
Link - Thanks Michael! (Photo: radio_inactive [Flickr])
i would probably be pissed too. but yea, i agree to a point that that's just how it goes.. there's only so much that we can prevent because the 'big boys' are the ones with the money and in this country, money does all the talking.
very sad to see your childhood be taken away by a bulldozer, though.
And the new runway will be used. We may not get as much traffic as we used to, due to the fact that we lost our air line hubs, but what airport does these days.
Personally I wouldn't want to live or work that close to a major airport.
Please. You grew up there - so you have memories, right? What does it matter if it still looks like that? This isn't some UN world heritage site - it was a crappy suburban subdivision in Missouri. Get over yourself.
Its gone and thats progress. Hurray! The plight of a single person or small group of people is insignificant, when thinking of the greater good. Maybe learn not to have a house next to an airport?
Maybe the airport will put it to use eventually. I'm sure whatever they use it for, will be better than a bunch of (likely) low income shanty houses.
Merkins will probably need to look up the Mabo Declaration to fully understand a central plot point, but that's one the roles of cultural exchange, viz to educate.
And as for this case, s'funny how people's homes can be obliterated by the System Lords, yet when something threatens their 'homes/weekend castles/overpriced underused status symbols' (like a windfarm off the Hamptons) then all heck breaks loose...
And eminent domain is bull. They have torn down thousands of houses to build big box stores and then cried out asking why all the people in the city were leaving! It is no longer used for the purpose it was intended. I have to agree with Denise64 on this one.
You can't just call her a whiner and be done with it. And lux, way to completely assume they are only tearing down "low income shanties" because they aren't. That sounds a little self-important to me.