My gal is also from Winterpeg, close to the same places I ran wild as a youngun. This makes for meaningful convo about the old hoods, lots of which have suffered so much urban /drug/gang decay over the past 30 years they really arent there anymore.
North End Winnipeg used to be really cool in an ethnic way. I lived in the heart of it when I had a loud jam band, nobody complained about the noise. Magnus and Prince baby. Native folks, Metis, Slavs who had been there for 80 yrs, but also new immigrant folks just gettin their feet under them, our landlord was Chilean. In many ways, it was Springsteen-ian, but more so.
The Polish Legion, Russian Jews making great pickles and smoked meat, guys in wifebeater shirts workin on cars, drinkin (smokin weed) in the back yards. Loud bands, a hundred different ethnics hanging out, interacting. I used to go 'down Selkirk Avenoo' Saturday morning, you hear more Ukrainian , Polish, Yiddish and Cree than English. Could buy a teapot, some horse-tack, a crock of pickles and some shoelaces in the same store.
Minuses? I forget. Oh yeah, its all gone now. Thats the big minus. The crack and meth trade have fucked it all up. The old babas with the backyard gardens, the old marketplace is all gone.
You can find lots of grey skinned, empty soul mofos to sell you shit and guns, but you wouldnt want to live there.
Glad to have known it when it was there.
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