You’re lucky they weren’t there any more. The son of a neighbor of mine (we lived in a small town) went looking for a station back in the 70’s and was murdered putting gas in the car. The son was probably 19 or 20 at the time and had no idea about the place.
If I ever wanted to know what hell looked like I found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis,_Illinois
East St. Louis, Illinois he racial makeup of the city was 1.23% White, 97.74% Black
40.6% had a female householder with no husband present
Crime
East Saint Louis...... National average
Murder 101.9 ..........5.6