I filled up with gas there back in 2011. I knew then it was kind of bad but I was with others who were less savy about that and wasn’t calling the shots so I didn’t have much of a say in where to stop.
Place next to the gas station looked like some porno joint. Kept head on a swivel, paid with cc, and got out of there fast.
That was probably one of the mainstays of the economy. There is a town to the north called Brooklyn that is/was pretty much all strip clubs and massage parlors.
The last time I was down there I was on I-55 and my mind was preoccupied and I missed the exit to I-255, even though I had driven there countless times. I stayed on 55 into ESL because I could get to where I was going by getting off on Route 3. But they had reconfigured the highway and exits to accommodate the new Stan Musial Bridge, and it was unfamiliar to me, so I prayed fervently that I wouldn’t take the wrong exit.
I did make one trip through ESL on Google maps streetview. Most of the places I knew were dilapidated or gone. The building I had worked in, probably 4-5 stories tall, had collapsed because of neglect.