Back then Baymeadows Apartments were built around Baymeadows Country Club, the section I lived in was full of young professionals, I dated a girl who was my age that was employed by IBM, they had basketball courts, tennis courts, jogging trails, etc...it really was a nice play to live.
As you said, Baymeadows now is just deadbeats, prostitutes, and drug users and the same bad element that ruins everywhere they land.
I was in my 20s in the 80s and spent a lot of time in Baymeadows as I worked in the Baymeadows industrial park for 6 years.
Back then there was a great sports bar, comedy club and a lot of good restaurants.
A few years ago there was a story about the JSO chasing a perp through the BW3 wing bar on
Baymeadows road......I knew then that area had turned into a crap hole.....and sadly Mandarin is in the direct path of the blight.