[rockprof]

My wife and I accientally drove through East St. Louis once. The middle of a weekday and the stoops were populated by young black men drinking and glaring at us. Scary place.

[daler]

Your last name wouldn’t be Griswold, would it?

[rwfromkansas]

I remember a scene from National Lampoon’s Vacation where they are driving through St. Louis and terrified.

[ABN 505]

My wife and I accientally drove through East St. Louis once. The middle of a weekday and the stoops were populated by young black men drinking and glaring at us. Scary place.Go to any inner city in any part of the country and see the same thing young blacks with chips on their shoulders and no incentive to work sitting on stoops.I see it in N.Y.Buffalo,Hartford, Waterbury,Springfield, Chicopee and every place I go to. Different towns same additude.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Same thing here - Allentown, PA. Scary

[VOA]

I almost can’t believe that East St. Louis was named an “All-American”
city in 1959.
By the time I visited St. Louis in the early 1980s, people I knew
that accepted that St. Louis had real problems noted that East St. Louis
was at least an order of magnitude worse.

Sounds like East St. Louis should be a great “negative model” for
urban planning/managment courses.
As well as a monument to the way in which “government helps” when
a city is in trouble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis,_Illinois

[laynee1958]

I just wanted to mention that East St. Louis was in Illinois and not Missouri. Everyone seems to think that they are one in the same when this is not true.