Writing in response to this morning’s post regarding the origins of the urban-psychological construct known as the “Eraserhood,” longtime commenter Timo writes in:

I take full credit for being the first to put the words “Eraser” and “Hood” together. I know the area well. It was after watching Shawn’s clip on Youtube, at the time I didn’t know him. My father used to work at SmithKline, next to Community College and would drive me to the Prep each morning from 1982- 1986. Prostitutes would stand in front of the Carlisle Hotel and proposition us every morning. After high school, I went to Temple and rode my bicycle to work at O’Neal’s on South Street from campus. The houses that were there were bombed out, gutted and boarded up. Crack addicts would wander around and throw bottles at your head in broad daylight. The only open businesses were the After Midnight, Doc Johnson’s and the old Trestle, which famously had the sign that warned that knives and guns weren’t allowed in the bar. West side of Broad St. (now called “Fairmount”) was an open air drug market. (Ask Maxx from Black Landlord, who mentioned the corner of 16th & Mt. Vernon on The Goats’ Tricks of the Shade). I can only imagine what it was like when Lynch was there in the early ‘70s. The Convention Center has destroyed it all.

Nobody called it “Callowhill” because NOBODY lived there, except the homeless. When I told my father, a Kenzo oldhead, that people were calling that area “the Loft District” and paying half a million dollars for condos there, he said “They should change the name to ‘Suckerville.’” If they called it Callowhill 200 years ago, so what? Call it Shackamaxon, which was the name 500 years ago.

Guys, guys, let’s just settle this once and for all, and say it was the MIGHTY PHILEBRITY READERSHIP that coined the term; and now, it can belong to everyone. And it shall be good.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 at 11:07 am.