What was the worst hellhole of a city (or district of one) that you've ever been through? How was it so hellish?

My honkey ass running ahead of a black anti-police riot in Oakland, CA, was probably the worst.

@grumpyfish I am a honkey, and from Oakland, and I love that town!

I had to work for 2 weeks in Compton, California. That is a shit-hole.
Gunshots, poverty, drugs and gangs. At one point the Crypt’s somehow called the phone company, and told them not to be in Compton city limits that day, or they will be shot.
The company paged most of their employees, and got them out of town.
Most means not me. I survived it, but was quite shaken up when I found out.

@filmfann Work in Compton doing what? (It wasn’t interviewing gang members, was it?)

Err… there’s Frogtown, St. Paul (MN) that’s not so great. I’ve driven through the not so bad parts but never really into the depths of it. There are some really bad parts of Minneapolis too, but I’ve never really been in them. I know there was one spot I drove through that was either the most dangerous part of Minnesota or second most. Damn my lack of memory and my suburban upbringing.

Welch, WV. I was at the hospital (work related) on Family Planning Tuesday. Every young girl under the age of 16 was in line, either already pregnant or getting birth control pills. The town itself is so utterly poor and rural, it truly depressed me.

@filmfann Not saying the town sucks, just saying that was the worst situation I’ve been in in a town =)

Miami, Florida traumatized me for life!!! I got lost, and ended up in the worst part of miami,I do believe. Those people were standing on the streets with bottles in brown bags. As I drove slowly thru, looking for a good prospect to ask for directions, people were jumping on my car, and throwing their ghetto bottles at me. One of the gutter rats left a dent on my car!

I tried to floor it out of there, but there was so many people just hanging out, I would have ran over one of them. Thank goodness I wasn’t alone, but that was the worst place, something you see right out of a movie!!! I wrote that down in my journal and titled it…“Getting Lost in Ghetto Hell.”

@EgaoNoGenki I work for the phone company.

That would be the “D”, Detroit City. We passed by a crack whore who’d peed herself and a dead body on the side of the street (the area was blocked off and the police were already there). This was after walking out of a bar late at night (downtown Detroit). Now, there are parts of the city that are lovely. There are some pretty cool, old buildings with tons of character..

Such a shame.

Gary, Indiana—driving through from the East to the West, it was a sad, depressed place. No incident, just incredible poverty and neglect—this was 35 years ago—perhaps it is different now.

Atlanta. Driving in hell would be easier.

@jmah , there’s a photographer who [at least the impression I got from his site] mostly shoots in Detroit [ http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/ ]. The abandoned buildings [especially the Michigan Central Station] are beautiful.

A rundown part of Norfolk, VA called “Campostella”.
Terrified. Dangerous place. Never drive through there after dark, especially!!

Detroit.One burned out,abandoned building after another.

I was torn about New Orleans (pre-Katrina).
I liked the French Quarter and Bourbon Street and all that jazz… hell, I have family down there. We did wind up in the ghetto at one point though, and people started coming out of shacks with clubs and guns. It was odd, to say the least.

@ridicawu I LOVE that. Thanks so much for the link. I’m going to send it on to my girlfriend. She’ll appreciate it, as well.

You just made my night. :)

@smashbox I also had a terrible experience in Miami. It was right downtown near the Loews hotel. I was there working at an executive conference and we were at the hotel very late. When we left there were bums everywhere yelling at us as we walked down the sidewalk. They were calling us cockroaches and one guy threw something in our direction. My boss had one of those laser pointers pointed at her chest the whole time we walked, but we couldn’t see where it was coming from. I was so happy to get to our hotel, and very grateful that we had a security guard stationed at the front door.

@jmah :) I’m glad you enjoy it!

Yes, areas of Detroit, (now large areas) Flint, and parts of Saginaw Michigan, very bad.
Montego Bay Jamacia, parts of it were pretty scary too, as was some areas of Cabo San Lucas Mexico.

Baker, California. I was 116° Fahrenheit the day I was there.

Tijuana. I went with a few friends for a night of partying when I was in college. A group of young boys grabbed all of my cash out of my hand and ran, and many of the older local men would not leave my little blond self alone. It was just a dirty, filthy night that I would love to forget.

I remeber driving through the outer limits of Memphis and thinking it was really bad. This is coming from a guy who has been to Detroit numerous times.

jamielynn2328, it’s not as glamorous as they make it out to be, now you and I know the truth.

Las Vegas, Nevada less than 10 blocks from the famous, opulent “Strip”, hundreds of homeless people wander the streets by day and sleep along the walls of buildings at night.
There are huge areas of housing so obviously substandard, the rats won’t stay.

We saw this on the way into town. We will never go back.

Obviously, the huge profits from tourism and gambling line a small number of pockets while rampant poverty and urban decay go ignored!

Is this the American dream?

@Dr_Lawrence I grew up a mile from the strip, near the airport. I agree. I’ve heard the neighborhood has gone to shit.

Cookville, TN; Any town in Misssissippi- not really friendly to someone of color-was told: “don’t come back nah, ya hear?”. It was like they called all the trailer people to come out and look at the “coloreds”.

Tijuana, Mexico gets two thumbs down here. i was approached by a mexican woman begging me to buy her infant baby. i had to dodge human feces in the street and on the sides of the street. no toilets, just opens pits to hang it over. i would not eat any food while there. i did not see any dogs roaming the streets, making me wonder what was in their cooked hot dogs. i only drank beer and i paid for that with the runs. this city was not good to me and filthy is not a good enough word to describe it. also, i hailed down a cab and almost lost my life. they run stop signs big time in Mexico. the cab i was in had so marijuana in, around and under the back seat that i was dizzy when i finally got out.

@john65pennington I ate one of the dogs hot dogs. I had nothing else to eat. :(

@john65pennington Wow. I guess Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez makes Compton & Watts look as safe as Manhattan, KS!

I remember getting lost in east st. louis. That was a frightening experience. Place was full of scary looking hood rats, and buildings that looked more like a haunted house then a business district.

@Tenpinmaster I remember seeing a photo gallery website of E. St. L. I don’t remember what the site was but most of it appears to be a ghost town now!

(And I guess anyone who won’t be able to find that site can at least look at that dilapidated town on Google Street View.)

@john65pennington About human waste on streets – why can’t they use public restrooms at supermarkets and other large establishments?

@john65pennington omg! thats terrible. Like a third world war torn country =\ Infants for cash. How sick is that.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras was the scariest since they had soldiers with M-16 rifles on the front step of all the banks. The Watts district of LA is the worst place I have ever been in the US unbelievable people can call that place home. Thugs own and run that part of LA, didn’t see one street cop in the week I was there. Lots of police helicopters though…non stop.

All of this actually happened in Tinuana. my wife and could not believe what we were seeing and hearing. my guess is this is why so many of the people there want to come to America to leave behind the filth. most of the people in Mexico are dirt poor. like the saying goes. “the rich get richer and the poor do not stand a chance”. i could not believe it when one male Mexican sold me one small piece of toilet paper for one pesos.

What @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard said. Downtown where people are allegedly having a good time they have (city people will get this) grates in the sidewalks. When you walk over the grates a huge, hot breeze blows up that smells like sewage . Could it have actually been sewage?
It looked filthy to me. They do have some gorgeous neighborhoods with plantation – like homes lining the street. The trolley coming up those streets was quite picturesque. And a whole foods I was crazy about. So maybe “hellhole” is stretching it. Let’s go with Tijuana. lol

Monroe, Louisiana. Drugs & alcohol consumption sky high, wall to wall pimps & prostitutes, wrestling the big sport, and a drive-thru on nearly every corner that will serve Long Island Ice Teas and Margaritas to drivers. Cops and slums everywhere, trash in the streets, vacant buildings…. If I were to make a post-apocalyptic movie, this would be the place to film it in. A genuine hellhole..

I went in to pull an old friend out.