Thursday, October 28, 2010

MLK Hialeah: Life on the "Right" Side of the Tracks


As you head west on NW 62nd Street (MLK Blvd.) through Liberty City, you will cross the CSX / Tri-Rail tracks.







This will mean that you are in Hialeah, but nobody will have to tell you that.









You will be able to tell that something changed by how many name-brand stores and franchises that you see on both sides of the road.







To Hialeah's credit, many other cities would have let MLK Blvd. end at the tracks and retained the old name of the street (in this case, W 9th Street), but Hialeah continued MLK Blvd. all the way to the canal, and this was courageous.




What is telling is that the inner-city ended as quickly as it did.







Marshall Davis, the manager at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Liberty City, talked about living in "The Canyon" as a child, which was what they called the corridor of homes that backed onto the tracks.






At the time he lived there (and he is probably in his late 50's), there was nothing beyond the tracks at the time. That means that Hialeah got a fresh start as a "new" city and didn't have the baggage of being a segregated city.



That gave them a leg up on Liberty City, and the difference is a clear as night and day.




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