ABSTRACT
Some Journalistic exposes of the "new poor" and homeless, of "street people" and overcrowded city missions, have served to remind us of that perennial urban phenomenon in the United States. The most ambitious historical study of skid row as an urban neighborhood is Liquor and Poverty: Skid Row as a Human Condition by a sociologist, Leonard Blumberg. Contemporary investigations of skid row typically have discussed the social community apart from the physical neighborhood. Ley's approach reminds that neighborhoods and other well-defined urban spaces are important reference points that help to determine the different social experiences of urbanites. The term skid row derives from Seattle's "skid road" but was not a term commonly used until the 1930s. Between the 1890s and 1920s it was more typical to hear tramping workers speak of the "main stem." The Great Depression enlarged skid row's population and created a new public awareness of its problems.
