James Cool Papa Bell Avenue
 

Just finished reading a book on Josh Gibson's life. At the end of the book, the author discusses some of the other negro league greats. He wrote about his visit to Cool Papa Bell's home in St. Louis back in the 1970s and how dangerous the neighborhood was (Cool Papa Bell had to walk the author back to his car while holding a gun in his hand!) Anyways, Bell died in 91' and they renamed the street he lived on to "James Cool Papa Bell Avenue." I thought that was pretty cool and decided to check it out using Google Maps, and what I saw next just horrified me! Here are some shots below:

https://i.ibb.co/9G2VKcQ/1.png
Looks like somebody dropped a bomb here!

https://i.ibb.co/P4S3WDW/2.jpg
The market's closed, dude!

https://i.ibb.co/MDVCxny/3.png
Michael Myers would be too scared to come here!

https://i.ibb.co/vH1FdJR/4.png

https://i.ibb.co/Zg02Pw1/5.png
Do people really live here ?

I lived a few blocks from there until 1954. Left at age 5, the place ran down a lot between then and now. A bulldozer would help raze a lot of that blight now. Very sad to see a place run down that bad.

At one end of the street is a hospital that closed in ...... 1979. Apparently for a long time, until 1955, the city's hospitals were segregated and it was the only one where Blacks could go. At the other end .... Martin Luther King Drive.