Chicago’s Far North Side, a few decades ago—a rough-and-tumble place, awash with racial tensions and petty crime. Joey, the youngest child in a mixed-race family, is pushing his way up through the cracked pavement of a chaotic life: parish festivals and block parties on long summer nights, fistfights in back alleys on boring empty days, long walks up and down Clark Street pocketing envelopes of collection money for his older brother, Lil’ Pat. It’s easy enough to pretend it’s all normal, until he sees Pat murder a man in a neighborhood drugstore. Now he’s haunted by the memory of blood pooling on the green tiles under the flickering fluorescent lights, torn by the conflict between love of family and disgust over what they do—and desperate to survive the insanity without being swept up in it. This revised second edition of Bill Hillmann’s modern classic features a new introduction by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. It’s a perfect primer for a great book that deserves a place alongside the likes of Nelson Algren and James T. Farrell on the top shelf of Chicago literature.

An examination of American cities since 1950, looking at the issue of white flight, and discussing its impact on schools, housing, crime, and jobs.

A Madison Avenue adman returns to the Bronx of his youth in this New York Times bestseller by the author of Kramer vs. Kramer: “Charming” (The New York Times). Growing up in the Bronx in the 1940s, Steven Robbins was raised on egg creams, baseball stats, and the camaraderie that kept his melting-pot Bronx neighborhood humming during World War II. Robbins aspired to escape his humble roots, and eventually worked his way to Madison Avenue, where he became a hotshot ad man with an enviable wife. But as he pushes fifty and his marriage falls apart, Robbins begins yearning for a deeper happiness. Returning to his old neighborhood in the Bronx, Robbins seeks the simplicity of the life he once fled in the one place where he may ultimately find contentment. The Old Neighborhood is a warm-hearted novel that shows it is possible to go home again, or to take home with you wherever you go. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Avery Corman, including rare images from the author’s personal collection.

When Bobby returns to the old neighbourhood, the people and places of his past cast shadows over the present.

Presents a memoir of growing up in the Bronx in the 1940s and 1950s, recalling the simpler way of life and sense of community that prevailed there and discussing the reasons for its later transformation brought about by increasing poverty and crime.

The book is about Chicago neighborhood life in the 1940s as remembered by 125 current and former Chicago residents, combined with 100 duotone images. This volume looks back fondly at daily life, the War years, sports and recreation and entertainment in Chicago's neighborhoods.

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night. Since that night, David Dominé not only embraced the possibility of supernatural phenomenon but also turned it into a popular tour series and best-selling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. The book that launched the guided tours, Ghosts of Old Louisville, introduced readers to the hauntingly beautiful Lady of the Stairs and the Widow Hoag, who waits eternally near Fountain Court for a lost child who will never return. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.