Tommy Thompson interview, 08 December 2003

Abstract

Tommy Thompson, who lived in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, from August 1994 to August 1995, discusses his motivations for choosing Tremont, seeking an urban lifestyle close to downtown amid limited residential options at the time. He describes the neighborhood as being in the early stages of gentrification, characterized by a mix of newly renovated apartments and older, dilapidated housing. Thompson shares his experiences with crime and safety concerns, highlighting a divide between newer residents and long-term residents, primarily of European descent. He also addresses the limited amenities available in Tremont and contrasts his experiences there with his subsequent move to downtown Cleveland, noting the political implications of gentrification and the presence of artists in the area.

Interviewee

Thompson, Tommy (interviewee)

Project

Tremont History Project

Date

12-8-2003

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

41 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Tommy Thompson interview, 08 December 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223071.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1374

Related Resources

Tremont History Project @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Interviewer [00:00:10] We’re here on Monday, December 8, as part of the Tremont Oral History Project working with Cleveland State University. Could you please say your name and spell it?

Tommy Thompson [00:00:20] Tommy T. Thompson. That’s T, O, M, M, Y, the letter T. And then Thompson, T, H, O, M, P, S, O, N.

Interviewer [00:00:30] Thank you. And when did you live in Tremont, Tommy.

Tommy Thompson [00:00:33] I lived in Tremont from August of ’94 to August of ’95.

Interviewer [00:00:41] And why did you choose to live in Tremont?

Tommy Thompson [00:00:44] Well, when we moved to Cleveland, we really originally wanted to move downtown. But at that time there wasn’t a lot of residential living downtown. And Tremont was pretty close and it was pretty cheap. And actually the place that we moved into, was recently rehabbed. We were the first tenants. It was almost like a new apartment.

Interviewer [00:01:04] And why did you want to live downtown? Why was that your goal?

Tommy Thompson [00:01:08] We loved the urban lifestyle, being able to walk places that you need to walk to lots of other-

Interviewer [00:01:15] And did you find that that was possible in Tremont? Did you walk everywhere you wanted to go?

Tommy Thompson [00:01:21] No, we had to drive. But it was the closest little suburb to downtown.

Interviewer [00:01:28] And when you lived there, did you have kids at that point?

Tommy Thompson [00:01:34] I have kids from previous marriage. And they came and stayed every other weekend.

Interviewer [00:01:39] And did they were there activities that they could participate in in the Tremont area also?

Tommy Thompson [00:01:44] No, you know, there really weren’t. At that time it was still we lived on Professor Street, which is just one street over from those projects down there. And it was a really bad neighborhood. In fact, one time when I was bringing the kids home for the weekend, when we got off the highway, we exited off 490 on West 7th. As we were pulling through the projects to go to our street, a couple of kids threw a bottle at our car. [laughs]

Interviewer [00:02:16] Was that the only problem, the only run in you ever had with-?

Tommy Thompson [00:02:21] No, actually there were a couple of other incidents. The street at the end of Professor sSreet that we lived on was just in the beginnings of being renovated. Lots of places were brand new and being fixed up, but many of the places were still old and decrepit and there were some undesirables living in the immediate neighborhood. So there were a couple of incidences on the weekends where the cops were there, there was fights, literally fights in the street.

Interviewer [00:02:54] Did you know what any of the fights were about or why the police were there?

Tommy Thompson [00:02:59] I did not know, but from my observations, I would say they were about alcohol.

Interviewer [00:03:06] And so did you yourself feel safe walking through the neighborhood at night or would you kind of be hesitant to do that as well?

Tommy Thompson [00:03:14] You know, it’s funny, we didn’t have a laundry facility in our own unit. The laundry facility for the four houses that were renovated was across the street from us. So in order to do our laundry, I had to go outside and cross the street. And the first week that we lived there, it just so happened that I was gonna do the laundry at night. And when I left that front door - we moved there in August, it was summertime - when I left the front door with a basket of laundry in my hand, the characters that were between me and the laundry room were such that I decided I was going to only do my laundry during the daytime.

Interviewer [00:03:53] Really? [laughs]

Tommy Thompson [00:03:53] Yes, it was bad.

Interviewer [00:03:56] And when you. When you were in Tremont, where did you walk to? Was there a grocery store you could walk to?

Tommy Thompson [00:04:04] There was no grocery store. There was, I’d say a half a block up there was a little convenience store or what purported to be a convenience store. It was mostly just a beer store. They had some old bread, things like that.

Interviewer [00:04:23] And what activities were there in the neighborhood? What restaurants did you go to?

Tommy Thompson [00:04:32] There were a couple of restaurants. They have since all changed ownership or at least changed their names. Honestly, I can’t remember their names. But there was a couple of trendy sort of upscale restaurants three or four blocks away from us. And we went there. Right near us, there was that convenience store, there was a bar, and maybe two blocks up there was a funeral home. And that was the main activity going on there. [crosstalk] Other than the alcohol-fueled activity.

Interviewer [00:05:09] Yeah, alcohol-fueled activity. Were there police officers that were usually generally in the area, or was it kind of police officer free in some kind of [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:05:21] Yeah, I felt like it was kind of a wild, wild West. We didn’t really see cops patrolling at all. I don’t know why.

Interviewer [00:05:28] The characters, as you call them, that were terrorizing the neighborhood, did they, were they usually made up of juveniles or were they grown adults, men, women [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:05:43] The juveniles were usually African American. And they were there day and night, obviously more at night. But then they seemed to always come to our specific street, neighborhood from the projects a street or two over. But then the people that lived on our street, I would characterize them as white, like European immigrant types that would sit on their porches and drink. And then there would be sometimes some verbal altercations between the juveniles coming onto the street and the drunk people that lived on the street. So, I mean, it might appear to be either black or white or old, young or just people drunk. Yeah, there was a lot going on.

Interviewer [00:06:35] But there didn’t seem, as far as you could tell, there was actually no racial motivation for-

Tommy Thompson [00:06:40] No. I mean, no, not really. You could say that it was because it was the white people that lived on the street complaining about the black kids that came to the street. But it was also old against young. And honestly, I really think it was just about the alcohol.

Interviewer [00:06:59] And you said that the people who lived on your street were older ethnic whites. And did they-

Tommy Thompson [00:07:06] With the exception of the people in the new units like ours. They were all young white people.

Interviewer [00:07:12] Most of the people who lived in the apartment building that you lived in and the ones like that, did you feel that they were very American who had moved from maybe the suburbs or other cities into the urban area?

Tommy Thompson [00:07:26] Yes, definitely. I mean, that would- I would even go so far as to characterize them as yuppies. I mean, we weren’t really yuppies, but the people in our building and the building right next to us, I mean, one kid was an accountant. He had an Ohio State sticker on his Grand Am, you know, as American as jets.

Interviewer [00:07:45] Right. The other people in your neighborhood, had they lived there for generations, did you think?

Tommy Thompson [00:07:50] I think so, yeah.

Interviewer [00:07:51] And did they speak English mostly, or did they-

Tommy Thompson [00:07:55] They shouted English.

Interviewer [00:07:56] They shouted. [laughs] And that’s as far as you got?

Tommy Thompson [00:07:59] Yeah, I didn’t, you know, I’ve never been a big neighborly, making friends who call my neighbors type of person because of the laundry room situation, I got to know some of the people in the renovated buildings, but as far as the other people on the street, I never had any conversations with them.

Interviewer [00:08:17] So they weren’t extremely neighborly? Did you think they were to each other? Did you see them [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:08:23] Yeah, I thought they definitely were to each other and they probably would have been to me too. That was white. They’re white. Although I’m sure they probably had some resentment to these developers coming in and jacking up the price of rent around there.

Interviewer [00:08:43] Was your rent significantly higher than other buildings right in the area that had not been renovated?

Tommy Thompson [00:08:49] I could only guess, but I would say that it was. Our rent was at that time 725 dollars a month for a one bedroom apartment. Yeah.

Interviewer [00:09:01] And then the people in your neighborhood, you said in your building there was an accountant and they were more yuppies, the people who lived in the older houses who had been there for a while, did you think that they were working-class or did you think they also want taller jobs?

Tommy Thompson [00:09:21] They seemed, I mean, judging from the state of their house, the way they were dressed and the cars that they drove, based on those things, I would guess that they were blue-collar, working-class, or possibly even unemployed.

Interviewer [00:09:38] And did they have lots of children also? And did their children kind of behave that you could tell, or was there problems with that all the time?

Tommy Thompson [00:09:48] I didn’t notice that their children were misbehaving because there was such an influx from the surrounding area of other kids that were misbehaving. I mean, it was almost like roving bands of bad boys. [laughs]

Interviewer [00:10:07] [laughs] Did those kids go to school in that area or were they still being classed together?

Tommy Thompson [00:10:11] Yeah, there’s an elementary school on, I can’t remember. But only two blocks away, there’s a huge elementary school.

Interviewer [00:10:25] Most of the kids from that area went?

Tommy Thompson [00:10:27] I think so, yeah. And actually just one block over from us was a small public library, right next to the school.

Interviewer [00:10:36] Was the public library [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:10:40] I didn’t go there. It seemed like it was always open.

Interviewer [00:10:47] [laughs] Probably a good idea. And what were you doing professionally.

Tommy Thompson [00:10:53] At that time? We had just moved to Cleveland from California and my wife at the time was a massage therapist, kind of an adult massage therapist. And she would place ads in the local papers. And typically we would go. Not typically, every time we would go to the client’s house, she would do her massage and then would come in.

Interviewer [00:11:18] And did the area Tremont help that out because it was by all the highways, or was it kind of hard to get in and out?

Tommy Thompson [00:11:30] Actually, it was pretty easy in and out. And the thing that was good about it was when you’re involved in a business like that, you always are a little bit paranoid that people are going to notice that you’re coming and going, or that you’re home in the middle of the day, or you’re going out a lot at night. And the nature of the neighborhood made me feel secure and that no one was really paying any attention to us because there was so much other action going on.

Interviewer [00:11:56] Right. What other action do you- [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:12:01] Fighting, obvious drug deals. Literally right on- It sounds like a cliche, but right on the corner of Professor and, I can’t think of- Maybe it’s Starkweather. I mean, there was a couple of guys that would just stand there in the evening and cars would come up.

Interviewer [00:12:25] And they were the same guys all the time?

Tommy Thompson [00:12:27] They were usually the same, too. But then there were a couple of, I guess, their friends that would be there sometimes with them. It was their corner.

Interviewer [00:12:35] Really? And the police never came by or anything?

Tommy Thompson [00:12:38] No, I never saw. The only time I saw police in our neighborhood in Tremont was when someone had called them for some kind of major hoopla.

Interviewer [00:12:48] If people had called and gone by, would they have ran or would they have just pretended like they weren’t doing anything?

Tommy Thompson [00:12:53] You know, these drug dealers, they seemed pretty cocky and confident, so I would be willing to bet they would just stand there and pretend like they were doing something legitimate.

Interviewer [00:13:05] What other kind of things were going on?

Tommy Thompson [00:13:11] They’re right in our area, actually, in one of the rehab buildings, a gay couple had moved in. They had their rainbow flag outside, and there was an incident where someone threw a rock or a brick or something through their front window. I didn’t see it happen, but I was home when it happened and heard about it the next day.

Interviewer [00:13:36] So the neighborhood, you don’t think was very open to diverse?

Tommy Thompson [00:13:39] I don’t think so. It was a very diverse neighborhood, and that’s one of the things that we liked about it. But it seemed like the original residents didn’t care so much for the growing diversity.

Interviewer [00:13:53] Right. And what kind of diversity brought you in? And what kind of diversity were the older residents not so likely to accept?

Tommy Thompson [00:14:01] Well, I think that what brought us in was the fact that it was a historic area that was being renovated. The whole neighborhood, it slowly was being renovated, re-gentrification, unfortunately. It was a good cheap place to move, but the more new stuff was being built, rents were increasing. So I think that was probably a negative to the people that lived there as far as positives for us economically, it was diverse. There were nice places right next to the not so nice places. And I mean, it probably sounds like I’m kind of complaining about all the activity going on, but it was, you know, it was kind of exciting. And I never, other than the time that the kids threw bottles at my car, I never really feared for my safety. When you live in a neighborhood like that and you lived in neighborhoods like that, you kind of just learn what to do and what not to do just to decrease the risk. Like when I went out to do the laundry and I saw what kind of activity was going on, I knew, okay, I’ll just do my laundry during the day and it was fine.

Interviewer [00:15:14] What other kinds of things did you do or what activities did you [inaudible] work into your life or your lifestyle?

Tommy Thompson [00:15:26] Well, as I said, when my kids would come over, we didn’t play outside at all right around our house. There was a park in Tremont called Lincoln Park that was maybe three or four blocks away from us. We would go there sometimes, but yeah, when the kids were there, there was no outdoor activity for us in our immediate neighborhood. If we were going to go somewhere right to Parma [inaudible].

Interviewer [00:15:53] Right. So there was no place to ride bikes outside?

Tommy Thompson [00:15:58] Unfortunately. And that’s part of the reason we only lived there for one year is because ultimately- Well, first of all, we found a place downtown and moved downtown. But yeah, but in the end it just wasn’t desirable enough to keep us there.

Interviewer [00:16:17] Was it because of the crime that was coming on or was it because what wasn’t desirable enough to keep you?

Tommy Thompson [00:16:25] The crime. Our end of the neighborhood was- There were the four buildings that our landlord had developed and then he had kind of moved on to the more eastern side of the neighborhood and was working a lot over there, and it just seemed like we were kind of on this island of calm in a sea of turmoil. And frankly, the rent was too much for- Our space was small. It was brand new. Brand new, that’s what we liked about it. But it was small and that just seemed too expensive for what it was. I think that, you know, in driving through there now, I see that a lot of the places right away on there have been rehabbed. So it would probably be a little nicer. But yeah, at the time it just seemed like we had enough of it.

Interviewer [00:17:23] So what did downtown have to offer that Tremont didn’t?

Tommy Thompson [00:17:30] When we moved downtown, we moved in August, but it took us a while. We moved into like a converted warehouse space. And it took us a couple of months of just my wife and I living there and working there and working on it to get it to where it was more like a conventional apartment, actually, before I had my kids come and stay. But once they got there, it was almost wintertime. And except for Friday and Saturday night, all the rest of the times the Flats was kind of deserted. And that’s what we liked about it. And we were in a- Now we were in a building with 30 or 40 units. Most of them were commercial in nature. So I always felt like we kind of had this huge building to ourselves.

Interviewer [00:18:18] Right, which you definitely didn’t have in Tremont.

Tommy Thompson [00:18:23] And while there was crime downtown, it was always focused at certain days and times. And once again, if you were just smart about the way you went about things, you could avoid being the victim. When you park your car downtown and it’s going to be there overnight on a Saturday night in the summer, you don’t leave anything of value on the front seat or on the back seat where someone can see it. [inaudible] You just learn not to do something like that.

Interviewer [00:18:57] And as far as your car went, in Tremont did you have a garage there?

Tommy Thompson [00:19:02] We did not have a garage. We had a driveway and it was a real skinny driveway. And it actually opened up into a little parking lot behind our house. So it was off the street, which was good, but yeah, it was still accessible, but we didn’t have any kind of incidents.

Interviewer [00:19:20] Right. Was there car theft in the area in Tremont that you knew of?

Tommy Thompson [00:19:27] I didn’t know of any. I’m sure there probably was because a lot of the places there on Professor Street had on-street parking and it was so close to bad neighborhoods, there had to be. And I wasn’t friends enough friends with enough of the people in the neighborhood to really hear about it.

Interviewer [00:19:48] And what other kinds of crime went on?

Tommy Thompson [00:19:52] Murder, rape. [laughs] No, I think it was mostly just there was some domestic violence. There was lots of fighting amongst teenagers. There was vandalism, that kind of thing.

Interviewer [00:20:13] So a lot of pettier crimes.

Tommy Thompson [00:20:15] Yeah, there was a block over there was- What do they call that? Like a lodge or like the Polish community-

Interviewer [00:20:28] Community house?

Tommy Thompson [00:20:29] Yeah, they had like a building and it was forever getting graffiti painted on it. And they’d come out, you know, the next day and paint over it, erase the graffiti. And then, you know, within a week or two, there’d be more graffiti. It was this ongoing battle.

Interviewer [00:20:46] Right. I noticed that in Lincoln Park, the bathrooms have murals painted on it by. It looks like teenage artists. Was that the case when you lived there also, or was that-

Tommy Thompson [00:21:00] I know what you’re talking about and I’ve driven by there so many times. I can’t remember if that was there when I lived there or not. If it wasn’t there when I lived there, it was shortly after they did that.

Interviewer [00:21:16] As far as Lincoln Park goes, I know that they sometimes have different events there. They have Hispanic festival, I think, and an arts festival and stuff. Did you attend those while you were there?

Tommy Thompson [00:21:28] They have something there called the Tremont ArtWalk. It’s not- I don’t know if it’s really Lincoln Park-based, but it’s all around there. And we did attend that and enjoyed it. We got to go into a lot of the historic houses. That was really interesting. We didn’t go to any of the Lincoln Park events just because I think when we lived there, there’s nothing that really appealed to us. But we did go to Lincoln Park quite often.

Interviewer [00:21:58] With your kids when they were there?

Tommy Thompson [00:22:00] Well, yes, when they were there, we would go there occasionally. Usually though, when they were there, we would go to, if it was nice, we would go to Edgewater Park.

Interviewer [00:22:09] What drove you from taking your kids from the nearby by Lincoln Park all the way to Edgewater Park?

Tommy Thompson [00:22:17] Edgewater Park had more interesting things for them to do. There was a little bit of woods around. They liked to hike in the woods. There was always a bunch of people there with their animals. There’s a beach there, picnic areas. Lincoln Park, they had a couple of picnic areas and there was always people walking their dogs in there, and that was good. And they had playground equipment and a pool. We never used their pool, but it just seems- It just seemed like it wasn’t big enough. And the kids never had fun there the way they did at Edgewater Park. They always asked to go to Edgewater Park.

Interviewer [00:22:54] And while you were living in Tremont, did you notice any of the political [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:23:07] That stuff all came after. I mean, I’m sure there were some things taking place at the time, because I think anytime that you have a group of people coming into a historic neighborhood and they’re trying to upgrade it, or at least do what they think is upgrading it, I think there’s always gonna be some political backlash, but I didn’t know of any at the time.

Interviewer [00:23:28] How long had Tremont been being redeveloped [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:23:34] I think it was only a couple of years. You know, the unit that we moved into, we were the first tenants. And of the other units right there, of those four buildings, all of those other tenants were also tenants. And the guy that owned our buildings owned several other buildings in the area, but ours were the first block of units that he got finished. And I think he was among the first people to come in and really start to redevelop it.

Interviewer [00:24:06] And when you did the Tremont ArtWalk while you lived there, the artists, did they often live in any of the renovated places or were they living in the old?

Tommy Thompson [00:24:16] I would say that most of them lived in the old places because it was- To live in a renovated place is just too much money. And artists tend to have not much money. So they go to neighborhoods like Tremont or Ohio City where they can rent cheap.

Interviewer [00:24:33] Did they, the artists, when you did the walk, did you think that they had moved in there specifically for the place and the area, or do you think they lived in Tremont most of their life?

Tommy Thompson [00:24:48] I would say that they have moved in.

Interviewer [00:24:56] Did you. Were you friends with any of the artists?

Tommy Thompson [00:24:59] I wasn’t friends. We weren’t friends with any of them. But I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the ArtWalk, but typically a lot of the artists are there with their stuff. So we talked to quite a few, and I didn’t make any last friendships out of any of them. But yeah, I mean, I’m speaking from firsthand knowledge when I say I think that most of them had moved there and that most of them lived in the cheaper places.

Interviewer [00:25:27] And you mentioned that the projects were right by your house? Did you ever go into the projects? Did you get lost or go there for any reason?

Tommy Thompson [00:25:37] Well, they’re not real big. It’s kind of- You can’t really get lost in them. We had to drive through them anytime we were on 490 getting off to go to our house because of the exit and the street ran right smackdown through the project. I never went through there on foot.

Interviewer [00:25:55] And did you- Did it just ever occur- Was there no reason for you to walk through there?

Tommy Thompson [00:26:01] Yeah, there was no reason because it was kind of the way Tremont is set up, it’s bordered by 490 and they’re kind of- Those projects are kind of like in the back corner. And the only way, the only reason if you didn’t live there, the only reason you’d have to go through there was to get to or from the highway. There was no store over there, no library or anything like that.

Interviewer [00:26:23] And you mentioned that you just learned how to change your routine to the neighborhood. You didn’t feel that you needed to avoid driving through there at night or on Friday evenings or anything like that.

Tommy Thompson [00:26:36] We didn’t avoid driving through, but we wouldn’t stop at the stop signs. There were two stop signs between the exit and our house. And if it was nighttime, we didn’t stop.

Interviewer [00:26:48] Were there people congregating around the area?

Tommy Thompson [00:26:51] Yes.

Interviewer [00:26:51] And kind of seeming threatening?

Tommy Thompson [00:26:54] Yes, definitely. And you know, I don’t want to perpetrate racial stereotypes, but we were a couple of young white kids driving an almost brand-new car through this decrepit neighborhood. And yeah, I mean, people would look to see whose car it was and who was driving it. And it just seemed like a bad idea to stop, look both ways. [laughs]We just went on our way. You know, they seemed a little threatening, but it might have been our own perception. And other than the time that the kids threw bottles out of my car, and that was in the daylight, by the way. Other than that time, nothing actually ever happened.

Interviewer [00:27:38] How can you think of any of the ways that the group seemed threatening?

Tommy Thompson [00:27:48] They would be standing in groups and a lot of times you drive up and it’s a neighborhood, it’s a residential neighborhood, so you’re going 10 or 15 miles an hour, you’re going pretty slow. And they’d be talking and they’d stop and they’d look in your car and kind of make head movements or hand movements, not giving a finger or anything, but definitely sort of checking you out. And it always seemed to me like they Were kind of looking for trouble. Like if I had been some kind of hothead, it would have been easy to get into trouble there a lot.

Interviewer [00:28:26] Were you friends with anyone who lived in those projects or did you know anyone? No? So are you aware of any of the issues that maybe the people who lived in projects had with the neighborhood or what their own living situation?

Tommy Thompson [00:28:42] I am not aware of what their problems were.

Interviewer [00:28:59] And were you aware of any gangs in the area?

Tommy Thompson [00:29:05] One day when I was at that little convenience store a couple stops up from our house, the owner of that store or the manager, worker, whoever he was, I took him to be the owner. He was of Middle Eastern descent. He was complaining to another customer who was there at the time about some gang members that had come in and robbed him, took several, several bottles of liquor and so forth. And that’s really the only time I actually heard anything about gang activity. Just secondhand information.

Interviewer [00:29:56] And, excuse me, were you aware of the Merrick House. Did you have any contact with them or hear of them?

Tommy Thompson [00:30:04] No, I don’t even know now what kind of house-

Interviewer [00:30:12] A lot of people at the Merrick House have said that they’ve sent their workers out to the streets to buy these children that haven’t been brought in and have them play games and stuff. But I haven’t actually talked to anybody who remembers it.

Tommy Thompson [00:30:36] Yeah, that’s all. I’ve never heard of it before.

Interviewer [00:30:39] And you said that your, your kids didn’t have any activities?

Tommy Thompson [00:30:49] They were only there, you know, four days out of the month. And they were pretty young at the time. They would have been 7 and 9. And yeah, when they came, it’s just- It was just our family’s nature to be kind of self-contained. We would go- We would go to the movies on the out to eat or go to Edgewater Park or stay in and watch videos or play games, things like that.

Interviewer [00:31:18] When you took your kids out to eat, would you take them to the trendy restaurants in Tremont or would you take them elsewhere?

Tommy Thompson [00:31:24] The trendy restaurants in Tremont were too expensive for me to take- For us to go, four people, that’s going to be 150, 200 dollars. We did go to one place in Tremont, I think it’s called- I can’t think of the name of it. It’s like a Polish cafeteria.

Interviewer [00:31:50] Sokowlowski’s University Inn?

Tommy Thompson [00:31:53] Yes, yes, we went there and that was- That was very, very interesting. We had a good time. It was pretty cheap and it was quite a cast of characters in there. My kids got a kick out of it.

Interviewer [00:32:03] Did you talk to the people that worked there when you went?

Tommy Thompson [00:32:07] A little bit. A little bit. And the one, one lady that we talked with had a really thick accent. I’m not sure what it was, but my son has always been attracted to people’s accents. And the whole rest of that night we talked with that accent. Fun, fun.

Interviewer [00:32:26] And what kind of food did they have?

Tommy Thompson [00:32:30] I would describe it as a typical Polish fare. They had kielbasa. They had some other ethnic dishes that I couldn’t pronounce and had never heard of and didn’t really like to taste them. And that’s why we never went back because ultimately I didn’t really like the food there too much.

Interviewer [00:32:49] And when you went out during the weekend, your kids weren’t there, the weekends they weren’t, did you go to any of the bars in the area?

Tommy Thompson [00:33:00] We went to a couple of the bars once or twice. I’ve never been a big bar person, but yeah, we did go a couple times. And I was always surprised, not really surprised, but I always remarked that all of the people in the bar at the time, none of them lived in Tremont. They all came to the bar from other places.

Interviewer [00:33:23] So the bars already were trendy by that time?

Tommy Thompson [00:33:25] Yes.

Interviewer [00:33:26] Can you think of any of the names of the trendy bars while you were there?

Tommy Thompson [00:33:31] The Treehouse used to be something else, and that’s what I’m thinking of specifically. And then a couple of doors east of there, there’s another bar, and I can’t think of the name of that either.

Interviewer [00:33:48] But they were already trendy, you said?

Tommy Thompson [00:33:50] Yes.

Interviewer [00:33:51] Were there any little neighborhood bars that you knew of that were not trendy?

Tommy Thompson [00:33:56] Yeah, there was. There was that Polish club that was kind of a bar, I think. I mean, I never went in there. I think you had to be a member. That was definitely a neighborhoody thing. And just within one of the businesses that was right up in our block that was walking distance, there was another little neighborhood bar that was not trendy. And we went in there once and it was very dark. There was about five people in there, all at the bar.

Interviewer [00:34:27] What time was it?

Tommy Thompson [00:34:28] It was about 7 PM, I think it was like a Thursday night. And you know, it was- I definitely felt like an outsider. The people were all in their 40s, 40s or 50s. Here we are, some 20-something kids coming into this bar. So we kind of had a beer and then left.

Interviewer [00:34:50] And they were probably from the neighborhood?

Tommy Thompson [00:34:53] Yes, yes. Yeah, you can definitely tell almost everyone there was there probably every day. You don’t have to work or whatever.

Interviewer [00:35:04] And on Your street, were there groups of people you didn’t know what the ethnic makeup was of the people, the white people there?

Tommy Thompson [00:35:18] The people in our four buildings, they were all just white middle American-looking people in the self-owned houses, the privately owned houses. They were just, from what I could tell, they just all seemed European. You know, the ones that I would hear talking always had some kind of accent of the adults. Kids usually didn’t have a- And they were all, I think everyone that lived on my street from Starkweather down to the next major intersection, I never saw anything other than white European immigrant-type tenants.

Interviewer [00:35:59] And when you drove throughout Tremont, was it the same, basically? Were most of the streets made up of white Europeans?

Tommy Thompson [00:36:08] Seemed like it. Yeah, it seemed like it. There were some black people living there too. And actually now that I’m thinking about it, there was a lot of Hispanic kids right around that elementary school that I was talking about.

Interviewer [00:36:27] So do you think that the Hispanic families kind of lived in that area?

Tommy Thompson [00:36:31] It seemed. Yeah, I guess I would say they must have been concentrated somewhere right in the area. I don’t know where that was, but there was a small Hispanic population.

Interviewer [00:36:41] It was just a small Hispanic population?

Tommy Thompson [00:36:44] What I saw.

Interviewer [00:36:46] And on your street, did the people who were friendly with each other, did they seem to have clicked? Were there certain of them who were, you know, met more often than others?

Tommy Thompson [00:37:00] I couldn’t really say as I observed that.

Interviewer [00:37:05] And you left Tremont because the crime was too high [inaudible]?

Tommy Thompson [00:37:11] Crime was high. Our rent was too high for the amenities that our apartment offered. And it wasn’t really as urban of a living experience as we had hoped. We still had the drive to do almost everything. We could walk almost everywhere. We still had the drive to go to a grocery store. There was a convenience store located pretty close by that had more, actually had more stuff. There’s a gas station close by, lots more restaurants and entertainment type things. Being in or close to downtown, doing any kind of business-related things, I always walked.

Interviewer [00:38:08] And downtown, was the diversity more widespread or was there-

Tommy Thompson [00:38:16] I would say less diverse.

Interviewer [00:38:17] It was less diverse?

Tommy Thompson [00:38:19] More white people.

Interviewer [00:38:21] And do you think that’s a better community than Tremont, or is it just different, or worse?

Tommy Thompson [00:38:32] For some people it might be better. The thing I thought was better about it is that there were fewer people living downtown. I felt more- I felt more like I owned the neighborhood kind of. This was my neighborhood, my stomping grounds, because there weren’t a lot of many people around that actually lived there. Particularly in the wintertime on a Sunday afternoon, there is nobody at all in the Flats. The building that we lived in at that time was mostly commercial tenants. There were maybe three or four other tenants that lived in that building and they all had the same experience. They felt like they loved the wintertime because none of the suburbanites came to the Flats to party in the dead of winter.

Interviewer [00:39:21] And as far as crime, is there less crime now downtown?

Tommy Thompson [00:39:29] When we first moved to downtown, the crime was, I would almost say was equal to that in Tremont. But it was limited to car theft and car-related things. I never saw any kind of, I won’t say never, but hardly ever saw any kind of fighting. I mean, I know the fighting takes place right outside of bars, but in our immediate neighborhood there was never a bunch of kids looking for trouble. Hardly ever.

Interviewer [00:40:02] And I think this will be the last question. When you were in Tremont, what reasons were there, do you think, that these kids would be looking for trouble? Did they-

Tommy Thompson [00:40:16] I mean, having been a kid in a bad neighborhood growing up, when I was a kid, you’re just bored and you’re looking for something to do and what you think of is fun. Might not really be fun, but it’s exciting. So that kind of is fun. The more and more dangerous something is, it’s exciting. So you know what I mean? It’s kind of like a progression. There’s not a lot to do if there’s not a lot to do in the neighborhood. It’s just so easy to go around, break things. I know my wife now does not understand a boy’s drive to break stuff. I mean, it’s there, it’s real. And it doesn’t matter if the kid lives in a rural area, maybe has a shotgun, then he can break stuff with a shotgun or chop down trees or whatever. Or if the kid lives in an urban setting, there’s plenty of stuff to break. There’s lots of trouble to get into just because that’s just what you do when you’re a kid.

Interviewer [00:41:24] Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

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