A skid row, also called skid road, is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people "on the skids". This specifically refers to people who are poor or homeless, considered disreputable, downtrodden or forgotten by society. A skid row may be anything from an impoverished urban district to a red-light district to a gathering area for people experiencing homelessness or drug addiction. In general, skid row areas are inhabited or frequented by impoverished individuals and also people who are addicted to drugs. Urban areas considered skid rows are marked by high vagrancy, dilapidated buildings, and drug dens, as well as other features of urban blight. Used figuratively, the phrase may indicate the state of a poor person's life.
A mural of Skid Row, Los Angeles
Tents of homeless people on the sidewalk in Skid Row, Los Angeles
Mill Street, now Yesler Way, was the original "Skid Road" in Seattle, Washington.
People playing chess by Market and Turk Streets.
Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, US. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood were mostly wooden, and nearly all burned in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. By the end of 1890, dozens of brick and stone buildings had been erected in their stead; to this day, the architectural character of the neighborhood derives from these late 19th century buildings, mostly examples of Richardsonian Romanesque.
Pioneer Square, Seattle
Washington Park Building on Washington Street in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. It was built in 1890 just after the Great Seattle Fire and was originally the Lowman and Hanford Printing and Binding Building
1st Ave S, Pioneer Square district, 1901
Pioneer Square pergola, 1914