Skid Row
Down-and-out district
Skid Row is a district in a city where destitute people congregate—characterized by cheap lodging houses, missions, and high rates of homelessness and addiction.
The term originated from Seattle's Skid Road, where logs were skidded downhill to sawmills and transient workers gathered.
Any area of urban blight may be called a skid row: He ended up on skid row after losing everything.
The phrase suggests rock bottom, the last stop before complete ruin.
- homelessnessLacking permanent residence
- tent cityInformal settlement of temporary shelters
- cardboard boxRigid paper container
- destitutionExtreme poverty, lacking necessities
- rock bottomLowest possible level
on the streets · begging · urban decay · soup kitchen · social services · addiction · poverty · hard times · punk rock · displacement · emergency shelters · gentrification · vagrancy · Great Depression · rehabilitation services · squalor · substance abuse · mental illness
- 80sbig hair, mullets, shoulder pads, new wave, synth-pop
- Hair MetalMotley Crue, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Cinderella
- Hard RockAC/DC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Van Halen
- neighborhoodsneighborhood, suburb, subdivision, Greenwich Village, East Village
- urban districtsbusiness district, historic district, arts district, cultural district, entertainment district
- City NeighborhoodsChinatown, Little Italy, Harlem, SoHo, Greenwich Village
Skid RowBeverly Hills
Affluent Southern California city
Park Avenue · Upper East Side · Rodeo Drive · Fifth Avenue · Knightsbridge