Word: skids
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Other nations have alcoholics, but Skid Row-urban colonies of alienated men-is strictly an American institution.*It was the first serious U.S. welfare problem and, in a way, one of its first social-protest movements; at least as much as the hippies, Skid Row inhabitants are dropouts from a society whose values they reject...
Other cities reflect the same trend. In a recent study of Skid Rows in 28 major American metropolises, conducted by Sociologist Donald J. Bogue of the University of Chicago, all but four reported a population decline. For the first time in the experience of Chicago, which boasts-or at least counts-three Skid Rows, there are empty rooms now in the neighborhoods' overnight hotels. Ronald C. VanderKooi of the University (CANADA) °f Illinois predicts that Skid Row, if left alone, will probably...
Before that happens, however, sociologists are busily examining both the phenomenon of Skid Row and its social meaning. In New York City, a three-year survey, financed by the National Institute of Mental Health and manned by Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, has dramatically revised the stereotyped image of the man on Skid...
...Shelter. To begin with, he is not typically an alcoholic. Of the Bowery's population, only one-third qualify as heavy drinkers-a category embracing but not restricted to the alcoholic-while another third are moderate drinkers. The rest either drink sparingly or not at all. Even in Skid Row's inverted social hierarchy-the farther they fall, the bigger they are-the alcoholic is something of a social outcast, scorned and rejected by Skid Row's characteristic drinking fraternity, the bottle gang...
...Brandeis University So-(1939) ciologist Samuel E. Wallace, who helped organize the most recent Bowery research program, "the fact that Skid Rowers share both money and drink is perhaps the most conclusive proof that most of them are not alcoholics; alcoholics would find it exceedingly difficult to exercise the control dictated by group drinking." The New York study also revealed that Skid Row is not the end of the road in the usual despairing sense. Its residents do not fall there, but actively seek it out because it has what they want: odd jobs without purpose or future, a community...