Where do the east side and west side begin?

[joqua]

Originally Posted by malamute

I guess the definitions vary by how long someone has been here and just by what they happen to think.

I agree with your description and matched it in an earlier post. My boyhood home was on Mesita, on the north city limit at the time and on the north side of Kern Place. As I already said, I never heard the terms "west side" or for that matter "east side" back then. Since there were fewer neighborhoods to keep track of in the years prior to the 1950s, most people were defined by which of those neighborhoods they lived in. I lived in Kern Place, you lived in Sunset Heights or Manhattan Heights or Logan Heights, South El Paso etc. People in the county lived in the Upper Valley or Lower Valley. The areas south and east of the airport, north of Beaumont hospital, and north of Kern Place were uninhabited desert for the most part until the 1950s.

As for that District Map, it has several overlaps and doesn't coincide with my definitions of East, West, Central, NE.

[atrabilius]

Originally Posted by joqua

I agree with your description and matched it in an earlier post. My boyhood home was on Mesita, on the north city limit at the time and on the north side of Kern Place. As I already said, I never heard the terms "west side" or for that matter "east side" back then. Since there were fewer neighborhoods to keep track of in the years prior to the 1950s, most people were defined by which of those neighborhoods they lived in. I lived in Kern Place, you lived in Sunset Heights or Manhattan Heights or Logan Heights, South El Paso etc. People in the county lived in the Upper Valley or Lower Valley. The areas south and east of the airport, north of Beaumont hospital, and north of Kern Place were uninhabited desert for the most part until the 1950s.

As for that District Map, it has several overlaps and doesn't coincide with my definitions of East, West, Central, NE.

Yeah, that district map puts pieces of different sectors of town in the same city council district.

Maybe the city has grown so far east that Cielo Vista is in East Central to some people now. When I came along, the west side had grown so far out along North Mesa (Coronado opened in, I think, 1962 and a lot of the neighborhoods around it were probably there before then--maybe before John F. Kennedy's presidency started) that nobody was saying that Mission Hills was on the west side. It was in Central. Likewise for the northeast side; it was almost all the way out to where Sean Haggerty Drive is today and it started at Fred Wilson; if you lived on, say, Harrison, you lived in Central. Not Northeast. Maybe 20 years from now the city will have grown so far out that people will consider the east side to start at North Yarbrough and Northeast at Hondo Pass.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by joqua

I agree with your description and matched it in an earlier post. My boyhood home was on Mesita, on the north city limit at the time and on the north side of Kern Place. As I already said, I never heard the terms "west side" or for that matter "east side" back then. Since there were fewer neighborhoods to keep track of in the years prior to the 1950s, most people were defined by which of those neighborhoods they lived in. I lived in Kern Place, you lived in Sunset Heights or Manhattan Heights or Logan Heights, South El Paso etc. People in the county lived in the Upper Valley or Lower Valley. The areas south and east of the airport, north of Beaumont hospital, and north of Kern Place were uninhabited desert for the most part until the 1950s.

As for that District Map, it has several overlaps and doesn't coincide with my definitions of East, West, Central, NE.

Yes the older definitions actually meant something. East versus west doesn't describe much since the exact same kinds of subdivisions are being built everywhere and slso very different kinds of neighborhoods get included. Kern Place means something, even the style of houses and the park, and the stores there were and weren't there, same with Sunset Heights, Coronado, 5 points, Pebble Hills, Segundo Barrio and so on. Each area was distinct in certain ways, like the Bowie Bakery wasn't in Kern, nor would you have looked for a Chicos Tacos in Kern. They each felt different.

It was actually fun to go to other parts of town, almost felt like El Paso was about 5 different towns close together.

[joqua]

Originally Posted by malamute

Each area was distinct in certain ways, like the Bowie Bakery wasn't in Kern, nor would you have looked for a Chicos Tacos in Kern. They each felt different.

Kern Place has always had businesses in the same spot as today - in an area back then that was the two blocks bordered by Mesa, Baltimore, N. Stanton and Robinson.

There was Dean's Grocery and Kern Drug, a barber, beauty shop, small restaurant/grill, several service stations, and several other buildings with businesses I can no longer recall. The service stations were all on Mesa, within that same 2-block area, and competed with each other for business. Where the Don Haskins Center is now, there was once a golf driving range.

At the same time of my reference, Manhattan Heights was like an "alternative Kern Place." And both neighborhoods have residences today that have been continually maintained and renovated to make them desirable to the owners. I even see a web site for the Manhattan Heights Neighborhood Association.