SW 59th & Bryant

[Pete]

[category=]1969[/category]

[Bimmerdude]

Bummer...no SE 59th and Bryant map. Pretty sad that this area (as well as SE 44th and Bryant went down the tubes....

[pw405]

Ya, I agree. I grew up in that area and it used to be a decent community. I almost fear driving through there now. People openly sell drugs at intersections and the houses are no longer maintained like they should be. Such a shame.

[Bimmerdude]

I grew up in the Oakcliff addition (right in front of Bodine elementary). Lived there up until 1992. That neighborhood (and I'm sure Hartsdel) used to be nice, until a lot of the section 8 people starting moving in. I'm sure when IGA, Anthony's, Otasco and TG&Y were there, it was nice. We were poor living there, but kept our house in good shape as well as looked out for our neighbors too. Pretty sad.

[whorton]

Bummer...no SE 59th and Bryant map. Pretty sad that this area (as well as SE 44th and Bryant went down the tubes....

I sense your disappointment. Here is the intersection from 25 Jun 1954. Bryant is vertical and to the left. 59th Horizontal and the lower half.

[RadicalModerate]

SW 59 and Bryant was tough territory to cover, back in the day. There was a sweet lady in the vicinity yet even she couldn't convince me to invest (time/effort/etc). Something about "remodeling her house" . . .

[whorton]

Hartsdel started going down hill in the late 1970's with the main problems being the Apartments on Bryant. Oakridge Village and to the South, the apartments in the 3200 block of SE 44th. Both were constant sources of problems. Fortunately since around 2010, they had gotten the riff raff under control. However, The whole SW quarter section from Overland south and from Bryant over to Leonhardt remains a problem, as one is not advised to walk those streets after dark. The area is still a constant source of Gang violence. That particular area is as bad as NE 10th used to be for MWC, and NE 4th used to be for OKC in the 70's.

I recently inherited a house on the North most street, when my father died. This part of the neighborhood is actually fairly crime free, save for the homeless that like to occupy the wooded area East of Oakridge Village apartments over to Cherry Creek. Still have no idea what to do with the place, but the neighbors are good, and certainly not the ones my parents had in the 70's and 80's. Interesting to note, the street to the immediate south had a house burn in the 3400 block, and they recently completed a new construction home on the lot.

But the area remains largely abandoned, as the Shopping areas on the NE corner and the SE corner of 44th and Bryant are mostly fifth generation cheap cheap retailers, no grocery stores, certainly the A&W that used to be in the 6100 block of south Bryant has been long gone.

I would put the neighborhood in the class of dying but not yet dead.

[kevin lee]

nm