Anything special about the city you grew up in?

[HEyHEY]

What was it like to grow up in New York, or Boston, Or L.A. or London....etc

[Bluzmann57]

1. LeClaire, Iowa

birthplace of Buffalo Bill. Ok it isn't much since he was kind of an asshole by all accounts, but its home darn it.

[JVS]

2. The city I grew up in produced more steel between 1939-1945

than all of Japan and Germany combined

[WindRavenX]

3. we have the George Washington Bridge yo!

Fort Lee,New Jersey holla!!

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

4. The hub of Maine.

'Nuff said. lol

[HEyHEY]

7. I like maine

It's the only Eastern Seaboard State I've been to.

Mind you I only went to like...presque Isle

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

33. It's not tremendously different south of there.

There's some more people, but still not a whole lot. Lewiston and Auburn suck. Most other towns are good though. I lived in central Maine. My home town has population of about 3,000 people, so it's smaller than Presque Isle.

I've been up to Presque Isle once. It was a long ride. It took us just as long to drive to Boston from where we lived as it did to get Presque Isle. Driving on I-95 North of Bangor is sweet because there's essentially no one on the road. Of course there's not too much to see, except for the trees.

Yeah, Maine is great. I hope I can move back there some day. The only problem with Maine is that there aren't so many jobs there.

[scarlet_owl]

5. I grew up across the street from the Missouri Botanical Gardens

in St. Louis. It was kind of cool getting to go there whenever. There was also a neat fruit stand down the street from us. We would walk there in the evenings with my father to get peaches. We went to the zoo and Grant's Farm a lot, too. I wouldn't trade my childhood in St. Louis for anything.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. I grew up in several.

I graduated HS in Indianapolis which was, until recently, the largest city in square miles of any American city.

[miss_kitty]

8. Space Needle

mostly wet.

[Coyote_Bandit]

9. Middle of Nowhere

Complete with all the typical barnyard animals - and their predators, some entertaining and unusual neighbors, and an ever changing pack of various kitties and doggies who had been dumped to survive as best they could. Seventeen miles to the nearest small town.

[Cerridwen]

10. Las Vegas, NV - born and bred

I'll leave it to you as to whether or not there's anything special about Vegas.

:hi:

[Reverend_Smitty]

11. Battle of Trenton!

my birthplace was only the site of the turning point of the Revolutionary war...Ol' George Washington put a smack-down on some hung over Hessians

[CO Liberal]

34. I'm Related to Those Hessians!!!

My original ancestors came here as Hessian soldiers and stayed after the war. My mother tried to join the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) once, but they turned her down because her ancestors fought on the wrong side...

[JohnKleeb]

12. we're named after a president's daddy in law

[GRLMGC]

L.A

I know a lot of people bash it but I love it. It's so expansive and there's so much to do. Its very diverse. Unfortunately, there are also many disparities in wealth. A poor area is ten mins away from an affluent area. I guess you could say I grew up in a suburb, Glendale, but L.A. was just a 20 minute drive away. I don't think I'd wanna live anywhere else.

[wysi]

13. Pittsfield MA

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[henslee]

14. In NY public school, some kids had dads that were bookies and each week

the kids would come into school and hand out flyers with fifty football games college and pro with point spreads. For as little as a dollar, you could bet on games, picking the winning team in anywhere from 3 to 12 contests, depending on how many you wanted to. The more games you picked right, the more your odds increased. 12 out of 12 paid about 400 to one. 10 out of 12 paid maybe 100 to one. 3 out of 3 paid maybe 2 to 1. You'd fill out your card and pay the kid money, then root for your team all weekend. Being a 14 year old gambler was fun as hell and would never happen today. Once in a while you or a friend would win a lot of money. Even school staff and some teachers bet.

[HEyHEY]

um, anyone ever get their thumbs broke?

[henslee]

19. Not al all because you gave the money in advance and it was usually just

1 to ten dollars. It was pretty hard to win big. And I have to say, when you did win, you got paid. In other words, you didn't get a credit line.

[madrchsod]

15. dixon was one of the sites of the Lincoln-Douglas debates

Lincoln was stationed here as a capitan during the Black Hawk War. one of his fellow soldiers was Jeb Davis of the later Confederate Army

[Lenape85]

16. One of Al Capone's hiding spots was here

Bayville, NJ

[Huckebein the Raven]

17. Memphis, TN.....Elvis....Beale Street.....Blues.....Jazz.....and

Jerry Lawler if have ever watched wrestling.

[Bluzmann57]

20. Ah yes. Memphis, Tennessee

Birthplace of the Blues, Home of Rock and Roll. Cool City. Was down there in 2001 and had a great time at the Handy's. Sun Studios, Beale Street, and yes, Graceland. All good places to visit.

[Huckebein the Raven]

28. I'm glad you had a good visit while here

:hi:

[amerikat]

18. Trenton NJ......The cables used to construct the Brooklyn Bridge

were made in Trenton. The first major American victory in the revolution occurred here when General Washington defeated British and Hessian forces at the battle of Trenton.

I have been told that the "I" beam was also invented here. Trenton at one time was the pottery capital of the US with notable names like Stangel Pottery, Lenox, Boehm and Cybis all centered in Trenton.

The bridge across the Delaware river proudly proclaims in ten foot tall neon letters "Trenton Makes the World Takes".(the local joke is "trenton excretes the world eats")

And now we are known for......for.....ummm.....a...i'll have to get back to you on that.

[CO Liberal]

35. You're Known for TAYLOR HAM!!!!!

One of the things I miss about New Jersey - we can't get Taylor Ham out here.... :-(

[Reverend_Smitty]

37. Nooooooo it's pork roll

not ham...pork roll! :P

mmmmmm nice greasy pork roll egg and cheese on a Kaiser roll. I'm having a Homer Simpson moment. I think I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow!

[CO Liberal]

38. I Had That For Lunch Almost Every Day During High School

When I went to Morristown High School, the cafeteria food sucked. Fortunately, they let us leave campus. There was a deli on the other side of the block - one of the cheapest things on the menu was Taylor Ham & Cheese on a hard roll - I think it was 55 cents back in 1968. :9

[Wat_Tyler]

21. Glasgow is one of the world's great cities.

Charles Rennie Macintosh, Alexander 'Greek' Thompson, Eduardo Paolozzi, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Franz Ferdinand, Belle and Sebastian, The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, Robert Carlyle, Robbie Coltrane, Billy Connolly, Lord Kelvin, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein, Howie B, John Martyn, Ian McLagan, Slam DJ's, Iain Banks, Gerry Rafferty, Celtic Football Club, Danny Boyle, Adam 'Wealth of Nations' Smith, Sir John A MacDonald (first PM of Canada), James Watt (inventor of the steam engine), David Byrne, William Wallace, Jimmy Somerville, Kenny Dalgleish, RD Laing (psychiatrist), Joseph Lister, Benny Lynch, Allen Pinkerton (detective), Robert Stephenson, Robert Louis Stephenson....

[Wat_Tyler]

Oh, and John Logie Baird, inventor of television.

and the guy who invented penicillin, if you can invent bacteria.

[SarahB]

22. I grew up in Omaha, NE.

(I've lived in Connecticut for the past 17 years though.)

Omaha has a more progressive people than people realize, lots of insurance companies, a nice zoo, great theater and cultural activities, and it's where the college world series is played.

[hyphenate]

23. Boston

It makes you very aware of patriotism right away. I grew up in a district of Boston called Jamaica Plain, which is now a haven for liberals. It used to be a poorer section of town, though. I also spent a lot of my time growing up in Brookline, Mass. Both places have a sense of liberalism and are both cause-driven. There is a diversity of people in both, and you learn to care about all your neighbors--each one cares enough to watch out for you as much as you watch out for them.

[flvegan]

24. The Pilgrims allegedly landed in mine

Yup, got a great big rock out there that folks come and ooh and aahh at. She's a beaut. I'd say, as far as rocks go, she's tip top.

No, really, I do love my old hometown. Gone a little commercial for me, though.

[CO Liberal]

25. Morristown, NJ - Home of The Seeing Eye

They train the students and dogs on the streets of Morristown. Walt Disney did a show on teh Seeing Eye that is still shown from time to time on The Disney Channel - it's called "Atta Girl, Kelly!"

More info on The Seeing Eye can be found here:

http://www.seeingeye.org/

Morristown also served as military headquarters of the American Colonies during two winters of the Revolutionary War. The house Washington stayed in during the second winter and several other sites in and south of Morristown were combined to form the Morristown National Historic Park back in the '30s - the first historic park in the US.



More info on the Morristown National Historic Park can be found here:

http://www.nps.gov/morr/morr1.htm

Finally, Samuel F. B. Morse worked with a local man, Alfred Vail, to perfent his telegraph in a barn just north of town. Today, a nearby school is named after Alfred Vail and the barn has been preserved as part of Historic Speedwell, a collection of old buildings that heve been moved there and preserved:

http://www.speedwell.org/

[DrZeeLit]

26. Escondido, CA -- great Mexican food.... I miss it soooo much!

I cannot get Mexican food in Vermont.
Heck... I cannot find good Mexican food (the REAL food, like we have in Escondido!) on the East Coast.

When I go home to visit, I am lured to Roberto's No. 9 (or whatever number) where the red grease drips from the burrito and dribbles down my hand, pooling on the concret slab table in the outdoor seating area. Oh, how I miss carne asada burritos, chorizo burritos, taquitos, chile rellano burritos, and fish tacos. Hmmmmmmm.

[DrZeeLit]

27. Escondido, CA -- great Mexican food.... I miss it soooo much!

I cannot get Mexican food in Vermont.
Heck... I cannot find good Mexican food (the REAL food, like we have in Escondido!) on the East Coast.

When I go home to visit, I am lured to Roberto's No. 9 (or whatever number) where the red grease drips from the burrito and dribbles down my hand, pooling on the concrete slab table in the outdoor seating area. Oh, how I miss carne asada burritos, chorizo burritos, taquitos, chile rellano burritos, and fish tacos. Hmmmmmmm.

[NYC Liberal]

29. New York

First capital of the U.S. and site of the first inauguration of George Washington.

Oh, and voted 83-17 for Kerry! :bounce:

AND home of the Yankees!

[Skittles]

30. moved 13 times before I graduated from high school

GI brat

[Wapsie B]

31. Oelwein, Iowa

WP Chrysler lived there a while, and it has quite an Italian community for a small farm town.

[Champ]

32. Mesa, Arizona

Nothing really except for crime, especially among the youth.

[Carson]

36. Does it have to be a "city"?

I live out in the country in Kentucky, just a few minutes jaunt from Mammoth Cave Nat'l Park (the longest cave system in the world).

Other things that are special about where I live: low crime rate, children don't have to use bicycle locks, people rarely lock their front doors, fresh air, beautiful un-light-polluted starry nights, no traffic jams, the last "gang" activity we had was last Halloween when some county teens decided to go toilet-papering, and lots of friendly, salt-of-the-earth people.

I wouldn't trade it for the "city" any day.

[Book Lover]

39. "New York City, NYC

Pretty mean when it wants to be..."

Actually, what I loved best about back home when I was an early teen and just allowed out on my own was the feeling of swiftly moving through a great big machine. The 24/7 trains, the food, the people... The used-to-be-cheap standing seats at the Met. Oh, crap; I'm tearing up.

[EstimatedProphet]

40. The Discwasher was invented in my hometown

For the 80's kids: there were these things called "records", that people used to get music on, before CDs. The Discwasher was used to clean the dust and stuff that would fall on "records", because when they were dirty they would sound worse.

[aQuArius]

41. Sandy, Utah

I was raised by a liberal divorced mother with a gay father, made for interesting conversation with the conservative Mormon base. I was definetly a MINORITY.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

42. Sigh

No. Nothing special about it at all. Just a vanilla ice cream, white bread stupid boring suburb of Dallas in which you couldn't buy a single beer or bottle of wine anywhere and it didn't even have decent restaurants. You had to go to the next burb over for that. It didn't even have a mall. You had to go to the next burb over.

B-O-R-I-N-G as hell. All there was for teenagers to do was have lots of sex.

[ilovenicepeople]

43. Nanaimo bars

the pubs are pretty good to.

[HEyHEY]

45. How is Nanaimo beenthere lately?

I found a duer from Gabriola the other night!

[TOhioLiberal]

44. My city...

...was regularly mentioned on a popular 70's sitcom about the Korean war. We have a triple A baseball team that also was regularly mentioned on the same show...and a famous restaurant also mentioned on the show..


Here's a graphic hint:

and

and


guesses anyone? LOL