Rustico
I used to own in Normal Hts.,South of Adams and bought there(twice, 1992&1995) because I knew that being sandwiched between Hillcrest and Kensington couldn’t be a bad move and it was dirt cheap then as most of you know. I used to say it wasn’t a neighborhood watch area it was a watch your neighbor area. Not liking guns, in the first house I kept an axe by the side of the bed at night . Then the transvestite across the street was stabbed to death by her boyfriend who was mad when he found out after several years that he had been duped.(from across the street I was duped too!) As soon as I had my first son I wanted the hell out and fast. The gentrification wave had already done wonders and the new 39th street park practically speaking, put us more in Kensington than lots of houses actually in Kensington.It is still not and never will be an ideal place for a family. Hopefully the good location is enough to keep it from going completely down the tubes again. What is nice about the marginal neighborhood thing is that people talk with each other, they have to. I did make friends in the neighborhood which is more than I can say for any suburb I have ever lived in.