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The second in my series of looking at the savage side of Urban living. If you want details I why I chose this project, start here. Most of the houses on the Near South Side of Milwaukee are probably 70-80 years old now. When they were built, it was a solid middle class neighborhood of proud middle class people, many of them German or Polish immigrants. Imagine the pride of immigrating, working hard at one of the numerous founderies or manufacturing plants that were booming in Milwaukee and finally being able to build your house. Imagine the pride when the orginal owners took there first steps into it. Imagine the pride of the all the families that have lived in it since.Today it is being torn down. When I looked up the address in the City records I found that the City had condemned it is a 'nuisance' property. That's the polite way of saying "absentee landlord' and 'Drug House' in this part of town. 27 Police reports...noise, drug sales, 2 stabbings and a shooting. The house was in such terrible condition it would have cost more to repair it than it was worth. How many families have lived in that house, proudly, over the years? How many toddlers took their first steps on that piece of flooring you see falling to the ground? Were there pencil marks on the walls you see to the left to chart the growth of children through the years? How many bitter Wisconsin winters and summer thunderstorms did this house survive? How many birthday parties were held here? How many Christmas Mornings did sleepy eyed children rush from the bedrooms now being destroyed to eagerly see what Santa had left? How many births and deaths and marraiges and anniversaries were celebrated here? We'll never know, because it took just hours to tear this house down, taking all its history with it, like ghosts in the night, leaving only memories of those who once lived there. It started to drizzle just a bit as I pulled away from this site, and I kinda think maybe it was the tears of those proud, original owners falling and lamenting the fact that some absentee landlord rented the house to bunch of drug dealers who destroyed it so thoroughly demolition was the only option...