I had the opportunity to visit Portland, Maine last week, and I found the Old Port section to be particularly fascinating. In many ways, it preserves what also existed in St. Louis along the Wharf but was swept away for the Gateway Arch park grounds. It is interesting to imagine what might have been without the construction of the Arch.
The Arch area was finally cleared right before I was born (1940), but I recall asking my parents what was there “before.” Now, they both grew up in the City and all of their relatives had as well, so they were not (at the time) suburbanites. They told me that the Levee area East of the Courthouse had been nothing but lowlife bars and brothels and very few buildings housing legitimate businesses. The Archdiocese, of course, was all in favor of the clearance as attendance and visitors to the Od Cathedral had plummeted precipitously because of the neighborhood.