Hometown Land marks and memories!!! The Barbell, where everybody in the Hill got their party on!!!!

Was out chillin in the hood today and I rolled up on Carlsle Street. This picture that you have the pleasure of lookinng at is the remnence of a monument that was irrected for the youth of the Hill neighborhood in New Haven, CT. The original name is the Hill Cooperative blah blah blah!!! Round the way we called it the Barbell. Basicly a local gymnasium that housed some of the most rowdiest parties that you ever wanted to be in!!!! in high school I used to love to party up in there!!! That's one place I never suited it to. Always went hood casual!!!! Kangol, button down, jeasns and durango boots(what did you think I would wear? A jersey?). I've got toooooo many memories in there!!!! My boy will(R.I.P) was side by side freakin girls like crazy in there. Then there was the time my cousin got thrown out the barbell because he was from the wrong neighborhood but grew up in the hill. Mind you a bouncer told him that!!! LOL!!! I know it was wrong, but we tried to tell him switchin sides ain't cool(New Haven hates crew hopping worst than snitchin)!!! Then lets not forget the imfamos Roc Vs D-Block beef of 02, where all the D-Block guys were in the miiddle of the street with their air brushed flight jackets turned inside out on the orange side in a mean football huddle tawnting Roc dudes( guys making neigborhood crews out of anything popular at the moment, thats the hood for you). Then there was the time I got caught out in there twice!!!!! Man I'd be here all night talkin bout this place. Just sad to see it look like this. They stopped the funding on it because it became a liability risk do to all the fights and shot outs that used to occur. At that point it really set in how people try there best to create places for the youth to go, but they'd rather have fists fights and shot up the place!!!! I'm s be flat out honest!!! I never went for the drama!!! I went to freak girls on the floor!!! I wasn't into the neighborhood beef. Had a lot of friends and family that were, was identified with bein from the hill, but that neighborhood beef mess was corny to me. And still is. Now a days community centers aren't tryin to sponser neighborhood parties anymore, so now the downtown club scene is tryna pick up the revenue by having all age parties, thinking they can handle it because they have bouncers. Bouncers mean nothing when there stomped out by mobs and shot to death. Soon after a while the clubs will relealise that the money isn't worth the agrivation of having somebodies child stabbed and shot to death, like community centers have felt. Well anyway, this picture has too many memories housed in it.