A song just recently cycled back into my life. Lou Reed's "Dirty Boulevard"

"I want to fly fly fly fly, from this dirty boulevard."

Blvd.

1. A broad city street, often tree-lined and landscaped.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

In my experience, the old entrance to the city that has been forgotten since the freeway came in and is now home to the "freaks and the niggers" (Jane's Addiction ref, I'm not a racist.) I would add the "Whores and the tweekers". I don't have anything against them, either.

I should write about my life on Union Blvd., once the entrance to Bakersfield on your way from LA but now home to the hookers and addicts. Well, 'now' as in the last 30-odd years. For its history, it could have been...should have been New Orleans or Manhattan, but the promise never came through. They died with the Interstates. Bakersfield is one of the largest cities not served by one of those paved monsters.