It was unless you were from there. I was there with my uncle once- not sure of the year but I'll guess '68 so he would have been 26 and me, 9 or 10. He was a red-headed Marine drill sergeant, grew up in blue-collar Watertown and had some buddies there, so they naturally got along. I remember cruising around in the back seat of a '59 Chevy, the one with the big rear glass window and horizontal fins, summer, windows down, the older guys looking for girls or trouble. My uncle told me to keep close and I did.
When I was in HS you just didn't go to any of the 'hoods. Southie was for the micks, the North End for the wops, Roxbury for the blacks.
I worked downtown in my early 20's, so that would have been early 80's. One of my buddies was a blonde greek kid who drove a taxi for extra cash on weekends. He had a story almost every week. The one I remember best, he was driving a little college girl from B.U. (so she would have been Jewish) through the "dark" section of town "and all the brothers were hanging out." He had one of those big Marathon cabs that were built like tanks. He was stopped in traffic and being street smart left a good amount of room from the car in front. Summer, windows down, and suddenly he hears someone yell "get the cabbie- he's white!", and sees a bunch of guys start after him. So he laid on the gas and drove right on the sidewalk to get around the jam. He said he had them jumping out of the way like monkeys.
Once three of us left work early to play racquetball at Northeastern- where one guy still had student privileges. Again, summer, windows down. We were stopped at a traffic light to cross Mass Ave, when a guy in a jacked pickup stops alongside of us and has "Dixie" playing loud on his 8 track. We didn't think anything of it until this old black guy on the corner raises his cane, points right at us, and yells "hey- they're playing Dixie!" Our driver, a North End WOP, didn't wait for the light to turn green and drove right through crossing traffic to get out of there.
