If West Brownsville Could Only Talk to Us

Works Sanitarium, c.1909

Brownsville's first suburb, West Brownsville, has a comfy feel.  There is deterioration, some squalor, roofs on once stately homes covered with plastic tarps, foundation problems and overgrown, neglected landscaping.

Yet, the area, roughly from Palm Blvd. to the railroad, W. Elizabeth to the river, is not claustrophobic, cramping your brain like the housing off Alton Gloor, with smallish brick houses on tiny lots, 5 cars to a house.  

West  Levee and West Saint Charles are wide promenades.  The lots are large.  You can breathe without hyperventilating, swing your elbows from side to side, hitting nothing.

Diego Lee Rot

Brownsville Observer's music writer, Diego Lee Rot, lives with his son Jack in West Brownsville.  We  meet daily at his 100 year old asbestos-sided home for a walk through the alleys of West Brownsville.

Grandson Jack pirouettes, skips and hops along the way, gets scolded at intersections, contributing little to the conversation unless computers get mentioned, then starts lecturing until told to "shut up."

We pass the Works Sanitarium, a Brownsville hospital predating Mercy Hospital on Central Blvd.  Diego lived there over a decade ago, becoming best friends with his next door neighbor, Robert Silva, Freddy Fender's old drummer.

Diego's old apartment is now occupied by J.J. Struebelt, drummer for the Earthmen or whatever group Ben Neece is fronting.

The old Martin Lumber building on Fronton, with 60's styling, glass blocks in a round office, calls out.  We stop and take pics.

Jack follows me as I check tagging on an old warehouse.  "WSL" is scrawled on empty buildings, referring to West Side Locos, I'm told.

Jack walks by tagging