Urban renewal did away with downtown Topeka’s aging ‘Bottoms’ neighborhood in 1960s

The downtown Topeka area known as “the Bottoms” was admittedly old, rundown and blighted when Topeka’s city government did away with it in the 1960s, says Tom Rodriguez. Still, those who lived there tend to look back fondly on that time, said Rodriguez, the author of a book published in 2012 titled “The Bottoms: A Place We Once Called Home.” “In recorded interviews with former residents, almost all of them expressed a longing for the days when they used to sit out on their front porches and say ‘Hello’ or talk to everyone who passed by,” he wrote. “They remember the time when they knew every one of their neighbors, and when neighbors helped each other out when times were tough.”
Source: CJonline.com.