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I once saw someone walking around barefoot in Hell's Kitchen.

"That's a dumb idea," I said to myself.

Minutes later, I saw them walking out of a bodega, using a handful of napkins to staunch the blood coming out of their foot.

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Yuck. We used to put the sprinkler cap on the johnny pump (Brooklyn for fire hydrant back then) and run on the curb and into the street with bare feet. In the early 70s there was a lot of dog crap and broken glass, since beverages were in glass or heavy cans vs. plastic. I sliced my feet on glass a half dozen times over the years. Lucky I didn't get hepatitis or other nasty stuff. I do have a very robust immunity system though ;)

That seems like a more reasonable thing to do, though I think as a parent, I'd have probably swept the area up a bit...

In the summer in the inner city of Brooklyn, you would be sweeping all day, everyday. NYC was a cesspool in the 70s. Newpapers blowing around, overfilled trash receptacles, insufficient street cleaning, and the public's general lack of respect for their fellow denizens. Homicides were at 1890 in 1989 in NYC compared to <400 nowadays and the population was a lot smaller then.

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