re: What was Baton Rouge like in the 1970s?

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That was Chris’ Bar on North Street with fishbowls. Had good lunches

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Wow forgot about this place. One of the places that served us in high school (80s) and was my first fishbowl.

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Mike Anderson’s was in a small old grocery store where you say and the old lady that owned it lived on the top floor. We used to buy those oyster loafs and man they were good

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He actually took the whole place over later as the restaurant didn't he? Remember eating there with my parents. Small house near the corner of W Parker & Highland. Prior to the restaurant, my mom remembered Mike selling poboys out of an ice chest at the same location on game days.

Also fondly remember going to the Spaghetti House with my parents. Think it was located at State and Highland where the Circle K is now.

Also cant leave Jack Sabins off the list. It was around in the late 70s through the 80s I believe. Airline and Old Hammond - great steak at a high end steakhouse. Steak was prepared similar to Ruths.

It was a fantastic time to be a kid/teen. I graduated from Belaire High 1978, it was brand new. Grew up in Red Oaks, which was not in the city limits (no cops ).

I played Fastpitch Softball, it was huge sport with a major Men's league at Forest Park.

That same park was the place to be on the weekends. It would take you an hour just to drive thru. Jellyheads everywhere toking and playing Led Zeppelin on our Pioneer Super Tuners and Jensen 6 x 9 speakers.

The foxy gals wore hip hugger B Bennett Bell Bottom jeans, one button, no zipper.

Quaaludes, Black Mollies, Acapulco Gold & Columbian Redbud......really cheap and good.

Killer concerts every week with HOF bands at Independence Hall, LSU Assembly Center and Riverside Centroplex. Smoke em if ya got em cause nobody cared.

Elementary and Middle Schools were all neighborhood based (before bussing ruined BR). Each had team sports, band, choir, plays, field trips, clubs, etc. Parents where very involved and there much pride in your school.

Really good local rock band bar scene. Too many bands and bars to name, but at 2:00 AM, everybody yelled "Cross da river"!!! Wild bars across the old bridge stayed open all night.

Dixie Wrestling at Independence Hall came on TV every Sunday morning. Cowboy Bill Watts & Grizzly Smith.

Bowling midnite to 4 AM, Putt Putt Golf, Leo's Skating Rink, riding bikes everywhere, hunting Robins at the Army Depot and getting chased by soldiers in Army Jeeps.

Dining out or ordering prepared food was an occasion. We were taught table manors & restaurant etiquette. A bucket of KFC or a Pizza at Shakey's was a treat. There where minimal choices of fast food.

We had 3 TV channels and sports was only shown on the weekend. Wide World of Sports and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was can't miss TV. One college game was aired on Saturday and two NFL games on Sunday. We listened to a lot of games on the radio.

So many good places to hunt, fish, swim, hangout.

Thinking back I really miss what BR was then and life in general. The 70's were so much simpler.

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Yes this is what AntiqueTiger is referring to but there was no destroying going on. The Advocate or State Times had a reporter at the concert and they wrote about all the kids drunk, high or passing out. The DA Ossie Brown shut down the concerts because of the evil of rock and roll. Bunch of bullshite.

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I was there
And I saw Elvis at the Assembly Center

Great reading this thread as a guy who only spent time in BR during my LSU days (mid-late 2000’s). The city was already shite at that point. I used to enjoy driving around parts of town away from campus. There were places that seemed stuck in time. You could still see places that must have been booming during the 70’s and 80’s. Downtown seemed to have so much potential, and was kept pretty clean as far as I recall. I was often left wondering what it was like in the era that people are describing now.

Some of my college professors and instructors i worked with off of campus described the change. Much of the blame was placed on Judge Parker’s ruling. I believe Independence Park was the transfer station for kids in public schools.

Without having lived there, or even being alive, at the height of that ruling, I can’t imagine a city that is gutted of quality, public education. I can see how that essentially leaves the poor behind. It makes it seem like an endless cycle of the less fortunate being stuck in neutral. The prevalence of crime in NBR was obviously going to slowly expand as people moved further away into the burbs.

In 1972 you could walk back from the PastTime to LSU at midnight and think it was a normal thing to do.

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Two of my first explorations in the city were Cortana Mall

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Cortana was one of my first as well. Prior to my first year in college, I drove the 8 hours east with my dad for orientation on campus and all that fun. It was pre-smart phone. TD was only about 3 years old, and I hadn’t yet discovered the greatness.

Anywho, we get there the night before and stay at a Red Roof Inn off of Sherwood and I-12. We stayed two nights and were rarely in the room. It wasn’t a long enough to realize how much of a shithole it was. We saw some Mexicans (or Guatemalans, Panamanians, who knows?) speaking Spanish in the parking lot getting ready to leave in some beat up pickup trucks. Being from South Texas, we didn’t think that was a sign of anything other than the hotel being a cheap place to stay.

Other than orientation, we setup an account at the Regions Bank (last I saw it was a Little Caesars) at the corner of Aster and Highland. We drove around to kill some time and found our way to Cortana Mall.

It was probably already a Dead Mall by definition. The facility was nice enough. It was pretty empty. Lots of available retail space. It also didn’t strike me as odd, because we have our own Dead Mall here in town.

It’s amazing how quickly I learned about BR dos and don’ts while in school.

Austin is another place that would be crazy to go back in time to visit. It’s changed more in 25 years than most places have since the 50’s.

they still do it...

LINK

If you heard of a murder it was amazing and extremely unusual news, people respected and supported the police. I could go on all day. Oh and we cool people didn't like disco.

Like America