I think its 22nd, on the South Side. Whats the deal with that place? Looks like shady to me...people hanging out all hours of the night...lots of cars double parked (sometimes expensive cars) and small groups of folks who never seem to move.

My neighbor was telling me about that place just the other day. Says the food is fantastic. It sounded like he'd gotten carry out from there a few times and never felt that there was anything going on other than folks getting seafood. That's all second hand of course, but my husband and I are curious about getting carry out sometime soon.

AHB

I tried to get someone to take my order there, but never got served. Kind of a weird way to do business. At the time, when I walked in, guys waiting seemed to size me up, then they started pacing, stopped talking among themselves.

I left thinking the same thing, that 22nd and Wash is some other kind of thing. Maybe a rendez-vous spot. I left with no food because I felt my spidey-sense tingling. Usually, I'm fairly bold.

The other weird thing was I had the same thing happen at Lucky Day at 22nd and Catharine before the last big bust that rounded up a batch of corner boys. I went in to order, there are unsavory characters in there who don't want me there, and the staff picks up on it and does not serve me, and I leave without food. I can't get served at Lucky Day unless I wait for the drug dealers to step out.

One day I asked the drug dealer standing guard in Lucky Day where the staff of LD was, and he said they were at the fish place at 22nd and Washington getting the day's seafood. So when you share a workspace for so long, you get to know each other.

Funny weird point: 22nd and Wash is not a great place to get bulk seafood. I would go to the Italian market and order my bulk stuff there. Unless I was walking. Not sure if that was real, but what was true was that the restaurant was open, and no one was in there but a scrawny drug dealer burnished dark from being outside all the time who said that he was "watching the place for them."

Seems like the Asian carry out restauranteurs know who spends the most for take out, and drug dealers are big on the list, and labor to give the impression that if their clientele is moved off, then business will suffer.

It's a very dysfunctional symbiosis. One day, in Lucky Day, after the staff would not serve me and come to the window, and the three drug dealers with obvious heavy pockets moved into my personal space, I ignored them and waited them out.

They got a little sweaty and jittery. Finally one said, "you ain't gotta be here." I stared at him, said nothing. I said to the staff, "do you serve food here or don't you?" The staff ignored me. I left, but called in complaints about drug activity for the next several days.

So drug dealers associate certain types of people with police response and interrupting delivery completions, and give a signal to their host organism that they don't want these normal people invaders in there.

Is it money laundering? Probably not. Is it illegal to tolerate drug activity on your premises? Yes. It can result in seizure by the DA.

SOSNA and community groups need to sit down with the problem carry outs in the 'hood and let them know that they can lose their business if they let drugs inside or on the sidewalk of their property's boundaries. Then we need good ADA follow up.

Keep an eye on 22nd and Wash., because I think they are becoming a key significant rendez-vous point for the major street dealers in 19146 and 19145. I see the big boy on Ellsworth in there with his pimped out rides, on his $300 cell phone. I think he lives in or controls a big drug house in the 2200 or 2300 block of Ellsworth. Pity, since that little area is great, except for just the one horrible drug house or so. Every time I walk past it, the people freeze, or one may ask what I'm looking for. I say "some fresh air," and a ripple of discontent runs through the assembly. Sometimes I overhear, "ain't nobody, live up on by that garden" or "police."

No cat calls, no trouble, just they freeze and whisper. They tell their person on the other end of the cell phone, "hold on." They stop mid-sentence. The stop talking softly to each other and start talking loudly to no one in particular about nothing in particular. Seems like a sign that this is a true storage den of large proportion.

Closest carry out to the Ellsworth storage houses that supply the corners: 22nd and Wash. How do you meet your supplier and refurbish your pockets without carrying felony/mandatory minimum levels of drugs? Go order a soda and bag of potato chips every two hours.

Confirmed observations about the role of 22nd and Wash:

1. 22nd is still the crack cocaine/heroin super highway of SP.

2. Same men and boys on bikes I see in front of known drug corners such as Catharine and 22nd, Montrose & 22nd, and Carpenter and 22nd are ones I see riding SUVs or bikes to 22nd and Ellsworth points further south. I see kids with expensive nextel walkie talkies below Wash., swing in to the seafood place, get a soda, and fly to the corner of one of the above to have a tete a tete involving a furtive hand exchange with a corner dweller on foot.

The corners are not so fixed as they were. But one common denominator of the floating drug intersections in 19146 and 19145 is 22nd. But it is getting more spread out, less connected. All of you who fought to clean up the hood have done great things getting at half the problem.

But there is still a drug corridor. Don't take my word for it. Test it. See a preternaturally skinny, unkempt woman trying to look at cars or find someone?

Follow her. Act natural. Let your curiousity get the best of you. See where she goes. She is going to some point on 22nd street five times out of six. Not to say that 20th St. is not a good bet also. She may not stay there. She may get to 22nd, look up, look down, walk up and down for few blocks, then head over to 16th and Catharine.

Hey, some people go to the gym. Walking around aimlessly is pretty boring. What's a person to do with all this public health/epidemiology training and a mandate to walk for exercise?

Walking every day for five years in SP has shown me a few things I did not know before:

1. PHA housing is infested with addicts. It's about 20 times more likely that a buyer/seller is coming out of a PHA house. Sorry, but PHA is not doing its job of keeping addicts off the list and out of the program. I have to wonder why Blackwell and the other PHA Board members are so comfortable with this.

2. About one out of five people who have lived here their whole lives work somehow in the drug trade as, in order of responsibility, delivery, holding/storing, transactions, and managing crew. No wonder people don't want the neighborhood to change. They'll have to get legit jobs, pay taxes, have declare an income that will prevent them from getting free or low cost city services. Did I say this? No, I overheard two drug dealers discussing the pros and cons of risking their lives versus taking a retail or food service job.

The biggest eyeopener to any soft heart is hearing the drug dealers discuss their own lives with perfect cost/benefit analysis. Having time to pick up the kids after school at 3pm versus having to get someone else get them because they can't get off of work. Paying taxes. Getting kicked off the PHA list, or other income-dependent wait lists such as low cost housing programs versus dealing or storing drugs, and taking your chances.

3. Drugs and their supporting businesses such as illegal numbers/gambling that provide loans, check cashers who provide same day laundering, and recreation that tolerates them, such as dog fighting, prostitution, nuisance bars, are still the biggest employer in 19146 and 19145 in percent of population.

Bigger than Penn. Bigger than the health systems. As the biggest employer in the whole city, the drug economy has the power to affect all small business in a zip code or ward and even to mold it to their purposes. Clearly, it has the ability to pollute politics.

The drug related businesses are not going to vote for ethics reform, clean politicians, fair taxes and collection, better schools, or renovation. In fact, the narco-employees and benificiaries are remarkably similar in platform as some members of city council and the mayor's office.

They want to limit prison population, stop or limit sheriff sales, make school reform about esteem building measures not metrics, call gentrification always bad, resegregate areas into ethic identified enclaves that "offer protection" since integration has been "unkind" and that they crime-infested ghetto was not a harsh environment that ate its young, but a rich source of identity. You almost think the two sit down together in focus groups.

4. This can change on a dime due to the intervention of a no-nonsense, committed coalition of community, police, and judicial intervention that is not ashamed of its values.

People will deny and forget how bad it was, and grow less vigilant. Like healthy bodies, healthy communities require constant care and maintenance.

Illness comes on suddenly, but has roots in a pattern of neglect and false care practices over time.

Letting businesses accomodate to the drug trade as their income source creates a political and economic obstacle to change. A narco-economy is the critical mass of inaction and limited action that undergirds a narco-government. 22nd and Wash is a good example of how one business can help block healthy change in an area and support a whole community of people who demand that the area stay the same or change back into what it was.

The seafood spot is called Pier 22 and I believe they've been open for about 2yrs.

It's best to call in your order and add 5 more waiting minutes. Since they're becoming popular, the wait times have increased.

The food is fresh, prices are very reasonable. Preferred sides are corn, potatoes and broccoli. Delicious Whiting, Tilapia, Lobsters, Scallops and Shrimp can be bought here. I think I've covered all their offerings. Menus are available so get one, take home, read over then call in your order. They do offer steamed versions of their seafood specials for those conscious about caloric intake.

Please don't be fooled or persuaded by the grumpy poster claiming it's this and that. Anytime...correction, EVERYTIME I've went there, no one is hanging on the corners. Well maybe the cabbies that are all parked up and down 22nd street, I believe there's a taxi business/auto repair service center across the street. I'd even say if folks are hanging on the corner, expect them to be waiting on an order from the Pier.

The nonsense of some pbers, 100% pure garbage.

Look, the guys in there waiting are doing business. And their business is not legit.

If you don't want to see it, that's fine too. But anyone wanting to buy there should probably be aware that the clientele is about as quality as you find at Lucky Day, and the other drug-dealer food shopping joints.

Otherwise, have at it.