Down These Mean Streets
Down These Mean Streets is the
autobiography of Piri Thomas, a
Puerto Rican who grew up in El Barrio (aka Spanish Harlem), a section of
Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican
population. In the
book, we watch Piri as he goes through the first few
decades of his
life, lives in
poverty, joins and fights with street
gangs, faces
racism (in both
New York and the South), suffers through
heroin addiction, gets involved in
crime, and ends up in
prison.
Down These Mean Streets has either been banned or has risked banning attempts in Salinas, CA; Teaneck, NJ; Darien, CT; District 25 in Queens, NYC, NY; and in Long Island, NYC, NY.
The book was originally published in 1967, and later republished in a special Thirtieth Anniversary Edition in 1997, with a new afterword from the author. A sequel was made, called 7 Long Times, which gives more depth to his prison years.
ISBN numbers
- ISBN 0606206361 (prebound, 1997)
- ISBN 0679781420 (paperback, 1997, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition)
See Also
External Link