The last time Carvell Wallace visited McKeesport, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, Bill Clinton was president, people used fax machines, and you still printed out driving directions from MapQuest.
During his visit, Wallace saw that his once-thriving hometown had been hollowed out, like many other Rust Belt towns, by the disappearance of manufacturing jobs. It had also been hit hard by the crack epidemic of the late eighties and early nineties. “Streets I remembered as buzzing and lively were empty,” he says. “The house I had lived in was abandoned. Lawns were overgrown. The town seemed to have died.”
In the 4th episode of his podcast Closer Than They Appear, Wallace goes back to McKeesport for the first time in almost 20 years, guided by his childhood best friend, Shamrace Mims. Mims remained in the town in the years after 10-year-old Wallace moved away. They talk about the different paths their lives took, what growing up in McKeesport was like after young Wallace left, and…
