It was safe back then.

In the 70's I had a newspaper route. Walked or road my bike all over the place! One older woman was drunk every time I went to her house. She always paid me double for a paper. The little country store was a hundred yards down the road from her house. I would take her extra quarter and a quarter of my own and get a coke and a candy bar. 50 cents would get you a cold drink and a snickers.

I did that in the 90s during the crack days in Philly. We walked home in groups, but it never felt dangerous, it was more like "that guy looks like a crackhead, lets cross the street."

Plus there were a bunch of real nosey Italian and Irish housewives on the walk home who would watch the streets from their front doors and yell at shady niggers.