Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

Bobby Chance used to wonder about this when he went down to Sybil Brand, the jail for Hollywood’s streetwalkers. That was before the Hollywood police got their computer and stopped the girls from giving aliases and getting off on first offenses. Then, it was like the place had a revolving door. Bobby remembers sitting there and looking around. “I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be neat for these girls who are going back to the street if somebody from the church was here to intercept them?’ But I’ll tell you who was there to pick them up. It looked like a pimp convention. It was like: ‘Hey, well I’ve paid your fine, and it’s been 48 hours, so let’s hit the streets again.’ I thought it’s such a shame that the only person there to meet these girls is the guy who put them there in the first place.” It’s 8:00 on a Saturday night. Hollywood Boulevard begins to clog and fill with light. Sidewalks begin to swarm. Inside the ticket window of the Hollywood Museum, a somber grey man sits under the huge black and white glossies and stares out at the street. The honks and roars of the city rise somewhat in pitch. There is a certain anticipation in the air. Next to the museum, back in the darkened courtyard of a large white building, a light glows through an opened doorway, and a room fills with similar sounds of anticipation. It’s a small chapel, and perhaps 20 people gather on the pews and lustily sing praises to God. There is, it seems to me, something more in their songs than simple devotion. Their voices hold a certain edge, a certain desperation.

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