Jackson Street

Jackson Street is one of Derry's principal streets, a long, sloping road that connects the town's business district with its residential areas and ultimately leads to the edge of the Barrens. It is a place of stark contrasts: the orderly, tree-lined sidewalks of the upper blocks give way to a rickety whitewashed railing that marks the sudden, precipitous drop into the tangled, wild lowlands. This railing, a token gesture of protection, becomes a site of violence and escape, a physical boundary between the known world and the unknown. The street is also home to the Derry Elementary School, a large brick building where many of the Losers' Club's early encounters with Henry Bowers and his gang took place, and where the long summer of 1958 began with the final school bell.

Geography and the Barrens

The most significant geographical feature of Jackson Street is its relationship with the Barrens. For much of its length, the street runs along a high embankment, with the land dropping away steeply to the west. A low, whitewashed fence is all that separates the sidewalk from the precipitous slope. This fence is the site of Ben Hanscom's desperate fall when he is attacked by Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, and Belch Huggins on the last day of school. Ben uses the fence to launch himself backward, crashing through it and tumbling down into the Barrens to escape Henry's knife. The Barrens themselves, a messy tract of land about a mile and a half wide by three miles long, are bounded by upper Kansas Street on one side and by Old Cape on the other. The Kenduskeag Stream runs through the center of the Barrens, and the area is a tangle of scruffy trees, thick low bushes, and virulent infestations of poison ivy. It is here, in this seemingly barren yet lush wilderness, that the Losers' Club builds its dam, its clubhouse, and ultimately finds a place of refuge and power away from the adult world and the bullies who rule the schoolyard.

Key Events on Jackson Street

Jackson Street is the stage for several of the novel's most crucial childhood events. It is where Ben Hanscom, after being chased by Henry Bowers and his friends, first meets Bill Denbrough and Eddie Kaspbrak, who are trying to build a dam in the stream below. The street is also the site of the apocalyptic rockfight, where the seven members of the Losers' Club, now including Mike Hanlon, stand together for the first time and drive Henry Bowers and his gang out of the Barrens. Later, it is from the Jackson Street side of the Barrens that the Losers, now adults, descend for their final confrontation with It. The street also serves as a landmark for the town's destruction; during the catastrophic storm of 1985, the Standpipe, which is visible from Jackson Street, collapses and rolls down the hill, and the water from its rupture contributes to the flooding that devastates downtown Derry.

The Street as a Boundary

Jackson Street functions as a powerful symbolic boundary throughout the novel. It separates the ordered, predictable world of the town—with its schools, homes, and curfews—from the wild, untamed, and dangerous space of the Barrens. For the children of the Losers' Club, crossing this boundary is an act of defiance and a step into a world where the rules of adults no longer apply. It is a place where they can be free from the bullies and the stifling expectations of their parents, but it is also a place where they must confront the very real and terrifying presence of It. The street itself, with its rickety fence and its view of the tangled greenery below, is a constant reminder of this threshold, a place where the ordinary world of Derry meets the extraordinary horror that lurks beneath it. The street's name, a common one, belies its significance as a site of transformation, violence, and the beginning of the end for the town's ancient evil.