The huge population turnover of the 1960s overwhelmed the ability of the city to provide essential services to its constituents, including shortages of schooling facilities and housing. Deindustrialization in Nicetown led to joblessness and poverty. These factors degraded both public and personal life in Nicetown. Festive traditional events – like the annual Easter parade on Germantown Avenue, summer concerts at the Hunting Park bandstand and the opening of its wooden carousel, patriotic day parades from the American Legion, and the May Day celebration at Steele School – fell from popularity. The lively door-to-door street trade in the neighborhood vanished with the changeover from coal furnaces to gas; electric iceboxes no longer needing the iceman; milk, butter and eggs in abundance at supermarkets leading to the loss of the milkman. The continued change and impoverishment contributed to the flight of tradesmen and blue collar workers who sought work elsewhere. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in April 1968, set off riots that created fear throughout the neighborhood. Racial and economic changes took place and largely impoverished what was known as Nicetown, which suffered from urban decay in the face of suburban growth. Philadelphia, like other Rust Belt cities, slowly started its transition from an industrial city to a postindustrial city.