Is Paterson, NJ dangerous? (Hoboken: lofts, school, vouchers)

[wileynj]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

I love the post a few posts up:

"Paterson isn't all that bad- most of the crimes/shootings are drug/gang related". Sorry, but if there's enough drug/gang activity in an area that there are shootings happening on a regular enough basis that they get listed as "usually drug/gang related", that's not an area that I'd call "not all that bad". "Not all that bad" to me means that there aren't any shootings going on, and if there is one, it's a major event- not "just another drug/gang related shooting"................

And yes, an incident like a cop getting shot in the head at a restaurant (regardless of the time of day) does tend to "sway one's perception of an area"......

Ya think? You can just learn to duck whenever you hear gunshots. What's the big deal? Bullet proof your car and you'll have no problems

[Alex07860]

Salsa & merengue music plays in the background as I lounge in a patio chair in my driveway, while my little cousin Jose repairs his Fast & the Furious car and my little brother Pepe is getting his race bike ready by revving it up, my little pregnant sister Juanita is screaming at her 3 kids from 4 different fathers (long story, don't ask lol) My boy Lebron who we've been tight since meeting at the local jail is parking his Escalade while playing Dr. Dre's the chronic on his car stereo. by the way it's 2am.

Come on folks, what's not to love about Paterson?

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by wileynj

Ya think? You can just learn to duck whenever you hear gunshots. What's the big deal? Bullet proof your car and you'll have no problems

See, I'm funny like that- I don't feel that I should have to adjust my way of life just because of the area I live in. I get a laugh out of posts like "it's not a really bad area- you just have to be aware of your surroundings, and don't go out alone after dark", or "once you've lived there a few weeks, you'll know what areas/streets to avoid". Sorry, I try to live where I don't have to worry about being shot if I make a left instead of a right, or if I have to come home one night after the street lights are on.........

[Patersonian]

Bob, I agree with your last two posts. My problem is that many people think ALL of Paterson is a bad area. Paterson absolutely has some areas where you couldn't pay me to live (Wrigley Park, Northside, etc.), and I'm not trying to defend those sections. I assure you, the section of Paterson in which I live is not an area in which you're going to hear gunshots.

I asked this question early on, and I still haven't gotten a good answer. What city in America with the population of Paterson or greater doesn't have bad areas?

[TheEmissary]

Originally Posted by Patersonian

Bob, I agree with your last two posts. My problem is that many people think ALL of Paterson is a bad area. Paterson absolutely has some areas where you couldn't pay me to live (Wrigley Park, Northside, etc.), and I'm not trying to defend those sections. I assure you, the section of Paterson in which I live is not an area in which you're going to hear gunshots.

I asked this question early on, and I still haven't gotten a good answer. What city in America with the population of Paterson or greater doesn't have bad areas?

Patersonian - You are correct in stating that not all areas of Paterson are bad. It's just that the good sections are not "good enough" relative to what other nearby towns can offer. I certainly hope you don't have children in the Paterson school system. I didn't, so the "good section" near Totowa remained "good enough" for most of my life. But as time goes on, the good sections are slowly shrinking into "ghettohoods", that are nothing like what I grew up in. The remaining nice sections of Paterson are like "first-class state rooms" on the Titanic. What is the end result? I found the "lifeboat" early and left!!

[SilkCity0416]

^^^ I wouldn't go around and try to compare Paterson to the surrounding towns. It is like comparing New Jersey to California ( in which case New Jersey is sure to loose) We can't dismiss that Paterson at one point was a manufacturing town. Once the jobs went south, the middle class started to move out ( some call it "White Flight") and poor, mostly minority residents either moved in or were left behind, yeah Paterson went under. Though so did just about any other city in America with a population over 80,000. Some recovered. Others like Paterson is going to takes years to get back to its former state ( if ever). What Paterson needs is a city government that cares about issues like urban redeveolpment, planning, and most of all, jobs and education. Sadly, the current mayor isn't to verse on these issues.

[Lynnie47]

I grew up on Paterson in the 60s and 70s. Elementary school 1965-1973; HS 1974-78. During that decade I saw the neighborhood in which I lived change drastically before my eyes.

We lived in an apartment house at 11th avenue and East 23rd St. As a kid, I have fond memories of walking to the kosher butcher up the street with my mother, or Food Fair supermarket. We got our drugs from Sussman's (that was when a guy name Sussman actually worked there), and our newspapers from Abe's Candy Store. Abe made a terrific egg cream soda. Sometimes my mother and I took the #26 bus downtown and shopped in Meyer Brothers or Quackenbush. I would eat a cheese sandwich and an ice cream soda at the Woolworths counter. Later when I was a teenager I worked in Meyer Brothers for one very long summer. I hated working there but in retrospect I remember it to be a grand and beautiful store and it's a real shame that it burned down.

I went to P.S. 21 and have fond memories of Mrs. Ray (4th grade) and Mrs. Threet (music) and Mr. Frank (my 7th grade teacher). By the time I was ready for 8th grade the school was overpopulated and I was going to be sent to "the MLK Annex downtown." As one of only a handful of white kids, this scared the crap out of me. People got stabbed at The Annex; we knew this for a fact. I didn't think I could survive there. My mother managed to pull some strings and luckily I was able to go to P.S. 26 for 8th grade. It was like a whole different world in that school. The kids were NICE and FRIENDLY. Nobody wanted to beat me up just because I was white. For the first time in years I felt that I could relax in school and not worry about violence and hatred. I can't begin to tell you what a relief it was.

I wound up going to Eastside High because my parents were poor and didn't have money to send me to Paterson Catholic (which is where most of the kids from P.S. 26 went). But Eastside wasn't so bad. Everyone pretty much behaved and I never got threatened. I actually graduated at the top of my class and went on to graduate from Montclair State.

But Paterson will never be the same as it was in the 50s and 60s. I hear stories from people who grew up there a decade before me and it sounded like such a wonderful place. Even on the "other side of town" (where most of the Italian families lived) it was like a different world. My neighborhood was right on the border of good and bad. The bad was encroaching. There were drug dealers on the corners by the time I was in high school. I heard one person get murdered and actually witnessed another one a few years later. We lived in constant fear and only felt safe inside with the doors locked.

I often ponder how all this violence and reverse discrimination shaped my personality. I realize now as an adult that I was under a lot of constant stress when I was a kid. Stress of a bad neighborhood which was getting worse. Stress from kids aways trying to get me to fight or trying to beat me up just because I was white. Stress from not fitting in. I never felt that I belonged there. When I went to P.S. 26 it was such a huge relief -- so much more normal. The Black kids didn't hate the white kids or the Hispanic kids. Everyone respected each other. Everyone wanted to be in school and learn.

It took my parents a long time to finally move away from Paterson. They had no financial sense; never invested in anything and had very little savings. We should have moved away when I was 6 or 7, before things got really bad. It's hard for me not to resent my parents' stupidity in keeping me in such an awful environment. I used to watch American Bandstand on TV on Saturday mornings and those kids seemed like aliens from another planet. A bunch of blonde haired blue-eyed happy people dancing in the land of sunshine and palm trees. It seemed unreachable to me when I was a child and teenager.

Ironically, now I live in Northern California. But a part of me is still back there in Paterson. Sometimes I dream that I'm still living in that apartment on 23rd Street. I think the stress and unhappiness of living in a place like that will probably never leave my psyche. I'm happy to give my own children a much better life, filled with friends, parties, a nice school, a safe neighborhood, and a feeling of safety in their homes. I tell them about my childhood to point out to them how good they have it.

You ask if Paterson is dangerous. I think that Paterson has been dangerous for the past 40 years. There are probably still some nice areas. But I have very mixed feelings about Paterson as you can tell. I was robbed of a normal childhood because of living there. I envy people who lived there in the 50s and can only wax nostalgic -- those who left for Fair Lawn or Glen Rock before things got really bad.

So there is a perspective from someone who didn't leave soon enough. Believe me, it was awful. A good smart kid like me deserved a better childhood than that.

[Lynnie47]

I want to elaborate that mine was the third generation to grow up in Paterson. My grandfather was in the silk industry in the early part of the century. He got Tuburculosis and wound up selling his business and eventually died from the disease when my mother was a young teenager. When the Depression hit, my grandmother lost her home to the bank. But fortunately the bank let her continue to live there. She wound up taking in borders to make ends meet. My mother went from a life of relative prosperity in the upper middle class in the 1920s to being relatively poor in the 1930s. My grandmother, who was "unskilled" had to do other people's laundry to make ends meet. I have old photos of her dressed in furs (from better days).

I suppose my parents stayed in Paterson all those years partly because they had grown up there and never learned how to properly manage money. My parents both went to Eastside High. My mother also went to P.S. 21, as did my older cousins.

My aunt (mother's sister) had a beautiful house on 11th Avenue and E. 39th Street. I understand a gay couple bought it and restored it, which is great because that is a wonderful and majestic house, and right near Eastside Park. I always wished I lived there instead. My aunt seemed rich in comparison to me. I loved spending time at her house.

When I was a teenager I volunteered at The Great Falls Festival as a tour guide. I still respect a lot of the history behind the city, particularly because my grandfather worked in those silk mills along the raceways. I even made a documentary about it when I was in college (it was strictly a college project). I suppose my favorite part of Paterson is the Falls. It's one thing that people can't totally destroy. It was a city founded on such promise. It could have been so much better.

[findinghope]

hi Lynnie
i grew up on E19th off of 21st and E23 off of 21st. this was late 70's-early 80's.
i dont remember it being as bad. although we are Italian and lived in the "italian" section. we knew everyone, and everyone knew us. my mom would send me off to the stores to get stuff for her as i got older. my brother and cousins and i would walk to school --all the way to beech street.
yes it did get bad towards the end of our stay--but luckily i never witnessed murder.
i am thankful that my parents were able to give me a "better" life in the suburbs for jr and high school.
but to be honest, i had an upbringing that the suburban kids can never claim. their life was a bland as white rice. my childhood was filled with different tastes and smells and hearing different languages, which has helped me tremendously.
i look back on my paterson days fondly, and my heart aches when i do see what it has become.

[CrazyJerzyKidUNO]

Paterson is an urban environment and you get what you comes with it. It isn't a terrible place I stayed in Paterson for a little over a month when I was 17 and never had any trouble or saw anything bad. The only thing that could constitute bad would be needles on the sidewalk in some areas. Paterson is no worse than any other city in fact its crime rate is alot lower than other NJ cities.