What happened to Irvington, NJ????? (Newark, Springfield: real estate, neighborhood, elementary school)
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I remember Irvington, NJ as a nice place to live as a kid. You felt safe bike riding and hanging out with your friends at the Dairy Queen on Springfield Avenue. The area started to change and we moved away a long time ago. I haven't been back to New Jersey for some years now. My sister recently came for a visit with shocking news about Irvington from a visit there earlier this year. She went to see our elementary school, Berkeley Terrace and the area where we played as children. She found what looked like the warzones you see depicted on T.V. She said buildings had been leveled and there was police tape everywhere along 20th Avenue. The place had a sinister, eerie-feeling to it. She did not feel safe. She saw a police officer who told her that she should immediately leave the area and hadn't she heard about what was going on with the street gangs in the news!!!! Irvington had to call on the state or the national guard to step in and help. The police officer insisted on escorting her out because he said a car was no protection from bullets. What's going on in Irvington? I feel bad for the people still living there. When did all this happen?
Raised in Irvington, I was a kid there in the 70's. I remember a sign going up in a neighbor's yard shortly after a black family moved into the neighborhood. Within a week, it was a sea of real estate signs adorning the block from almost every house. Black family was very nice and I became friends with the daughter before we had to move too, about a year or so later. I went back to Irvington some years later, for Dickie Dees Italian hot dogs (Springfield Ave?) and to see if there was anyone that I knew, left in Irvington. Think it was in the mid-late 80's? It was looking different then but certainly not a warzone! I wonder if Dickie Dees is still around?
My kids didn't believe my stories of white flight as soon as blacks moved into a neighborhood back east, until my sister came for a visit. Does that still happen?
What you hear about Irvington and everything i read here is true. I go to Polish church on Grove street in Irvington and it is a war zone. I still know couple people that live there and also my mechanic is on 18th ave and always when i go threre i pray not to get stopped and have my ass kicked or shot at. My parents lived in Irvington in late 80s on a border of union and they told me that its was still pretty good next to them but almost overnight became gang infested and just got dangerous. As if for the National guards its true, i worked with 3 people that lived in Irvington on Myrtle Ave and they said that township was broke and they didnt have money to pay to Police and had to call national guard. Couple years back there was a State Police instead of Irvington Police for a while.
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