Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America's Most Desperate Town

[n2doc]

By Matt Taibbi
December 11, 2013 10:10 AM ET
The first thing you notice about Camden, New Jersey, is that pretty much everyone you talk to has just gotten his or her ass kicked.

Instead of shaking hands, people here are always lifting hats, sleeves, pant legs and shirttails to show you wounds or scars, then pointing in the direction of where the bad thing just happened.

"I been shot six times," says Raymond, a self-described gangster I meet standing on a downtown corner. He pulls up his pant leg. "The last time I got shot was three years ago, twice in the femur." He gives an intellectual nod. "The femur, you know, that's the largest bone in the leg."

"First they hit me in the head," says Dwayne "The Wiz" Charbonneau, a junkie who had been robbed the night before. He lifts his wool cap to expose a still-oozing red strawberry and pulls his sweatpants down at the waist, drawing a few passing glances. "After that, they ripped my pockets out. You can see right here. . . ."

Even the cops have their stories: "You can see right here, that's where he bit me," says one police officer, lifting his pant leg. "And I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm going to have to shoot this dog.'"



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/apocalypse-new-jersey-a-dispatch-from-americas-most-desperate-town-20131211

[sharp_stick]

1. I had to drive through there a couple of years ago

I couldn't get out fast enough it really is as bad as it sounds.

[BlueToTheBone]

2. Is this where Cory Booker was mayor? nt

[LiberalEsto]

4. No, Newark

Newark has a lot more going for it than Camden. Camden has nothing.
I grew up in NJ and worked as a newspaper reporter in Central and North Jersey for many years.
In fact I knew Taibbi's father very slightly when he worked for a rival paper.

Newark has Rutgers University and other institutions that have worked tirelessly to improve life there. Camden has nothing.

[BlueToTheBone]

5. Thanks. I was going to be really disappointed

with our newest senator. And Camden sounds as though it has less than nothing!

[LiberalEsto]

3. I would love to airlift a bunch of teabaggers and CEOs to Camden

and just dump them there to reap the consequences

[BlueToTheBone]

6. I wonder if they would become believers

in helping desperate people?

[Zorro]

7. I once got sidetracked in Camden one evening

on my way to a Cherry Hill hotel.

It was a surreal experience. Lots of once-attractive but now derelict town homes and row houses, 55 gallon drums afire on the street corners, abandoned/stripped cars on the streets/sidewalks -- you get the picture.

What was surprising -- but shouldn't have been -- was down by the waterfront plant where RCA once made Victorolas; my recollection is that the old plant had about a 7 story tower with a round stained glass window depicting RCA's trademark "Sparky" the dog listening into the Victorola horn, and the window was riddled with bullet holes.

[jsr]

8. "A major metropolitan area run by armed teenagers"

Best description of Camden.

[Blue_Tires]

9. So where is '16 nominee-to-be Christie on all of this??

[n2doc]

10. He got just what he wanted

a broken police union, and an 'example' of having outsiders (county) take over and 'improve' things (only after a large infusion of cash).

He'll milk it for all its worth.