Pulling the Plug on Camden, New Jersey: The Racist Capital of the World?
"Uncle Tom!" The epitaph pierced one's ears, a scream, not shouted. Welcome to "revitalization", welcome to Camden, New Jersey.
Voted the worst crime-ridden ghetto in the United States, I moved to 3rd and Cooper Streets in Camden as one of the news media's crowned "New Pioneers" in 2004. In January 2006, I pulled the plug on Camden, abandoning it to its racism and affluent suburban predators.
In the 1990s, Camden provided free bus tours of Camden neighborhoods to showcase property for real estate development. People from as far away as New York City were recruited. What Camden received in return was not New York City development wealth - but a Buena, New Jersey, slumlord.
Ted Laguna, a former minor league baseball player in the 1950s Milwaukee Braves organization, owns the Castle Apartments at the corner of Third and Cooper - a premier, by Camden standards, real estate rental property. The apartment building is located directly across the street from the Rutgers University campus, less than two blocks from the Rutgers-Camden Law School.
Laguna gleefully advertises that he "played with Hank Aaron on the Atlanta Braves" as part of his sales tactic. The gambit is the first of many frauds. In fact, Laguna never played with the Braves on the major league level according to the Atlanta Braves website. He did play for the Atlanta "Crackers" a minor league team of interesting racial epitaph that will become relevant shortly. He also played for minor league teams in Nebraska and Toledo, batting .194 in 46 games as a catcher in Nebraska.
From the outset, Laguna falsifies. That sociopathic tendency carries over into the legal realm as well. Laguna falsifies leases, enticing tenants to sign arguably illegal boilerplate documents and inspection reports that are deliberately crafted to be altered after they have been signed. In fact, Ted Laguna does alter those documents. And he will falsify any document or statement that he finds apt.
In return, the residents of the Castle Apartments get dubious quality. In one incident, Laguna allowed a broken sewer pipe to flood raw sewage onto his tenants for the better part of three months. Instead of paying to have the plumbing inspected, Laguna advised his maintenance staff to harass anyone taking a shower for being careless in spilling water on the floor.
In another incident, Laguna left a broken window - freely viewable from a common area balcony - unrepaired for nearly 15 months. Despite 10 degree temperatures, Laguna refused to fix the window.
Plumbing fixtures are so old and deteriorated that paint peels off bathtubs in large chunks. Urine stains floors. Holes in walls allow bugs and rodents free access - including flea infestations from the dog owned by Laguna's superintendent. Lice also exist.
And the matter is hardly within the control of the tenants. Laguna refuses to pay for anything more than once per week trash removal of an apartment building holding more than 20 units. And he provides only one trash dumpster. In 2004, and much of 2005, the dumpster overflowed an average of 27 days out of any given month - with trash and discarded food littering almost 50 feet in any direction.
Camden, for all its bus ride euphoria, inherited a slumlord.
Much can be speculated as to why any human being would act like Ted Laguna. Greed and racism would appear to be sensible theories.
Laguna refers to his Black male employees as "My Man" - much akin to the pre-Civil Rights nomenclature referring to Black slaves and menial employees.
And, in return for some of the most pathetic living conditions imaginable, one pays $600 per month for an efficiency apartment. In September 2005, Laguna more than likely failed a State of New Jersey Health Inspection - on the date of the inspection, all the conditions listed above were in existence, including the broken windows and trash overflowing onto the street. (The State of New Jersey refuses to publish the inspection report. Despite being a public record. In New Jersey, one of the most corrupt governmental organizations in modern times, anything can be directly or indirectly bought under the guise of 'law'. Including silence. And ignorance.)
Just two blocks away, the Victor Building has garnered the exclusive Camden residential revitalization attention, showcasing Dranoff Properties as a beacon in Camden's revival. The media overlooks that the Victor Building project is quite secluded on the fringe of Camden's waterfront. And that it is hardly exemplary of the type of investors that Camden is attracting. Ted Laguna - a financial predator by any reasonable conclusion - may be more normative.
And it would be within keeping with Camden being the crime capital of the United States - a multi-faceted slum whose economy is largely predicated, directly or indirectly, to a cocaine black market economy that utilizes Camden residents, particularly the Black community, as entertainment pawns.
Gone are the days of fiddle playing servants and token sports stars. In the 21st Century, and throughout much of the closing decades of the 20th Century, Camden remains a gateway to both the past and the future. And like a proverbial gateway, Camden can neither go forward or move backward - it is stuck in "cocaine" idle.
The predominate economy in Camden is feeding the drug habits of its wealthier, almost exclusively Caucasian, suburban neighbors.
All too glaring testimony of that fact occurred in the mid-1990s when the law journal of the Rutgers-Camden Law School would hold cocaine parties in a federal courthouse parking lot located at the corner of Fifth and Penn Streets - in broad daylight, less than one block from the Rutgers Police Department door.
And there is no shortage of ability to generically place the blame: when I went to vote in the November 2004 election, Camden's Black poll workers made it quite clear that neither the vote or presence of any member of the White community in Camden is appreciated. That resentment is palpable, the disgust self-evident.
The "Uncle Tom!" screaming incident noted above occured within one week of my arrival in Camden.
By default, unable to solve the voracious cocaine appetites of America suburbia, and unable to salve a deep-seeded racial antipathy by the Black community against America's White community for intentionally creating the cocaine economy - and relegating the Black community to any real estate unwanted by the White community, Camden continues to spiral out of control.
As everyone so glaringly witnessed, the historical tradition of real estate racial "red-lining" is alive and well: a change in century has not matured the White community's insatiable thirst for get-rich-quick financial scams, including those predicated along racial lines. The Camden County Democratic Party's championing of one such racial profiling real estate scam by the name of Cherokee won no friends among minorities in Camden. It was perceived by the minority community in Camden - along with many in the suburban White community - for what it was: unabashed financial-racial bigotry designed to uproot impoverished minorities in favor of a more affluent White community. And, notably, with White members of the Camden County Democratic Party reaping much fianncial benefit and first crack consideration for the newly "freed" real estate.
The local media has been relatively timid in addressing racial profiling and real estate corruption in nexus with the Camden County Democratic Party and the de facto New Jersey legal community that is, invariably, strewn throughout such scams around the state. Eloquent argument can be mounted that, on a de facto basis, the New Jersey Bar is an organized crime operation - all good efforts by honest members notwithstanding.
The advent of the contemporary Camden County Democratic Party and its efforts to "revitalize" the City of Camden are an apt point in the argument.
What the future holds is anyone's guess. But one suspects the City of Camden will see more Ted Lagunas and fundamentally bigoted real estate development plans like Cherokee before Camden ever sees the light of a positive future.
On January 5, 2006, I abandoned Camden. Or was Camden abandoned long ago into a racial, exploitive abyss? It is, at very least, an interesting question.
Voted the worst crime-ridden ghetto in the United States, I moved to 3rd and Cooper Streets in Camden as one of the news media's crowned "New Pioneers" in 2004. In January 2006, I pulled the plug on Camden, abandoning it to its racism and affluent suburban predators.
In the 1990s, Camden provided free bus tours of Camden neighborhoods to showcase property for real estate development. People from as far away as New York City were recruited. What Camden received in return was not New York City development wealth - but a Buena, New Jersey, slumlord.
Ted Laguna, a former minor league baseball player in the 1950s Milwaukee Braves organization, owns the Castle Apartments at the corner of Third and Cooper - a premier, by Camden standards, real estate rental property. The apartment building is located directly across the street from the Rutgers University campus, less than two blocks from the Rutgers-Camden Law School.
Laguna gleefully advertises that he "played with Hank Aaron on the Atlanta Braves" as part of his sales tactic. The gambit is the first of many frauds. In fact, Laguna never played with the Braves on the major league level according to the Atlanta Braves website. He did play for the Atlanta "Crackers" a minor league team of interesting racial epitaph that will become relevant shortly. He also played for minor league teams in Nebraska and Toledo, batting .194 in 46 games as a catcher in Nebraska.
From the outset, Laguna falsifies. That sociopathic tendency carries over into the legal realm as well. Laguna falsifies leases, enticing tenants to sign arguably illegal boilerplate documents and inspection reports that are deliberately crafted to be altered after they have been signed. In fact, Ted Laguna does alter those documents. And he will falsify any document or statement that he finds apt.
In return, the residents of the Castle Apartments get dubious quality. In one incident, Laguna allowed a broken sewer pipe to flood raw sewage onto his tenants for the better part of three months. Instead of paying to have the plumbing inspected, Laguna advised his maintenance staff to harass anyone taking a shower for being careless in spilling water on the floor.
In another incident, Laguna left a broken window - freely viewable from a common area balcony - unrepaired for nearly 15 months. Despite 10 degree temperatures, Laguna refused to fix the window.
Plumbing fixtures are so old and deteriorated that paint peels off bathtubs in large chunks. Urine stains floors. Holes in walls allow bugs and rodents free access - including flea infestations from the dog owned by Laguna's superintendent. Lice also exist.
And the matter is hardly within the control of the tenants. Laguna refuses to pay for anything more than once per week trash removal of an apartment building holding more than 20 units. And he provides only one trash dumpster. In 2004, and much of 2005, the dumpster overflowed an average of 27 days out of any given month - with trash and discarded food littering almost 50 feet in any direction.
Camden, for all its bus ride euphoria, inherited a slumlord.
Much can be speculated as to why any human being would act like Ted Laguna. Greed and racism would appear to be sensible theories.
Laguna refers to his Black male employees as "My Man" - much akin to the pre-Civil Rights nomenclature referring to Black slaves and menial employees.
And, in return for some of the most pathetic living conditions imaginable, one pays $600 per month for an efficiency apartment. In September 2005, Laguna more than likely failed a State of New Jersey Health Inspection - on the date of the inspection, all the conditions listed above were in existence, including the broken windows and trash overflowing onto the street. (The State of New Jersey refuses to publish the inspection report. Despite being a public record. In New Jersey, one of the most corrupt governmental organizations in modern times, anything can be directly or indirectly bought under the guise of 'law'. Including silence. And ignorance.)
Just two blocks away, the Victor Building has garnered the exclusive Camden residential revitalization attention, showcasing Dranoff Properties as a beacon in Camden's revival. The media overlooks that the Victor Building project is quite secluded on the fringe of Camden's waterfront. And that it is hardly exemplary of the type of investors that Camden is attracting. Ted Laguna - a financial predator by any reasonable conclusion - may be more normative.
And it would be within keeping with Camden being the crime capital of the United States - a multi-faceted slum whose economy is largely predicated, directly or indirectly, to a cocaine black market economy that utilizes Camden residents, particularly the Black community, as entertainment pawns.
Gone are the days of fiddle playing servants and token sports stars. In the 21st Century, and throughout much of the closing decades of the 20th Century, Camden remains a gateway to both the past and the future. And like a proverbial gateway, Camden can neither go forward or move backward - it is stuck in "cocaine" idle.
The predominate economy in Camden is feeding the drug habits of its wealthier, almost exclusively Caucasian, suburban neighbors.
All too glaring testimony of that fact occurred in the mid-1990s when the law journal of the Rutgers-Camden Law School would hold cocaine parties in a federal courthouse parking lot located at the corner of Fifth and Penn Streets - in broad daylight, less than one block from the Rutgers Police Department door.
And there is no shortage of ability to generically place the blame: when I went to vote in the November 2004 election, Camden's Black poll workers made it quite clear that neither the vote or presence of any member of the White community in Camden is appreciated. That resentment is palpable, the disgust self-evident.
The "Uncle Tom!" screaming incident noted above occured within one week of my arrival in Camden.
By default, unable to solve the voracious cocaine appetites of America suburbia, and unable to salve a deep-seeded racial antipathy by the Black community against America's White community for intentionally creating the cocaine economy - and relegating the Black community to any real estate unwanted by the White community, Camden continues to spiral out of control.
As everyone so glaringly witnessed, the historical tradition of real estate racial "red-lining" is alive and well: a change in century has not matured the White community's insatiable thirst for get-rich-quick financial scams, including those predicated along racial lines. The Camden County Democratic Party's championing of one such racial profiling real estate scam by the name of Cherokee won no friends among minorities in Camden. It was perceived by the minority community in Camden - along with many in the suburban White community - for what it was: unabashed financial-racial bigotry designed to uproot impoverished minorities in favor of a more affluent White community. And, notably, with White members of the Camden County Democratic Party reaping much fianncial benefit and first crack consideration for the newly "freed" real estate.
The local media has been relatively timid in addressing racial profiling and real estate corruption in nexus with the Camden County Democratic Party and the de facto New Jersey legal community that is, invariably, strewn throughout such scams around the state. Eloquent argument can be mounted that, on a de facto basis, the New Jersey Bar is an organized crime operation - all good efforts by honest members notwithstanding.
The advent of the contemporary Camden County Democratic Party and its efforts to "revitalize" the City of Camden are an apt point in the argument.
What the future holds is anyone's guess. But one suspects the City of Camden will see more Ted Lagunas and fundamentally bigoted real estate development plans like Cherokee before Camden ever sees the light of a positive future.
On January 5, 2006, I abandoned Camden. Or was Camden abandoned long ago into a racial, exploitive abyss? It is, at very least, an interesting question.
posted by Qi at 2:56 PM
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