Read Online Eyes of the Innocent: A Mystery by Brad Parks - Free Book Online
Authors: Brad Parks
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else’s—sitting on a stoop.
But then, after dusk, the old ladies, kids, and moms would go inside, fully surrendering the turf to more insidious elements. The dealers. The gangs. The vagrants. People whose interests clearly tended toward the antisocial. There something primeval about what the darkness did to a city like Newark.
About the only thing I had going for me was the element of surprise. Absolutely no one expected to see a well-dressed white man striding confidently into the middle of that environment. Sometimes I could actually see guys startle as I rounded a corner. As long as I kept moving—and didn’t stay long enough for them to recover from shock—I really had nothing to worry about.
Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself as I went down to my Malibu and got it rolling in the direction of Baxter Terrace.
Slated for a demolition that was forever being delayed for one reason or another, Baxter Terrace was among the last of Newark’s bad, old projects—a relic of the failed experiment that was high-density public housing. When it was first built in the 1930s, people clamored to get into Baxter Terrace. It was segregated, of course—blacks lived on one side of Orange Street, whites on the other—but desired by both races. Tenants were chosen only after careful consideration by the tenants’ association.
After moving in, the residents—all of whom had jobs and made timely rent payments—were responsible for much of the maintenance. They cleaned the hallways and stairwells. They swept the sidewalks. They kept gardens full of flowers. The Newark Housing Authority, which owned and managed the properties, watched closely, evicting anyone who failed to toe the line. A resident who left for work without cleaning their dishes might come home to a note from the superintendent warning them not to let it happen again: dirty dishes might attract bugs.
It’s difficult to say whether the housing authority or the tenants were more responsible for the decline from that golden era of public housing. But sometime during the late 1950s, the quality of the tenants began slowly declining, with more on public assistance—and fewer who cleaned, planted gardens, or paid rent—every year. Management became less conscientious about the white glove inspections, which allowed tenants to become even more slovenly. The housing authority fell further under the sway of City Hall, which was becoming increasingly corrupt, and many of the cleaning jobs were of the no-show variety.
Plus, as fewer tenants paid rent, the housing authority had less of a budget for maintenance. And once you start to let things slide in a high-density housing situation, they go in a hurry. The rats, mice, and roaches get a foothold almost instantly. The garbage piles up. The small leaks turn into big ones.
The tenants’ association complained as things got worse, and the bosses at the housing authority eventually got tired of hearing it. So they busted up the tenants’ association.
That meant the tenants were no longer picking their own neighbors, which brought even more decline in the quality of the people moving in. Rent collection dropped further, which meant even less money for maintenance. And the tenants—who no longer had any collective voice or empowerment through which to improve conditions—stopped caring about the buildings, which only strengthened the various negative feedback mechanisms already in place.
Which was how you ended up with stairwells that smelled of urine, booze, and rat droppings; hallways that hadn’t seen a mop in years; and apartments where the humans fought an ever-losing battle with the pests that had taken up residence.
Perhaps the most apt description of Newark’s housing projects I’ve read came from No Cause for Indictment, a book by Ron Porambo about the Newark riots, which described the projects in the late 1960s: “If never visited, these dwellings cannot be imagined. Once seen, they can never
But then, after dusk, the old ladies, kids, and moms would go inside, fully surrendering the turf to more insidious elements. The dealers. The gangs. The vagrants. People whose interests clearly tended toward the antisocial. There something primeval about what the darkness did to a city like Newark.
About the only thing I had going for me was the element of surprise. Absolutely no one expected to see a well-dressed white man striding confidently into the middle of that environment. Sometimes I could actually see guys startle as I rounded a corner. As long as I kept moving—and didn’t stay long enough for them to recover from shock—I really had nothing to worry about.
Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself as I went down to my Malibu and got it rolling in the direction of Baxter Terrace.
Slated for a demolition that was forever being delayed for one reason or another, Baxter Terrace was among the last of Newark’s bad, old projects—a relic of the failed experiment that was high-density public housing. When it was first built in the 1930s, people clamored to get into Baxter Terrace. It was segregated, of course—blacks lived on one side of Orange Street, whites on the other—but desired by both races. Tenants were chosen only after careful consideration by the tenants’ association.
After moving in, the residents—all of whom had jobs and made timely rent payments—were responsible for much of the maintenance. They cleaned the hallways and stairwells. They swept the sidewalks. They kept gardens full of flowers. The Newark Housing Authority, which owned and managed the properties, watched closely, evicting anyone who failed to toe the line. A resident who left for work without cleaning their dishes might come home to a note from the superintendent warning them not to let it happen again: dirty dishes might attract bugs.
It’s difficult to say whether the housing authority or the tenants were more responsible for the decline from that golden era of public housing. But sometime during the late 1950s, the quality of the tenants began slowly declining, with more on public assistance—and fewer who cleaned, planted gardens, or paid rent—every year. Management became less conscientious about the white glove inspections, which allowed tenants to become even more slovenly. The housing authority fell further under the sway of City Hall, which was becoming increasingly corrupt, and many of the cleaning jobs were of the no-show variety.
Plus, as fewer tenants paid rent, the housing authority had less of a budget for maintenance. And once you start to let things slide in a high-density housing situation, they go in a hurry. The rats, mice, and roaches get a foothold almost instantly. The garbage piles up. The small leaks turn into big ones.
The tenants’ association complained as things got worse, and the bosses at the housing authority eventually got tired of hearing it. So they busted up the tenants’ association.
That meant the tenants were no longer picking their own neighbors, which brought even more decline in the quality of the people moving in. Rent collection dropped further, which meant even less money for maintenance. And the tenants—who no longer had any collective voice or empowerment through which to improve conditions—stopped caring about the buildings, which only strengthened the various negative feedback mechanisms already in place.
Which was how you ended up with stairwells that smelled of urine, booze, and rat droppings; hallways that hadn’t seen a mop in years; and apartments where the humans fought an ever-losing battle with the pests that had taken up residence.
Perhaps the most apt description of Newark’s housing projects I’ve read came from No Cause for Indictment, a book by Ron Porambo about the Newark riots, which described the projects in the late 1960s: “If never visited, these dwellings cannot be imagined. Once seen, they can never
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