Monday, May 17, 2004
The difference between Elizabeth & Rahway. If I called Rahway police at 1:30 am on a monday/tuesday night & said there were about 8 guys outside on the sidewalk playing craps & smoking dope, I'd get a two or three car response (four in Linden), & the cops would get out of the car. Probably no one would be arrested, but those people would never congregate again in that location. In Elizabeth, one car shows up, stops about fifty feet away with headlights on the group, & a cop says through the car loudspeaker, "Please get in your cars & go home." Nobody has a car. The group slowly strolls off down the street - none of them live in any of the five apartment buildings clustered around this corner - & the cop car drives away in another direction. I don't know if these guys with the long white teeshirts are in gangs. Probably not; There's little gang graffitti on this side of town.
If any one of the hundreds of people in any one of these buildings - most have jobs & many have small children - simply picked up the phone & called the police whenever there's loud loitering on this corner after 11 pm, within a matter of weeks it would all end, & this corner would become as quiet & safe as the corner only one block north. Word would get around that Cherry & Elm is not good place to hang out. & the cops might get the idea that more regular patrols through here - a mere two each night between 9 & 1 am would suffice - are what the residents of this neighborhood are expecting. Yeah, Elzabeth cops have to deal with more crime, & more serious crime, than Rahway cops. But there's a "Crimestoppers" sign hanging on a telephone pole out there, & one stops crime by calling police before something serious occurs.
Spent evening with Edie, five hours flew by, seemed as tho we weren't doing much of anything. But we chatted. Edie cooked an excellent simple supper (smsll roast chicken, brocolli, stuffing), which we ate leisurely. I did a load of wash. We read & talked about some Chinese poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth. Listened to a Phil Woods song titled "Waltz for Harry" (Leahey)" Watched a sitcom. & then it was time to catch the train from Metropark. Moist sea air, dripping like a saturated sponge. Add YOUR comments here
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
If any one of the hundreds of people in any one of these buildings - most have jobs & many have small children - simply picked up the phone & called the police whenever there's loud loitering on this corner after 11 pm, within a matter of weeks it would all end, & this corner would become as quiet & safe as the corner only one block north. Word would get around that Cherry & Elm is not good place to hang out. & the cops might get the idea that more regular patrols through here - a mere two each night between 9 & 1 am would suffice - are what the residents of this neighborhood are expecting. Yeah, Elzabeth cops have to deal with more crime, & more serious crime, than Rahway cops. But there's a "Crimestoppers" sign hanging on a telephone pole out there, & one stops crime by calling police before something serious occurs.
Spent evening with Edie, five hours flew by, seemed as tho we weren't doing much of anything. But we chatted. Edie cooked an excellent simple supper (smsll roast chicken, brocolli, stuffing), which we ate leisurely. I did a load of wash. We read & talked about some Chinese poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth. Listened to a Phil Woods song titled "Waltz for Harry" (Leahey)" Watched a sitcom. & then it was time to catch the train from Metropark. Moist sea air, dripping like a saturated sponge. Add YOUR comments here
