South Trenton, New Jersey - Decline and Rise in Crime

Decline and Rise in Crime

The decline of the South Ward began with the building of new suburban homes in the towns surrounding Trenton in the 1950s and 1960s. Many old factories closed and businesses left the area. Many cities experienced urban decay and a rise in crime, and Trenton did as well. In 1958, a young religious fanatic who grew up in a broken home stormed St. Joachim’s Church and shot three nuns, and then escaped out the back as police fired 1,000 rounds at shadows in the front window of the nunnery. Until the late 1960s crime was sporadic. A South Broad Street home was the site of three burglaries between 1966 and 1970. What made the robberies more interesting was that the building adjacent to them was the home of the Trenton Police Department. Obviously having a precinct next door did not discourage the thieves. However, South Trenton was for the most part unaffected by the Trenton Riots of 1968 while downtown was looted and burned.

Read more about this topic:  South Trenton, New Jersey

Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline, rise and/or crime:

    We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.
    Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)

    My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.
    James Thurber (1894–1961)

    A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,
    Shining and still, but not for long to stay—
    As if a thousand girls with golden hair
    Might rise from where they slept and go away.
    Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)

    A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)