Trenton, New Jersey has always been a tad slow to do the things they say would restore even a glimmer of what the capitol used to be in the old days. The town closes down at 5 when the State workers leave, there has not been a movie theatre for more than a decade, and several once well-kept neighborhoods of middle class and "professional" owners have changed to slummy drug and prostitute infested havens of welfare renters and absentee landlords.

 

The Delaware riverfront has changed enormously over the past several years, with the construction of the Riverfront Park baseball stadium, which has been extremely successful. That section of Trenton's river banks continues to change for the better.

 

The world famous sprawling Roebling site a few blocks from where I am living now has been partially renovated into senior housing, a shopping center-- with "plans" for a few other things which have not really materialized yet.

 

It is located in the well known Chambersberg district, known for its Italian and other restaurants, bakeries and bistros.

 

Parts of the Roebling complex (John Roebling of Trenton constructed the Brooklyn Bridge) have been torn down to make way for the hopefully soon-to-be finished multi purpose ice hockey arena. They may have a "slight" parking problem, but I heard that they plan on adding a rail link just down the street from me. The arena is located only about 8 blocks from the Trenton train station, with connections to Philadelphia, New York and the northeast corridor.

 

Theoretically they will demolish the entire block of buildings right across the street from me, replacing them with parking facilities (which would be stupid), a fast food joint, or GAWD knows what!

 

Day 1, Monday, 7 December 1998 I noticed some activity across the street at what had been a rooming house, boarded up for many months, with pidgeons staring out of the open third floor windows.

Apparently its time had come, finally! The week before they had removed all of the old large buff-colored shingles from the building, which I thought was odd-- they probably had an asbestos content, and due to some stupid environmental laws, they probably could not have simply gone down with the rest of the place-- although no precautions were taken during their removal except that the workers wore face masks (forget about the rest of the people in the neighborhood!!)!!

 

Unshingled house [PIC]. The wrecker started at the back of the place [PIC] which was not attached to the adjoining structure, largely inhabited by undocumented hispanic aliens, some of whom work for landscape companies and can be seen being picked up in the company vans between 5-6am. The INS would have a full-time job checking the area rooming houses and rounding up the scores of ilegals, mostly from Latin America.

 

Day 2 was spent disconnecting the house from the one next door, slicing through all the connecting beams.

It was sort of weird! When the crane crunched off a piece of the building in back, the whole structure swayed a little! [PIC] I almost expected the whole thing to come tumbling down!!

 

Day 3 saw the entire house now reduced to a pile of rubble!

WOW, what a difference!! Side view [PIC].

 

Day 4 saw no activity whatsoever except the workers sitting around talking to each other. Front as seen from my apartment window [PIC], and a closeup of the remains of the dump [PIC]. I wonder how long it will take them to clear the site up, get whatever was in the basement out or simply fill the hole with whatever?

 

Day 5 was the start of cleaning the rubble out. The jaws on tractor treads that munched the place down in bite sized masses, had been actively tampering down the remains of the house into the cellar, from the back to the front. It was to provide a footing for later removal of the debris.

The junk above ground level came first, from the back to the front. The agility of the jaws operator astounded me, as I watched from my window. After droping a load of junk into the dumpster, he would tamper it down with the weight of the jaws, providing more room in the 40 cubic foot container for more. When a wooden beam stuck out the sides, the jaws would lovingly nudge it completely into the dumpster. The real show-stopper was when there were cables hanging over the sides of the truck-- the operator would drag the closed jaws over the rim of the container, cutting the cable in the process! I mentioned it to the operator and he replied, "Oh, you noticed that?"

 

Toward the end of the work day, the jaws approached menancingly close to the sidewalk, and had already begun digging out the stuff from the front of the cellar.

 

Some ten truck loads were removed by closing time. He said that perhaps another 4-5 might be needed. By nightfall, all that remained intact were the front steps and wrought iron railing.

 

DAY 9 they started filling up the now empty hole, after coating the cellar wall adjoining the house next door with waterproof stuff.

DAY 14 they finally started covering up the exposed side of the house next door to the one they knocked down. You will notice where windows had been, and the original slanted roof, suggesting that the now missing corner house was built AFTER this one. First they had to cut the remaining beams flush with the wall, cover the sides with plywood, then cover it with tar paper.

DAY 17, after the first snow fall of this season, they finally finished refacing the place with paneling. A section of the tar paper was blown off by high winds a couple days ago. 'Twas the night before Christmas and it seems as if that's all they will be doing for now!!

Stay tuned for more exciting happenings in Sonny's neighborhood!