From riches to evictions

Busy days lead me all over Hudson County: from Jersey City and down to Bayonne and up to Harrison and back to the city. It is not the travel and the traffic that bother me. It is never the reporting and the work. But sometimes content can be jarring. I drive my little Hyundai in and out of the realities people live within, and the difference is stark. Watching one enjoy living, and another struggle leaves my mind with questions. Questions I get to ask myself driving to the next assignment.

With the bright light of this morning, I drove to Bayonne and visited a 12-year-old kid and his family in their clean, white home by the water. The neighborhood looked like a postcard from Connecticut and people smiled at me. This young boy has a world of opportunities in front of him, not just because of the apparent wealth of his family, but because he is an incredibly smart kid. I took his picture to run with a story about how he has won the Bayonne spelling bee two years in a row. He shows me his many trophies that line his bedroom walls. As I say goodbye to the family, the mother fusses about her decorations outside their home, seemingly embarrassed that her various of pots of flowers were dieing in the freezing November nights.

This evening I drove back into Jersey City and visited Carmen Martinez in her apartment building. Her neighborhood is not as nice, not a place where you can leave decorations out. Her apartment building is the kind that sporadically loses its heating during these bitter cold months. The lights flicker in the hallway as we ascend the three flights to her apartment. Carmen's daughter and two granddaughters live with her, three generations of women dependent under the same roof (this also not counting the "seven humble" Mexicans that take up the apartment below her).

"I don't know anything about the laws with home ownership," Carmen tells me. "I've always rented."

She faces a possible eviction because her landlord has lost the property in these plummeting markets and economy. The new owners warned her that in 48 hours they will change the locks, leaving no other information about what will happen to her apartment. She does not know yet if she will be evicted, but she knows she will lose her home soon. The place her youngest granddaughter, Deny-Ra was born.

"We don't know when we're going to get kicked out," says Carmen, parked on the coach, still wearing the clothes she worked all day in. "I just hope it doesn't happen until after the Holidays."

Going from riches to evictions shakes my conscious loose sometimes. It moves your convictions and questions your comforts. It makes me question my stories. It makes me wonder what is a story and what we, as the media, should tell. I understand the necessity of a balance in coverage, but it's hard to defend when you know different realities.

Little Uganda in Secaucus

Sometimes I find myself in church on a Sunday listening to kids from Uganda singing in a choir. Last Sunday I took pictures of the Watoto Children's Choir, a traveling group of children orphaned by the stereotypical ravages of Africa. They each tell their story-- ones that should evoke tears. But their disposition seem sunny. They all testify to the greatness God has afforded them, and smile with big white teeth through the songs. I wonder if they miss their East African homes and what they think of the crowd of white faces. I wonder whether it is legal to book these children for 27 tour dates in November alone.

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Introducing Peyton Kennedy

Showing up to the Attic Ensemble Theater in Jersey City, I walk into a building that doubles as a meeting place for AA. Not entirely sure what to expect, I walk onto a small dark stage. I find my writer, Jeff Theodore interviewing a young girl and her mother in a corner of the Attic.

"So what if this acting thing doesn't work out for you?" Jeff asks the young girl. "Do you have any other back up plan?" Later on that night I call Jeff out on that one.

This girl is sociopath killer, or at least she plays one in a production of Bad Seed by Maxwell Anderson and based upon the novel by William March. In a cast composed entirely of actors over 25, Peyton Kennedy holds a leading role at 10-years-old. She is extremely talented.

Holding up the entire cast from rehearsal, I rush and snap a few frames of Peyton.

"Give me the face you act out in your favorite scene."

Peyton scrunches up her nose and lowers her head. A dark glow surrounds her otherwise innocent face. "This is the face I make when my mother finds out I'm a murderer," she tells me.

Back at the office I look over the quick 25 frames I took. In what was a time crunch, I see a diverse range of emotions and characters in young Peyton. I think to myself, "This one's going into the movies". I also think back and kind of wish I had given her mother my card.

What a pisser

Sitting in my tiny Hyundai Accent, reporting intern Tom and I are on a stakeout. We might as well have coffee and donuts. We are waiting outside of C.R.E.A.T.E. Charter School in Jersey City for it's executive director and founder, Steven Lipski, who happens to also be a Jersey City Councilman.

We are stalking like the paparazzi because Lipski recently was arrested and charged with simple assault at a nightclub in Washington DC. It is just why he was arrested and charged that make the story quite sensational.

Lipski happens to be a dead head. He enjoys the Grateful Dead so much in fact he regularly attends the Grateful Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra. So much that I find a bumper sticker of the band on the back of the councilman's car. Last Friday, Lipski traveled down to DC to go watch his favorite cover band, and he got drunk. Really drunk. While enjoying the electric infused, folksy sounds of the dead, Lipski had to take a piss. While standing on a balcony in the club, Lipski urinated on the crowd below. Bouncers quickly escorted him over to the police. Witnesses identified Lipski as the urinator.

And so that leads us to Tom and I waiting for the pisser outside his work. With time on our hands, we question just how much of a story this is. On the list of things I would rather not have my councilman do, pissing on people isn't really on the top. In fact I feel sorry for him, as he seems well liked by those at the school and the within the community. Of course, we the media eat it all up, and so here I am waiting outside this guys work.

He finally comes out the circus begins. TV crews rush at him with questions and lights. I snap a few photos as he makes it to his car. Later Lipski released a statement saying he is an alcoholic and is seeking out treatment.

To read more, click on these two stories
by Charles Hack
by Michaelangelo Conte

Olé, Olé, Olé

Sometimes it seems like there is so much damn soccer. Each day I seem to find a tip sheet out to some far reaching stretch of Hudson County, for some tournament. Some are good games, some are bad.

I have actually come to appreciate these games, mostly for the beautiful and diverse range of people from Latin America, and I do mean a large, diverse range. Colombians, Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Peruvians. You name it, and it seems like they are represented in the plethora of high school players and fans. And they are passionate.

Sometimes these games are something I can only imagine a Champions league game would be like, bongos, air horns and rowdy fans included. Even in this small corner of New Jersey, these games are treated with such fervor. Emotions are high and the pride taken on the field is incredible. I doubt I will ever again witness a high school goalie, lifted like a savior in the European leagues amongst screaming fans, proudly waving his countries flag.
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North Bergen vs. Memorial
Holy Family vs. Bayonne
St. Peter's vs. Niagara

Blood stained streets

Waiting in the office for something to happen. Phones ring and the shuffling sounds of paper and computers surround my desk. The crackle and blips of the police scanner go on and off.

"I guess there was a shooting," says one of my editors from across the room. My ears perk up. "Down on MLK and Myrtle."

"You want me to go down there and check it out?" I ask.

"You have any other assignments right now?"

"No."

"Sure," she says cooly. "Go ahead and see if you can get a real estate shot in case we run anything. But you probably won't find anyone to talk to you."

It is common knowledge that this part of Jersey City is not the nicest part of town. Shootings are quite regular, and most people tend to avoid going there. Even the police. I show up and park.

It is the oddest thing searching for the evidence of violence. Like looking for the manifestation of evil. Such an impalpable concept, but very real. Hate and anger are intangible emotions, but put into the vessels of humans, they have very real consequences, right there on the sidewalk.

Looking down I find the evidence of a 19-year-old boy who was shot in the leg. His blood is gently spilled across the pavement and fall leaves. There is not a lot of blood, which is good because that probably means he didn't have any major arteries hit, and that my picture will pass the "Cheerio Test." That is the test where an editor must make sure not to offend a reader while they wake up to Cheerios and the paper. Anything to graphic might offend one while stuffing down a heart healthy meal.

I take a few photos of an EMTs plastic glove left behind and the red spots around it. And than I realize that that's it-- no police tape, no flashing lights, no uniforms. Just one plastic glove and blood.

A few guys in a car pull up behind me and I say hello.

"I don't know nuthin'!" one of them yells as they drive on past. I figured it would be best not to point out that I didn't ask a question.

A few neighbors are on cell phones, so I go over and ask. They tell me they heard the shot and the kid screaming for help. They saw an EMT pick, patch him up and take him off to the hospital, but they never saw a police unit come. I take down some notes because I figure that's a pretty damn important detail.

Coming back, I file my photos and ask about the caption. I want to include the details about neighbors never seeing a police unit come on by, but my editors decide against it. We can't really verify if they came or did not, as I showed up about thirty five minutes after the shooting.

It feels like circumstances that are "common knowledge" in this part of town. It feels like putting up a civilians word to the police's. It feels wrong.

Much more to the story of the "Missing Mary"

Driving through the rain and dark gray streets, crime reporter Mike Conte and I are running to break the lid off a story. Break it way off. We are trying to solve the crime of the missing Mary.

Sarcastically poking fun at this lead, Mike and I can't seem to take the story too seriously. An email written into the office asked if The Journal could write a story about a statue of the Virgin Mary that was stolen outside the home of a Colombian family in Union City. Considering the gravity of most crimes we cover, this seemed almost blase. Most days Mike covers murders and shootings and trials of heinous crimes. Before I went on this assignment, I had been searching the streets of Jersey City for the blood stains of a shooting. I don't want to say we were jaded, but we forget about the human element.

Showing up to the house, flowers and candles littered the front of an empty alter. The owner of the statue, Gladys Rodriguez came down from her apartment and began to weep in front of Mike and I, and told us the story of her Mary.

Gladys' son found the statue during a hard time in his life when he was involved deeply in drug use. The three foot Mary become a symbol he used to gather strength and overcome his addictions. Later the Mary become a gift he gave to his mother Gladys, who put it out in front of her house. Neighbors began using it as a place to pray and make offerings. It's meaning had spread, as others used the figure for their own inspiration and hopes.

"It's not important to me-- it's for everybody," a tearful Gladys says.



To read Mike's full story click here.