Housing Scar in Edison (original) (raw)
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- April 11, 1976
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WILLIAM BUTLER, an elderly black man, gazed across a scrub ‐ grown field as it darkened in the shadow of a late‐winter sunset. Nearby, solitary in a thicket at the roadside, stood his old frame house.
Mr. Butler gestured with a hand and spoke quietly.
“At me time,” he said, “there were 200 homes here, more than 2,000 people. But that's all changed now, they're all gone.”
Mr. Butler then turned away from the scrub, where overgrown piles of charred wreckage were discernible here and there. The debris was the remains of a black community called Potters Crossing, a Middlesex County neighborhood of several hundred families that had been establis??ed in the late 1800's.
That community was destroyed 18 years ago, when Edison, using urban‐renewal funds, bought the land and demolished the homes. Many former Potters Crossing fam ilies then moved into a cheaply constructed develop. ment a few hundred yards from Mr. Butler's house.
Late last year, residents of the development, called North Edison Gardens, became a center of attention when they joined with several other community groups to oppose Edison's plans to spend $152,000 of Federal Community Development funds to build a park. The residents sued the township and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, declaring that the needs of the poor in Edison were more pressing than the proposed park.
That suit was settled recently, but the badly deteriorated housing conditions that have long existed at the development will take years of labor and spending to correct. Edison has promised to make major renovations at the complex in the next three years.
In the meantime, Mr. Butler lives with his memory of how life. used to be at Potters Crossing, a place where most of his neighbors of 20 years ago could trace their forebears back to the neighborhood's early days as one of the first all‐black communities in New Jersey.
In the mid‐50's, Edison, recognizing the potential value of the 177 acres occupied by Potters Crossing, formed plans to buy the property and build singlefamily homes, apartments and condominiums on the land. Promises were made to the Potters Crossing residents that they would get a good chance to move into the proposed new development and be integrated into the Edison community.
Mr. Butler refused to move. His friends began to disappear, bought out by Edison. He saw the weathered old houses quickly torn down; in their place, a gathering of two ‐ story cheeseboxes was erected, namely North Edison Gardens.
Many former Potters Crossing people moved into them, hoping to retain their identity as a community and some day take that identity with them on a more auspicious move into the proposed development.
Fifteen years later, Mr. Butler still occupies his old house and the 400 residents of North Edison Gardens now liVe in badly deteriorated housing. What is more, they are gerrymandered into three separate voting districts and zoned out of middle‐class Edison by commercial and industrial ribbons of land around their 90‐unit development.
The Potters Crossing traditions have been eroded by time and poverty. Many former Potters Crossing people have moved on, and new residents, all black and the majority poor, have arrived in North Edison Gardens.
“People in Potters Crossing were close, if you know what I mean,” Mr. Butler told a visitor. “In the first years when I came here 30 years ago, you could walk away from your house and you didn't have to worry about anything. But that's changed. too.”
Mr. Butler's house has been broken into and robbed several times over the last few years. Anything that could be taken was stolen, he said Much of the petty crime occurring in the North Edison Gardens area—Mr. Butler's house is a few hundred yards from the apartments—is attributed to youngsters who either have nothing more exciting to do or else steal to support a drug habit.
The school dropout rate among the more than 100 youngsters who live in the area is devastating. There is no public transportation, no youth center and it is miles of suburban houses between North Edison Gardens and a movie or a public park.
In fact, North Edison Gardens has been tucked out of sight from the rest of Edison Township. Woods surround the shabby community like a ghetto wall. Few houses are visible from the apartments, except Mr. Butler's and a few others like his, all weakening survivors of urban renewal.
Serving as an additional hurter between middle‐class Edison and North Edison Gardens is the Edison Housing Authority.
For years, the troubles and complaints of “The Gardens” tenants have been channeled into the regularly changed, revolving ‐ door administration that runs the Housing Authority. For years, tenants have complained that the authority either will not or cannot cure the many prob. lems stemming from building deterioration and poor construction.
The Housing Authority offices are situated across town at another gardenapartment complex built at the same time as North Edison Gardens. This complex, called J. C. Engles Gardens, was designed to house the elderly.
J.C. Engels Gardens is neat and trim. North Edison Gardens is crumbling. Edison Township officials say they spend tnree tunes as much money maintaining North Edison Gardens as they do keeping J. C. Engels Gardens in shape.
The Housing Authority headed by James Scott, a black, reports it is doing what it can to bring better living conditions to North Edison Gardens
One opponent of the authority's administration is Mildred Burns, president of the North Edison Gardens Tenants Association, a groan incorporated to speak for the tenants in demanding better service and maintenance.
“It was so much better living in Potters Crossing,” she declared. “It was a wonderful comaunity before they tore it up, more closely knit than this one, and there was understanding, love and togetherness.”
Mrs. Burns has watched the apartments steadily deteriorate over the last 15 years. Frequently, she has seen sewers clog and raw sewage back up into sinks and toilets, and she's watched children play near a sewage pipe that has been allowed to overflow for months because a blockage was not treated properly.
To keep warm, families burn gas ranges and ovens continuously.
After years of piecemeal work, the Housing Authority has at last acquired the funds, through a Federal, grant to overhaul the entire heating system in time for next winter.
Mr. Butler's visitor strolled toward the apartments. They stood barnlike on his right the setting sun glowing gray on the paint‐peeling walls. On the buildings, light fixtures were suspended above doors, bare bulbs dangling from stringy wires. Screen doors hung battered on hinges and windows were cracked here and there.
From one of the apartments, a slender young man in his mid‐20's stepped out to greet Mr. Butler and his guest. He introduced himself as Herman Bradley, an eightyear resident of the development, and one who could offer a tour of the place.
“You see that roof up there?” he asked. “It blew off in a hurricane a few years ago. When they pa. It hack on, they guaranteed it would last 20 years. It won't last no more than five years at most. I know, I saw how they put it on!”
Across the way, a grassy knoll was strewn with hundreds of smashed and cracked bottles. Mr. Bradley then pointed to the corner of a building, specifically to a sewer Cap, a metal perforated disc set into the side of the structure.
“See this,” he said. ?? should be up above your head. In the summer, this thing stinks all the time and look, it's right under the people's windows! It's right below their kitchen!”
Mr. Bradley grew more angry as he went along. He pulled up sewer grates to expose drains clogged with junk and wood and he opened basement windows to point out deep water from leaking plumbing.
“It ain't right,” he said as he pointed out a stone buttress seemingly caving out from the wall of one building, “It just ain't right.”
“In the face of the unhappiness at North Edison Gardens, a slum with a municipal government for a landlord; a slim ray of hope recently appeared. That hope stems from the result of the battle waged by the Tenants Association to determine how the township should spend the $152,000 in Federal Community Development funds it is eligible for this year.
The fight began last spring, when Edison announced it was about to submit to the Department of Housing and Urban Development a proposal for the use of the Comunity Development money. The township suggested using the money to buy land for a public park near an upper‐middle‐class development a mile and a half from North Edison Gardens.
Working with professional counselors from the Rutgers Community Mental ‐ Health Center, the Tenants Association challenged the township's plans on the ground that it violated the spirit of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, which authorized the grant.
That act, the association claimed, requires the funds to be used to benefit poor and lower‐middle‐class persons. Furthermore, the association asserted, Edison had failed to enlist citizen participation in the formulation of its park proposal, as required by law.
The Township Council shook off the allegations and submitted the proposal anyway. But the battle was joined. The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the League of Women Voters of Edison Township, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Edison Women's Caucus supported the Tenants Association.
The coalition won the aid and counsel of the state's Office of the Public Advocate, and last October it filed suit naming Edison administrators and H.U.D. officials as defendants.
The litigation never came to trial, for the township, rather than face a long court case, agreed to a settlement that pleased both the North Edison Gardens tenants and the township administration. The tenants and their supporters would not sue the township on the Community Development fund issue; in return, Edison promised to carry out a major renovation program at the apartments.
The township will spend $100,000 in the next year to install new siding and insulation at North Edison Gardens. It also agreed to take from the Housing Authority responsibility for maintenance of most of the sewer system.
In addition, Edison will make a 4,000apartment‐byapartmentstudyofthecomplexinordertodetermineneedsandpinpointcrucialproblems.Too,thetownshipwillcarryouta4,000 apartment‐byapartment study of the complex in order to determine needs and pinpoint crucial problems. Too, the township will carry out a 4,000apartment‐byapartmentstudyofthecomplexinordertodetermineneedsandpinpointcrucialproblems.Too,thetownshipwillcarryouta25,000 engineering study for a 10‐acre park near the area; the park also would serve the proposed new development to be built on the former Potters Crossing land within the next two years.
The settlement is a relief for North Edison Gardens, but it is not viewed by tenants as a great victory. Rather than victory, said Mrs. Burns, the settlement is a new beginning. It is an opening of an avenue of communication between the people of North Edison and the Edison governing body.
“I think things will defnitely get better,” Mrs. Burns declared; a tone of surprised elation in her voice.
A future has come for the people of North Edison Gardens, but for William Butler and his old, house nearby, the settlement hasn't changed much house are part of a fading memory.
“Three years ago, thsy condemned this house,” he said in a soft drawl. “It's not even mine any more.”
Someone asked if that meant the house soon would be demolished. Mr. Butler looked up sharply and shook his head once.
“They better not!” he snapped. “No, they better not!” ■
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