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1 May 2006 / Monday -- allow me to begin with some background about this story, which takes place on the side of the city block of properties I am living on, most of which were constructed in the early 1900s, ca. 1910-ish. After I purchased this corner shoe repair supply shop / apartment / garages and a warehouse a couple doors away from the same Rossi family way back in about 1982, the same year I started teaching in Trenton [it was a handshake deal and a simple personal transfer of title, which is how I have always done buying and selling real estate -- in the 1920s it was a Jewish jewelry store], I was interested in buying the other large corner building consisting of some five or six addresses or lots, including an off street parking area -- I figured that I could rent out the numerous apartments and store fronts and make some money to pay the taxes and other costs involved.
I contacted the owner who told me that I could check the site out, so I rang a couple apartment doorbells but nobody ever answered although they were inside -- even way back then it delt with illegal aliens, which is seemingly such a big current news story here in the States. The renters simply did not want anyone to see their dingy apartments, how many lived in them, and the city never seemed to make inspections, and still does not. I kept the purchase on a back burner, checking with the owner every now and then, but then discovered that the entire property was sold to some Pakistanis without contacting me -- I know they got it for LESS than I originally offered to pay for it.
Yogi opened an optometrist shop on the corner, and some other Middle Easterners opened a Halal grocery store -- I always got my eye glasses at Yogi's and frequently stopped to see him and chat about local and international issues when I noticed he had no customers in the shop; he was kewl, and had his own ideas about Pakistan / Afghanistan, the Iran / Iraq conflicts, speaking openly about them to me when I asked pointed questions, which I always did -- the adjacent grocery store stocked everything, from large sacks of rice and beans, unusual spices, ornate silk saris, Bollywood videotapes, Indian and other music CDs, korans, prayer rugs and innumerable other exotic items -- I bought many tins of green tea and some Arabic headgear that I thought was kewl. The apartments were always rented to individuals from the Persian Gulf area, but after 9-11 and the local anthrax incidents, most of them moved out and Hispanics moved in.
I opened the Evelio Art Studio, specializing in vintage Trenton ceramics, art pottery and art glass, antique clocks / lighting / furniture, plaster casts and sculptures. I was teaching at the time and the shop was only open by appointment. I held special exhibits, and also filled the school science club showcases with special school projects related to the shop --
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Before Evelio
died I sold the warehouse to the Pakistanis who had the adjoining
Halal shop and gave Evi the money. I took truckloads of things
from the warehouse to a well known Philadelphia auction house,
getting pennies on the dollar for everything The Pakistanis started
a slaughter house at the site, which was so poorly run that rare
flesh flies began to become a nuisance in the immediate area,
leading me to dedicate web space to them -- 
-- I do not know if the City shut
them down, but last year I did observe a municipal trash truck
loading LARGE bins of putrid dark liquid and other organic waste,
while Trenton sanitary officials stood by and watched. It has
been closed since then.
In the past several months, while I sometimes stand on my corner in the early hours of the morning just to see what is happening in my neighborhood at that predawn hour before finally going to bed, I noticed that a middle eastern male living in one of the apartments above those Halal shops would pick up a prostitute, open the fence at what was the slaughterhouse, and take her inside -- they always left, so I assume there are no hidden bodies inside. One of the Hispanics living in that building would frequently take prostitutes up to his apartment, sometimes starting the show at the front door! It is really a fun place to live, but I have had my property for sale, getting a LOT of interest in it from FLAKES -- in reality, I would much rather live anywhere else at this point. One of those who wanted to buy my place was interested in opening a second Chinese eatery / take out establishment -- we talked several times about it, but he wanted to move in immediately, which would have been impossible simply because it would take me several weeks to move out my personal things -- he then opted to rent a store front next door to Yogi's, and it took him a couple months to renovate and recondition the place for his use.
Yogi died from cancer at around Christmas 2005 -- his store closed, and so did the adjacent grocery shop -- the Chinese takeout remained in operation. Last week as I was walking to Frank's liquor store on the far opposite corner [in the pics below, you will be able to orient yourself about the places I am mentioning], I noticed the door open below the apartments -- there were three Pakistanis / Indians [?] sitting inside a small office -- I asked them if they would allow me to go into the closed shops to get more tea and other things, and when they would be open again. They told me that the business was sold, but they still owned the building. The one who bought the business is a foreigner [I did not ask from where], and that he disappeared, they do NOT have the keys and cannot let me in -- I thought this was VERY strange because when I had the apartment I now live in rented [after I acquired the place], I had the apartment keys, which is normal.
Over the years I have discussed all of the above with Frank and with the local godfather, Donald, both of whom I have mentioned in my news section several times in the past. They told me there is another Halal slaughterhouse not too far from here, owned by the same ones who had this one, and that my old warehouse property, ex-slaughterhouse was sold to someone else. Yogi's family lives in another part of town.
The following photos and descriptions include the exact time the pics were taken so that they may be viewed sequentially.
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Pic 1 - 11:38h -- on the right is the home I was also interested in buying at one time -- it was bought by a Haitian, who is seen crossing the street, taking photos with his cell phone. The fence on the left is the entrance to what was my warehouse, to the left of which is the large Pakistani property of brown and red brick. The fire had apparently started at least 20+ minutes before I went outside. |
Pic 2 - 11:39h -- the fire began exactly in the building where I saw the owners in their small office last week. One section of the halal grocery store is on the right. To the left is the red brick building where Yogi had his eye wear boutique |
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Pic 3 - 11:40h -- the flames flared up again and started spreading to the eaves of the red brick property -- firemen had entered the building and broken / opened the front windows |
Pic 4 - 11:42h -- a different view of the previous shot -- the Haitian continues taking pictures |
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Pic 5 - 14:07h -- the fire engines left [although they did return again after this shot was taken] -- the owners are standing to the left of the street signs, fire detectives on the right. Notice that the shop doors are now open, both front and rear. I asked the owners who unlocked them, since they told me they did not have the keys -- one muttered something to the other in their own language, and said the firemen must have the keys |
Pic 6 - 18:28h -- two men are now present, boarding up the affected parts of the building. They were not contracted to board up Yogi's former store on that corner. Frank told me that the Chinese takeout was ordered closed -- his liquor store is the tall three-story corner building on the left, which includes the lower lying two-story part behind it |
Pic 7 - 18:30h -- a closer view. On the other side of the street a Red Cross worker was filling in pages of forms for the probably illegal Hispanics who lived in the apartments, some of whom loaded plastic bags of belongings into a pick up truck -- more of our tax dollars being wasted on those who obviously broke the law to get here and find employment from unscrupulous employers, and who seem to be more than able to scream about their so-called rights and apply for handouts any which way they can. The Puerto Rican grocery store across the street from me was open before noon when I first came out, but closed sometime before 14h -- I guess they are supposedly showing at least partial solidarity to their similarly tongued clansmen, after making a few buckies from them starting at about 06h -- they do make a reasonably good Italian hoagie, which I have bought there quite a few times recently -- maybe I shall boycott them for the rest of the year and travel 3 blocks away for even better ones from now on?
I wonder how the two local newspapers will report this story? Will they label it as VERY suspicious? To me it seems very similar to what always seems to happen along the Wildwood boardwalk at the end of the summer season -- fires at places where the business was misearble, just to collect the insurance. I checked their web sites, but at this time there is no mention of the fire.
Tomorrow I may have another photo or two to add, as well as related links from my past news pages. maybe
2 May 2006 / Tuesday -- [this update was actually begun ten days ago and finally put online on 12 May 2006] before I add todays pics I think I should explain some of my personal thoughts about the obviously unlawful aliens who are all over the USA, Trenton and this neighborhood for many years already. In some crybaby circles these illegal wandering hordes have as much right to be here as any other immigrants, including the ancestors of many Americans who arrived here through Ellis Island and other venues in the early 1900s. The technical conceptual glitch with those arguments is that these ancestors arrived LEGALLY, most did not sneak in, and they eventually became naturalized legal taxpaying, law abiding citizens who worked hard and achieved much. Some closed minded ultra conservative peeps would call those advocating open borders, dyed in the wool, blathering bleeding heart liberals -- I tend to think of BOTH highly polarized stereotypes as misguided pontificating anticlimactic sheep, BOTH following their respective flock in their individually hermetically sealed corrals. Neither flock has had any experience living and / or working outside of these antiquated, Victorian national borders, including its very own president. Therefore, they cannot be logically expected to view things as they really are and logically should be.
My life experiences have been somewhat broader, I have been able to observe sheep of varying color, size and political inclination [or lack thereof] -- I have lived, studied and worked for many years in several foreign countries including Iceland, Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Italy and Spain. I bought and sold real estate in Spain. One thing I learned is that sheep will be sheep, no matter where they happen to graze, and sometimes the grass really is greener somewhere else.
It would have been absolutely impossible for me to do any of these things without having the necessary legal paperwork in hand, which varies somewhat in each country. Starting with stamps on my passport at entry, student and work visas, transferring / translating my previous studies through accepted official channels, paying any and all related fees, AND speaking the language of the other country. It was not always easy -- I encountered both acceptance and anti-Yankee prejudice in many places and took it in stride as a learning experience. I had no idea that these things existed before leaving home in the early 1960s. I did NOT usually associate with Americans abroad except when I taught at two American schools in Spain. I lived among the inhabitants, followed their schedules and routines, and tried my darndest to blend in as much as was possible for a tall, blond haired male in countries where most everyone was shorter and dark haired.
In Germany when I started studying at a Goethe Institute in Arolsen, I was sent by the school to the local police station to register with them -- this was my first encounter with this kind of administrative procedure which sort of bothered me somehow. In each town or dorf where I resided I would have to register with the local Iron Fisted Teutonic authorities -- when I mentioned that back home only criminals have to register when they move, the paper pushing authority figure smiled broadly and replied, "IF you want to live and study here, you will do as our laws require or you will be sent back to where you came from" -- that impressed me and from then on, I cheerfully fulfilled any and all requirements necessary to do whatever I was interested in doing in the Old World. Such administrative details were really my forte -- in my pre-teens I had devised innumerable forms for my personal things such as the books I read, cataloging my natural history collections, comparing the varieties of teas I drank, testing the water in my marine aquaria, feeding charts for the many animals I kept as pets, ad infinitum, complete with corresponding rubber stamps! I would have made an even more formidable Teutonic authority figure, and many friends told me so!
Then to the present state of affairs in several countries, including the USA -- they / we not only have a problem with illegal immigration, they / we also have to contend with their / our oft times dyed in the wool, blathering bleeding heart liberal leaders who allowed foreigners from their erstwhile colonies [and other third world countries] to enter and perhaps obtain citizenship. They were useful in the local economies as Gastarbiter, working in factories, selling ice cream from carts, and doing menial tasks, but they never really fit in with the core social structure of their new homeland -- I saw it in Germany with the Turks, in France with those from their African colonies, in Israel with the so-called Palestinians, and in Spain with the Moroccans, particularly in the Canary Islands. These peoples tended to herd in their ghettos, learned very little of the language of their new home, shopped at their own usually high priced food stores, in many cases, wore the same garb as they did back home, often VERY unlike that of their new country, in some cases used their own laws to settle disputes of all kinds [often conflicting with the laws of the new country], practiced weird quasi religious beliefs including witchcraft and a very belligerent tribal form of Muhammadism, otherwise better known as Islam. Few apparently took full advantage of the system to better their lot, start businesses or provide a better life for themselves and their offspring -- disemployment was high for their few acquired skills, their neighborhoods fell into disrepair and sometimes squalor, the youth had nowhere to go and nothing to do, but where did they get all those cell phones and designer clothes? Many formed gangs -- muggings and robberies became commonplace.
Entering the twenty-first century, there is now a misguided idea that nations MUST try to be all things for all people, never offending anyone, adapting long time customs and practices to some phantasmagoric valhalla of sugar coated generic replacements -- taking the Christ out of Christmas, replacing the Crucifixion with the Easter bunny, calling trash collectors sanitary technicians, really fat people "weight challenged", obvious retards are "learning impaired", brain dead vegetables are kept on life support for months and years, passing grades in schools get lower while reading and writing skills, even for graduates, is abysmal. Technology businesses tell us that they are providing us with more quality leisure time, yet few users understand anything about the new gadgets and gizmos constantly thrust at us and crave more, faster, less expensive -- former ease of use is replaced with complicated pull down / scrolling options galore, taking twice the time to accomplish something while obtaining inferior results compared with older much simpler applications. Consume, upgrade, add on, get the accessories, pay the subscriptions, use those credit cards or PayPal, help the big businesses add to their quarterly earnings reports so that their directors can receive enormous salaries, expensive perks, and even multi-million severance pay even when voted out of office or fired. Politicians and special interests pay for the best spin doctors available, they control the media and what the sheep are fed, now with RSS feeds for really instantaneous propaganda via this futher muckin medium I call the InterNUT!
Taking all of this into account, how could the French or Australians have been surprised when their non-employed cell phone carrying ghetto inhabitants began rioting, looting and demonstrating, after all, those countries are all for those buzzwords of equality, freedom and liberty, highly illusory and theoretical concepts at best, often confusing "freedom" with "license". Closer to home, American politicians have tended to frown upon an iron fisted Teutonic approach to things such as illegal immigration, perhaps thinking that looking the other way and avoiding a conflict they would get more votes, which they always seemed to somehow, as slim as the margins may have been. Now they got a major awake up call with demonstrations around the country, major / minor companies excusing their ILLEGALLY hired aliens from work to participate, schools closing, chants in foreign languages demanding what they call equal rights, waving foreign flags, and many flocks of sheep seemed to fall for the charade, while the always slanted media coverage hypes it all to the max just to increase their viewership and pop more advertising for the sheep to consume -- the bottom line is that laws governing immigration already exist, but were / are seemingly rarely enforced. Combine that with the inability of different government agencies to communicate with each other in a meaningful and timely manner, squabbling over jurisdiction, who is in charge of what, which inevitably led to middle eastern students taking classes at flight and other schools, engaging in illicit deceitful activities, moving around and not being able to be located, being known to have visited / trained at terrorist camps abroad, having expired documents, all eventually leading to what occurred on 9-11.
Have things improved since then? Look around you -- can your gardener, taxi driver, roofer, gas station attendant, the dishwasher / busboy at the diner, baby sitter, or maid speak English? [as an aside, MOST cannot even form complete sentences or spell correctly in their foreign tongue] Is the one who home delivers your Italian pizza or Chinese phone order able to talk to you in English and tell you what you have to pay him without only pointing to the amount on the printout? Have you ever been at a check cashing business and looked at the obviously fake ID cards the foreigners are sometimes asked to provide as identification before cashing their paychecks? Have you ever seen the mountains of trash that the landlords put on the curb after they are forced to evict the tenants they knew were illegal when they rented the micro apartment which quickly filled as a crash pad to many others, living in unsanitary, crowded conditions, against all local housing codes [which are rarely checked or enforced].
Could YOU get any of those or other jobs in moslem countries, the European Union, China or even Mexico without the proper documentation OR paying some corrupt official? Try it in neighboring friendly Canada and see what they demand of you! An American student of mine from Spain went to Canada to teach geology at a Canadian university and told me it was EXTREMELY difficult for him to get all the necessary administrative paperwork completed, signed, sealed and approved -- and that was many years ago, before all the new laws and regulations were enacted.
Would YOU be allowed to publicly demonstrate against the government, wave foreign flags, sing distortedly translated "national anthems", receive social security / welfare money, child care, schooling, and get crybaby / bleeding heart front page headlines if YOU were ILLEGAL in most foreign countries?
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Pic 8 -- my place is on the right corner -- next door was owned by Puerto Ricans who always gave me problems of one kind or another and were absentee landlords, renting even the third floor with NO fire escape -- they sold to the same Haitian who bought the cheaply upgraded home on the left |
Pic 9 -- my former warehouse on the right behind the fence -- they boarded up most of the side of the buildings in which the fire occurred, but not the front where the eye glass boutique was -- ALL the apartment doors on this side and the other are boarded with padlocks -- why they didn't cover the open windows upstairs seems odd -- birds and the rain can get in and further damage what is inside and below |
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Pic 10 -- this is the front of the building, Yogi's optical center on right, Chinese take out next door (still open), parking lot on the left, trash from fire at curb, there is more in back -- the low cinderblock structure in back of the parking lot is the rear end of the warehouse / former slaughterhouse to the left of all that [out of view] is a row of homes, some of which are boarded up by the city |
Carlos, the Puerto Rican neighbor told me last week he is moving back to his island before the end of the year -- he will sell his place here but does not know what he will ask for it. He was ONLY here for the money, he hates the place. Back there he has some land, a spacious home and a "better" life -- living is cheaper there. Apparently the rest of his extended younger family will remain here. A divorced son is now a recruit with the local police -- how efficient will he be? -- when recently coming home at about 04h he did NOT notice that two drug dealers were hiding in his alleyway! How many times have I called the police in the early morning hours to report a couple fornicating in a car parked across the street, or somebody shooting up drugs in a car in broad daylight? They NEVER arrived even once! |
Sorry for the shaggy doggy style-ish rant -- I have not done this in a long time, but I have seen sooooo many online pros and cons about this topic, most of which did not have a factual clue concerning what they were talking about, being based on a "feeling" or an attempt to lead some partisan debating society which may result in hundreds of posts and replies, none of which contains any first hand information or personal experience.
Trenton Times story about the fire
The Trentonian story about the fire
God Bless !
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