The Central Questions

The central questions of my paper will be - What impact, if any, has the Community Development Blocks Grant had on the Township of Irvington through 1976 to 1995? What was the role of local government, State (after 1981) and federal (mostly HUD) and to what extent were community organizations involved in decision process? In what shape was the township in to accept a large gang population being run our of Newark in the late 90's and early 00's? Sources include the descriptive HUD applications, the grant progress reports, Star Ledger and Irvington local news on public discourse regarding the grants, several journal studies of the larger picture of the grants themselves, NJ Assembly proceedings regarding problems of Irvington, demographics and hopefully an interview or photo arrangement. This is a sharp departure from the papers I have written for most classes so far so....

Back to the filing cabinets

I was back to the Irvington Public Library today - they had 6 fire alarms go off during my 2 hours there and the photocopying machine does not work; my handwriting bites. I was fortunate enough to locate close to twenty years (1976-1995) worth of information on the town's applications and progress reports for the HUD Community Development Block Grants as well as some newspaper accounts related to community reaction/dismay over the handling of the grants. For the most part I am finding the opposite of what pessimistic me was expecting - the grants had a positive overall effect from year to year. The East Ward projects, however, were given less attention than some infrastructure issues like sewers and sidewalks in more middle class areas. With the influx of drugs in the mid 80's you can start to see cuts in funding to public projects and more going to counselling and treatment. The Congress cut funding to these grants in the mid 1990's by over 50% hampering efforts - then in 2003 they were cut again by 50%; the town was left to fend for itself and it seems to have cost them dearly as gang violence escalated.

So I am surprisingly optimistic I have enough to work with in terms of the life of the grants; I now need to research HUD, Newark movement and maybe more on community organizations.

Field Trip

I had a half day on Thursday so I decided to get to the Irvington Library. Initial research online is not to promising, however overview histories of Irvington and search of demographics over time has lead me to significant changes in the late 70's and early 80's; prior to that Irvington was a blue collar mecca. The changes did not occur over night and not an acute outcome of the Newark riots.

At the Library, the local history room left much to be desired. It took them 20 minutes to find the key and the last time it was signed out was in 2001. In the room itself records were in no particular order and shoved into filing cabinets in hanging folders - but there was something to work with. I started with the cabinet labled Community Development (which is in the same drawer as crime - and it is not alphabetic!) and to be honest I have not looked back. When I began pouring through the many articles, town meetings and plans, I began to see a series of failed community development goals that looked good on paper when money was requested, however when the result was reviewed years later - many would be disappointed. In particular, a HUD grant that was awarded over an 8 year period from 1976 to 1983 was of particular interest to me as it has a yearly application (some 300 pages) and a yearly accomplishment ledger - this is the prime years where opportunity existed but the Newark push down Springfield Avenue began. There is also a discourse in clippings about community concerns for the grant not being given forum. This looks promising - it may be narrow but I think it might work. I will be cross referencing with the crime folders as well to see what can be linked.

Why Irvington

Ok, so my topic is the Town of Irvington. I chose Irvington mainly because of some experiences I had there early in my career as a detective involving car thefts. I have never been able to get past the question - what happened here, seriously what did we miss? The more I interacted with police there the worse impression I got but when I really started talking to suspects and witnesses the picture became much clearer in the portion of the brain that his un-cop and since then I always feel comfortable here. To be sure it is not a place I hang out regularly but it has always fascinated me. When I told some people that is what I chose to focus on for the semester, I got the obligatory head tilt and "whoa" my wife gets when she tells anyone her birthday is September 11th. I hope I find what I am looking for....