June 28, 2007
So This Is What NJ Residents Do After Leaving Old City
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- The harsh, bright lights illuminated a crowd milling near the Crown Fried Chicken on Mount Ephraim Avenue.
Inside, Tara Kittrell, 28, wore a tight-fitting white T-shirt with the words "Baby Sex" on it. After a night on the town at a Philadelphia club, she was back in Camden, trying to explain why it's important to keep the late-night fast food restaurants open -- even though some officials say they are magnets for crime and should close by 1 a.m.
"People go out. They get drunk. They want to get something to eat," Kittrell said. "They got to feed their liquor. They don't want to be going home, throwing up all over the place. They got to eat so they don't get no hangovers."
- "Yeah, I'm concerned. But I'm watching my head before I'm watching someone else's," said Pop Marcus, 20. "Shooting? Yeah. That's daily here. . . . But it's survival of the fittest, dog eat dog. . . . Everybody wants to get out, eventually, but you got to deal with the situation at hand.
- As he leaned against the doorway of the takeout restaurant, Jose Rosa took a long drink from a plastic bottle and complained that the Camden police are picking on him and his friends.
On this cool, quiet evening, just a short time before the nearby bars will close, Rosa, 50, says he's feeling a little resentful about an incident earlier that night.
The police shouldn't have asked him and his friends to stop drinking in public, he says.
"We're not the problem," he says, in Spanish-accented English. "It's the jitterbugs."
Jitterbugs?
"This is a stick-up place," he says of his neighborhood. He blames the "jitterbugs," which is his name for the young, nervous, armed bandits who pull guns and steal from people in the community.
Uh, I'm pretty sure that last one is his derogatory term for black people, but whatever.
Camden streets at night [Courier-Post]
Posted by D-Mac on June 28, 2007 03:38 PM
Posted to Camden
, Camden Courier-Post
, New Jersey
, Sigh
, WTF
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Comments
Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz needs to put on a bikini and lead all the low-lifes outa Camden like the Pied Piper.
Posted by: ALB at June 28, 2007 04:46 PM
He was probably referring to a jazz variation of the two-step in which couples swing, balance, and twirl in standardized patterns and often with vigorous acrobatics.
Posted by: The Good Reverend at June 28, 2007 04:32 PM