Irvington's Bleakest Block

Columnist Mark DiIonno of The Star-Ledger writes about a section in Irvington, New Jersey that's been particularly hit hard with homes that have been left vacant and abandoned. He describes the neighborhood:

• But in this part of Irvington, north of Springfield Avenue and east of Grove Street, the vacant houses outnumber the lived-in. At night, the vacant-eyed addicts wandering the streets outnumber the living. Drug dealers and prostitutes sell curbside, as if no laws forbid them. Most of the city's 14 homicides this year come from this area.

• Guard dogs, left to protect abandoned homes, bark from behind boarded windows and doors. Buildings without dogs get picked clean and become crack houses or gang dens. The new brick-face house had guard dogs. Four in all, from a company called Rottweiler Kingdom Security, roaming the floors at night.

• But the scavengers, most likely local drug addicts, stripped metal pipes from the basement to sell as scrap. One was the gas pipe. Natural gas filled the house ungoverned. When workers entered in the morning, the house exploded. A worker was killed and four others were injured. The house was leveled, and the blast seriously damaged another half-dozen houses.

This tidbit is about a retired Newark cop who bought a home in the neighborhood but was never able to move in:

• James Hill, who owns one of [the vacant houses], said scavenging addicts are the curse of the neighborhood. "A homeless guy broke into my house before I bought it and got stuck between a radiator and a pipe and died. That should've told me something."

• Hill has never lived in his house. The day of the closing, he unlocked the door and saw that anything with scrap value had been unscrewed, unbolted or cut out of the house. Pipes, fixtures, heating elements: all gone. Then came the blast, which broke out all the windows.

For more, see Irvington's bleakest blocks.

Go here, Go here, Go here, and Go here for other posts on vacant homes leaving their mark on neighborhoods. ForeclosuresDestroyNeighborhoodsApple