{"id":792,"date":"2006-01-08T08:54:22","date_gmt":"2006-01-08T13:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-mean-streets-2\/"},"modified":"2006-01-08T08:54:22","modified_gmt":"2006-01-08T13:54:22","slug":"the-mean-streets-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-mean-streets-2","title":{"rendered":"The Mean Streets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a lengthy article about the “Red Light District” of northern NJ<\/a>, South Hackensack. It’s about 25 miles from where I live, and one of our close family friends used to be a night-manager at the main motel that’s profiled.<\/p>\n

The writer seems a little conflicted about what to make of the area. Sure, it’s a haven for sex and drug use, but it’s not like there’s any actual drug dealing going on there (that goes on in Paterson and Newark), just consumption. In fact, the more blatant aspects have been cleaned up, and crime rates are dropping each year:<\/p>\n

The hookers who once trolled the highway were cleared out some years ago, but dozens of prostitution arrests in the past two years show the world’s oldest profession continues to be a moneymaker – behind closed doors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still, that hasn’t stopped officials from talking about redevelopment. The idea is, because the town is connected to Teterboro, a small airport used by Big Money, there should be high-end facilities to get a piece of the money. The problem with that is that Big Money doesn’t care about Teterboro’s amenities (the Plaza 46 Diner notwithstanding). The airport brings in traffic because it’s hassle-free and close to NYC. I can guarantee that P. Diddy doesn’t look at South Hackensack as a place to open a new club; he just likes being able to get his jet off the ground without the delays of Newark, Laguardia or JFK.<\/p>\n

It all seems to come off as a non-story: some go-go waitresses are turning tricks; some people are cheating on their spouses; there’s a porno store; one of the 9\/11 hijackers stayed at one of the motels the week before the attack (but there was no warrant for the guy, so the FBI & CIA remained uninformed). Probably the most objectionable part of the story for me is this:<\/p>\n

Although the strip has been trouble for the town, in some ways it’s also been a blessing. Seizures have brought needed money to the Police Department, which has used the money to purchase four patrol cars, a communications system, new handguns and rifles, and new bicycles the past few years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because it implies that the police department busts some “behind closed doors” small-scale crimes to keep funding itself.<\/p>\n

Ah, well. As the owner of the local car dealership put it:<\/p>\n

“It’s a vibrant area that employs many, many people,” said [Eddie] Goldberg, the former head of the Business Alliance of South Hackensack. “There are no vacancies in any of the stores and there is no blight.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole shebang<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a lengthy article about the “Red Light District” of northern NJ, South Hackensack. It’s about 25 miles from where I live, and one of our close family friends used to be a night-manager at the main motel that’s profiled. The writer seems a little conflicted about what to make of the area. Sure, it’s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Mean Streets?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-suburbs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-cM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":352,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cocaines-a-hell-of-a-drug","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":0},"title":"“Cocaine’s a hell of a drug . . .”","author":"Gil","date":"September 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the coroner, Rick James had nine different drugs in his system at the time of his death, inclduing coke, speed, valium and vicodin: \"None of the drugs or drug combinations were found to be at levels that were life-threatening in and of themselves,\" the report said. It gave\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":721,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/vaccine-drug-whatever","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":1},"title":"Vaccine, drug: whatever","author":"Gil","date":"November 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know why I get worked up about this stuff, but there's a boneheaded editor at the NYTimes who today decided that Tamiflu is a flu vaccine. It's not. It's a drug that treats the flu. There's a world of difference. The writers of the article, Andrew Pollack and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1551,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bad-drug-joke","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":2},"title":"Bad Drug Joke","author":"Gil","date":"June 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The following was deleted from one of my pharma company profiles: \"Dapoxetine was rejected by the FDA in 2005, but if its EU filing gets approval this year, another FDA submission could be coming soon.\" The best part is that the company is Johnson & Johnson.","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1071,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/drug-deal-2","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":3},"title":"Drug Deal","author":"Gil","date":"August 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I know this story about the generic release of Plavix requires some knowledge of how the pharmaceutical industry works, but it's a really funny tale of corporate manuevering. The CEO of the generic company (Apotex) gives an interview with the Times in which he goofs on Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":4},"title":"Pharma BluesGood post by Jane\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"October 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pharma BluesGood post by Jane Galt (with TONS of great comments) about the problems with drug pricing in the U.S.In my magazine this month, I posed the following question to my Editorial Advisory Board members for the \"Ask the Board\" feature: \"How do you explain U.S. drug pricing to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1077,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/follow-on","url_meta":{"origin":792,"position":5},"title":"Follow-on","author":"Gil","date":"August 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"More on that generic drug story I mentioned last week, with a biographical take on the CEO of Apotex, who outmaneuvered a pair of large drug companies really badly.","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}