Trenton boosters battle outsiders' perceptions

Jason Blum knows Trenton well. He thinks DeLorenzo's pizza is "phenomenal." He marvels at the city's central role in the American Revolution. He's an avid reader of The Trenton Times.

But Blum, a Monmouth Junction resident, also knows that he and his neighbors rarely visit Trenton these days

Last month, after reading a Times editorial touting the success of the Broad Street Bank building and of cultural events like Art All Night, Blum couldn't help firing off a letter to the editor.

"Trenton is not the city that makes, but the city that takes. It takes lives, that is," he wrote in a letter published Aug. 26.

"Does the editorial board seriously believe that a few downtown high-rise terrace parties and an all-night art show where, this past year, theft of a piece of art was the main story, can make all New Jersey residents happy and joyful that Trenton, as a state capital, is back?

"Trenton is seriously flawed and will always be flawed to the point of never being a great small American city, because of constant, never-ending narcotics trafficking and violence," Blum said. Trenton, he concluded, "is a loss as an investment."

The comments stunned a number of city residents, who quickly responded with their own letters.

Kelly Ingram, an artist and Cadwalader Heights Civic Association member, wrote that Blum's letter "has some validity, but it is this kind of thinking that squelches positive change, rather than nurturing it."

Walter Dietrich, who moved here from New York four years ago, opined that "Trenton may not be heaven, but we have many wonderful places to see and truly exceptional people to meet."

Civic activist Jim Carlucci said in a letter that Blum "conveniently ignores the fact that there are stable neighborhoods with diverse, engaged residents striving to make Trenton a state capital of which all New Jerseyans can be proud."

Carlucci went a step further and decided to prove Blum wrong. With help from the Trenton Downtown Association and a number of the city's cultural institutions, he assembled a gift bag containing invites for house tours in Berkeley Square, Cadwalader Heights and Mill Hill and receptions at Ellarslie Mansion, he said.

The bag contained products made in Trenton -- candles from ANA Design and a personalized flashlight from Tektite -- as well as tickets to shows at Patriots Theater and the Passage Theatre, and a T-shirt and deck of cards from Artworks.

"We're not looking to pick a fight or anything," Carlucci said. "We're just looking to show him he's got that unfortunate, persistent misconception about the city."

Last week, Carlucci drove to Monmouth Junction, knocked on Blum's door, handed over the bag with barely a word and left.

Reached at home last week, Blum said he was surprised by the unexpected delivery and, in retrospect, alarmed at being tracked down after writing a letter to the editor.

Asked why he wrote the letter, Blum said he loves cities and frequently travels to urban areas up and down the East Coast for his job. But he's put off by "feel-good" claims that Trenton is a welcoming place to visitors, he said.

"You hear about a stabbing, a shooting, a fight. You're indundated with it," he said. "Part of me says these problems are systemic. You can have all these parties, but you're putting a lipstick on a pig.

"I love this state. I've lived in a couple other states, and I came back when I had the opportunity," he said. "I get so disgusted that my state capital has had so many problems."

Blum said he believes the police under Director Irving Bradley are doing good work fighting crime. He said he appreciates events like re-enactments of the Battle of Trenton, noted that Trenton Thunder games attract an evening crowd, and praised the architecture of the city's homes.

But suburbanites hear about scary crimes, like June's daylight stabbing of a state worker at a county-owned parking lot on South Broad Street, and stay away from the city, he said. For entertainment, they go to New Brunswick, Princeton, Hopewell, Lambertville and New Hope, but not Trenton.

"Does crime happen everywhere else? Yes," he said. "But for some reason, the perception of Trenton has gone right downhill."

Some of the city advocates who responded to Blum's letter said they understood his complaints, but didn't see them as reasons to stay away from Trenton or write the city off.

Cities just tend to have more crime, they said.

"There are areas of the city that have higher concentrations of criminal activity, where you should only venture if you have a legitimate reason to go there," Carlucci said. "If you look at the crime maps, it doesn't happen downtown, it doesn't happen in the neighborhoods."

Dietrich compared Trenton to New York, where he knew that at night he needed to avoid a bad area just a couple blocks from his home. Being afraid of the city is "wrong," he said. "You should just be brave."

The fears Blum described make the problem worse by preventing a more vibrant street life, which would make the city safer, said Dietrich, a Richey Place resident who works for a scrap metal corporation in New York.

"The more people there are around, the better the economy of Trenton will be and the more we'll be able to grow and turn around," he said.

Tektite owner Scott Mele, who wrote one of the letters defending Trenton, said sensational news articles about crime feed the perception that the city is dangerous. He argued that the presence of crime does not mean Trenton does not have a promising future.

Hoboken and Jersey City were in the same situation 20 or 30 years ago, before they revived, he said.

"It's going to happen here, too," Mele said. "The redevelopment is happening in pieces, a little here and a little there. It just takes a long time and it takes a lot of elbow grease. Giving up on it isn't an option. Someone's got to do it."

Contact Meir Rinde at mrinde@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.