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Trenton grieves after a shooting at event that was 'a beacon'
TRENTON, N.J. — Trenton is a capital city of more than 84,000 people that can often feel like two urban areas rolled into one. On State Street, beyond the Statehouse with its golden dome, sit clean brick buildings that house deep-pocketed lobbying firms and a cafe where state employees in business suits were having lunch at outdoor tables Monday afternoon.
In this bleak landscape, Art All Night has been a bright spot — an annual 24-hour art show featuring the paintings of children alongside works by the city’s growing artists’ community. A point of local pride, it is also the centerpiece of an effort to revitalize downtown and repurpose its warehouses as art galleries, studios and event spaces. That light was dimmed over the weekend when the festival became the site of a mass shooting early Sunday — leaving one dead and around two dozen injured — in what the authorities described as a showdown between rival gangs.
“It was our worst nightmare,” said Lauren Otis, executive director of Artworks Trenton, the nonprofit that produces the event, now in its 12th year. “It was horrible. It’s something that would be inexplicably horrible wherever it happened, but to have it happen in what was the most diverse event in Trenton, perhaps in New Jersey, at an event that was so popular — it was tragic. It eviscerated us.”
He went on: “What occurred there is what a lot of people’s impression of our city is, violence, urban decay, lack of economic opportunity. That’s why Art All Night was so important. It provided this beacon of hope.”
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As law enforcement officials investigated and event organizers waited to retrieve art from the crime scene, the shooting raised questions not just about the future of Art All Night, but the well-being of the city itself: a place where some 20,000 government workers flood in every day only to disappear by dusk, leaving behind an expanse of dilapidated warehouses and a famous sign, “Trenton Makes, the World Takes” — reminders of its heyday as a hub of manufacturing.
Over the past several years signs of revitalization have appeared. The city may not have a major port or proximity to a major metropolis, assets that other once-industrial New Jersey cities have used to reinvent themselves. But it does have what is a rarity in New Jersey, said George D. Sowa, chief executive officer of an organization called Greater Trenton: affordability.
Sowa’s group has spearheaded economic development in Trenton, recruiting companies and even pitching Trenton as a location for Amazon’s second headquarters. As he ran his hand over a map, Sowa spoke of how the city could attract a company like Amazon, pointing to Trenton’s many train lines and proximity to Newark Liberty Airport, but also to its old warehouses, vast brick relics of the city’s past. “You can almost get a building here in Trenton for free,” he said.
Sowa cited the Chambersburg neighborhood, where an industrial property was recently transformed into the Roebling Lofts, as proof that the adage of developers — bring the artists and the money will follow — could prove true in Trenton, too.
The Art All Night event has played a central role in that transformation.
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“When we started this 12 years ago, Trenton was a little bit of a different town,” said Joseph Kuzemka, the event director. “Art All Night was the initial event that brought all those great minds together — the catalyst that brought these artists and art groups to work together in other projects as well.” Those projects have included a concert series and the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market.
This year, more than 25,000 people were expected to attend Art All Night, which was held at the 50,000-square-foot Roebling Wire Works, once a factory that supplied wire cables for the Brooklyn and Golden Gate Bridges.
Still, Trenton faces a host of chronic issues — a poverty rate of nearly 28 percent and a median household income of around $34,400, well below the state average.
The city has also suffered from chronic disinvestment from the state. State aid was slashed under former Gov. Chris Christie even as he poured millions into the renovation of the Statehouse. Its only hotel shut down in 2017. Many of the city’s restaurants and bars, including Lorenzo’s, a well-known steakhouse, also vanished. Mayor Eric Jackson pointed to a major accomplishment of his tenure: the city’s first Starbucks.
The mayor’s office noted that Trenton is also hurt by the state’s exemption from paying property taxes on the large tracts of land it owns downtown.
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The city has also been hobbled in its efforts to stem crime by policing cutbacks. In 2011, 108 police officers were laid off, leading to a big spike in crime in 2012. Today, the Trenton Police Department has 290 officers, down from 379 about a decade ago — a number that some elected officials say is insufficient to confront a steady stream of weapons coming in from out-of-state.
“They’re short-handed. They’re spread thin,” said Regina Thompson-Jenkins, 51, an educator and a volunteer for Everytown for Gun Safety whose 19-year-old son was killed by gunfire six years ago.
The police director, Ernest Parrey Jr., pointed to a recent decline in the number of homicides and shootings.
But, gun violence has continued to plague the city. In a 2017 report, the mayor’s office said that since 2014 the authorities collected more than 1,700 firearms in a state-funded buyback program and seized more than 230 in arrests and investigations.
Gangs were once a larger menace in the city, but still remain a presence.
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On Sunday morning, the forces shaping Trenton collided.
The arts festival grew rowdy after midnight, the Mercer County prosecutor’s office said, and had to be shut down by the police after fistfights broke out. Then shots rang out shortly before 3 a.m.
The one fatality, Tahaij Wells, 32, one of the gunmen, was shot by police. He had a long arrest record and had been released from prison in February on parole, the prosecutor’s office said. About two dozen people were injured, two of whom were in critical condition, according to hospital officials.
The day after the event, questions remained unanswered over the nature of the confrontation and how the police and officials responded to a warning that had gone out on Facebook the night of the event. “Please, please don’t go to Art All Night!” it said. “They’re going to be shooting it up!”
The shooting came days after Gov. Philip D. Murphy signed six new gun laws making New Jersey’s restrictions among the most stringent in the country.
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Ana Lozada, a kindergarten teacher whose friends attended the event, recalled their accounts of the mayhem. “Everyone was screaming,'’ she said. “One lady instead of going out, she found a little hiding place inside and locked the door. She was with her child.”
“We try to be positive but you see, suddenly, your life could be over,” she added. “Your life could be over just because some crazy people came to the event where we go every year.”
On Monday, Murphy vowed to focus on the needs of the city where he works, telling reporters, “I’m not going to turn my back on Trenton.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Nick Corasaniti and Annie Correal © 2018 The New York Times
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