TRENTON — Jennifer Barraud first heard a jolting crash, then saw the
darkness. And the dust.
The 24-year-old redhead and her three children, Jared, 8, Joey, 3, and
Jazelle, 1, were in their downstairs apartment at noon when two heavily
waterlogged rooftops in the 100 block of Chambers Street rowhouses began
collapsing.
“Yes, I was at home, and there was a big crash, and it broke my son’s
window, and there’s glass all in his bedroom,” she said. “He was in the
living room watching television, thank God. He usually is in his room.
“And we saw darkness, probably when the house fell,” Barraud said. “And
there was smoke everywhere. So I immediately got on the phone and called the
police.”
Barraud said she has lived at 105 Chambers for three years. “We’ve had
numerous problems with this side having crack dealers and people dealing
drugs. But the city needs to take care of all these abandoned buildings
because it’s not safe.”
Neighbor Frankie Johnson at 107 agreed, as he escorted a Trentonian reporter
behind the row homes and showed how the backs of several had collapsed,
leaving the brick facades out front strangely intact.
Jennifer’s upstairs neighbor at 105, Buffy Hardy, 36, and her two children,
Jamir, 11, and Amir, 8, weren’t at home at the time of the collapse.
Buffy’s mother, Joan Hardy, 63, of Grant Avenue, said she was always so
scared, so worried about crack addicts living in the vacant ruins of the
boarded-up block — worried about them setting the row on fire, while her
daughter and grandchildren were upstairs on that second floor above Barraud.
Battalion Fire Chief Bill Paradiso said his people initially investigated
the collapse of walls in the back of 105 and 103 Chambers, and ordered 107
evacuated as well.
“Then we did an aerial inspection, and saw that 27, 29 and 25 also had
‘pancake’ roof collapse,” Paradiso said. “Demolition will take place when
the city appropriates funds.”
Bids will be solicited today for emergency demolition work to bring down the
crumbling structures this week or early next week, said Len Pucciati, city
director of inspections and construction official.
He said the homes had been built probably between 1925 and 1930, and many
have stood boarded-up and vacant for a very long time. The rain of the last
few months had infiltrated the old rotting wooden beams, causing the ends to
bend from the load, and slip out of the joist pockets ... and the brick
walls and floors to come crashing down.
Assistance was not needed from the American Red Cross, spokeswoman Diane
Concannon said. Cityside Housing Associates Inc., a private apartment
building operator located at 179 Brunswick Ave., had rented to the two
affected families, and is providing other apartments for them.
Gladys White-Jones, 63, a special-ed teacher in Trenton, has lived at 116
Chambers since 1978.
“It’s a sad thing,” she said, “because this is a main street of Trenton,
N.J., coming off of anywhere you’re coming from. And they can facelift
everywhere; why can’t they do something to this street? They’re going to
have to do something now.”
White-Jones said she had reported the roof that fell in next to her house at
114 several months ago because she thought someone was in the building. She
said the police inspected and came out and told her, “Oh, it caved in in
there.” And that was that.
Asked if she is afraid, living next to a caved-in house that might pull hers
down too, White-Jones said, “Yes, I’m afraid. But I don’t have no choice. I
gotta live somewhere. I live next to it... And you know how much my house is
worth? Nothing.”
Len Pucciati said Mrs. White-Jones’ complaint/report never made it to his
desk. “When we get a complaint, we do emergency demolitions, all over the
city,” he said.
Finally in the afternoon, Buffy Hardy and Jennifer Barraud began gathering
their belongings and bringing them out quickly, hoping that nothing more
would fall on them. Down at the corner, the liquor store — the old Fantasy
Lounge of days gone by — was still doing business.
In the first block, demolition signs had been put up at 27 and 25 to go with
103, 105 and 107, as a city housing inspector, Fred Amador, surveyed the
sadness of the ruined homes that had once teemed with life.
On one door, the nailed-up plywood had been cut out with an electric saw, to
get in. A spray-painted salutation showed on the inside door: “(Bleep) You,”
it said, perhaps from 1970.
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