Special Report: In Heroin’s Grip
UPDATED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2015, 1:39 AM
By REBECCA D. O’BRIEN
Photos by TYSON TRISH
Videos by THOMAS E. FRANKLIN
Today, The Record begins an inside look at the effects of North Jersey’s burgeoning heroin trade, which has linked the region’s suburbs with Paterson’s most impoverished neighborhoods in a cycle of ruined lives and streets, played out in the shadows of one of the most affluent areas of the nation. The unique online presentation below will run in print over the course of three days starting Sunday in The Record.
In the northwest section of Paterson, police patrols have been a rare sight in recent years. Gunshots ring out almost daily. Community programs have left town; churches have closed their doors.
On some streets in the city’s 1st and 4th wards — a few square miles bordering the Passaic River just south of suburban neighborhoods with manicured lawns and quaint downtowns — more than half the houses are abandoned or dilapidated, used as drug dens, makeshift shelters or rental units.
While south and east sections of the city contain stable, working-class neighborhoods, this part of Paterson has become increasingly isolated and violent.
The story of Paterson’s decay is not new; the city has eroded for decades as mills and factories closed. But the decline has a new engine at its core: heroin so pure and inexpensive that it is not only hastening the fall of this once vibrant city, but feeding on the wealth of nearby suburbs, towns like Glen Rock and Clifton, Mahwah and Waldwick.
Paterson is at a crisis point, one that reverberates in the towns that surround the city.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/special-report-in-heroin-s-grip-1.1271593
The article made references to hookers that charge only twenty.
Another little known fact about the bargains in Paterson other than 3.5% sales tax.
You can always count on the record to report where the deals are.