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I lived on Brunswick Avenue, near the Battle Monument, between 1940 and 1962. North Trenton was a great place to live. Everything a person needed was within walking distance, and downtown Trenton was right at our doorstep. We had a wonderful variety of stores. Some I remember distinctly were Levine's Department Store (on the corner of Princeton and Pennington Avenues) and Feingold's, which sold women's clothes, shoes, and hats. There was a movie theater called The Lincoln, and several pizza restaurants (in Trenton they call them Tomato Pies). I do remember that everyone lived together respectfully. The dominant ethnic groups were Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, and African-Americans. There were also `old English' families who had lived in the neighborhood from the beginning. Some had roots in North Trenton dating back to the time of the American Revolution.
North Trenton was a `middle class' neighborhood. Friendly and clean. People sat on their porches and waved whenever I walked passed. Lots of children who grew up in North Trenton in the 1940s went to college, became professional career people, and moved on to the neighboring suburbs. By the 1950s, you could see the `class drain' taking place. People moving up the economic ladder didn't stay. They wanted bigger homes in more affluent areas. Gradually, the area fell into decline. By the 1960s it was over. I left in 1962. Six years later, terrible race riots occurred in Trenton, and North Trenton was particularly hit. Looters destroyed the shops around the Battle Monument. Many buildings were burned out. And that was the end, really. Boarded up stores and abandoned homes became the norm. Nobody wanted to venture around the Battle Monument for fear of being mugged, or worse.
Today it's hard to believe I even lived there, once. It's all gone, but the memories... and my memories of North Trenton are happy ones. -Marilyn Green
There was a boxing club in North Trenton, near Fountain Avenue. My uncle used to box there. Does anybody know if it's still around? Some legends came out of that place.
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