Quote:
Originally Posted by allovertown
I actually participated in a run that went through Camden not that long ago. It was really the first time I'd seen any of Camden besides the water front and I was shocked by the sheer number of beautiful old rowhomes in the city that were still in reasonably good condition, complete with intact cornices and woodwork detailing on front porches, etc.
Fixing Camden had always seemed like such an immense proposition that it's hard to really wrap your head around it. But running through some of those neighborhoods made in clear that in some sections of the city just a minimal amount of investment, a few fresh coats of paint and you could really have a beautiful little neighborhood. It's nice to see that slowly but surely this is beginning to happen and some investment is being made to restore some of the great housing stock in Camden.
Camden still of course has a multitude of problems. But a project like this in conjunction with the Cambell's project, the sixers project, etc can really have an impact. It's still a long road, but there's seemingly at least a light at the end of the tunnel now and with its proximity to center city and its transit access, I'm staring to feel as though Camden's eventual turn around is almost inevitable.
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That's great you got to see those neighborhoods, most people don't know they exist. Their vision of Camden is either the isolated waterfront or the ultra-horrible blocks that show up on the news. But there are neighborhoods that with a little investment could be really nice, like you said.
Lanning Square is a good example of a pretty intact neighborhood that's actually getting some of that investment. It's the neighborhood that Cooper Hospital and Rowan's Cooper Medical School are in, and which is bordered by Broadway and those two developments I took pictures of. In addition to renovations of historic townhomes, there's been new building in the form of a great new building at 7th & Washington, a wide treelined, cobblestone street, and handsome new townhomes
that appeared in he news back in September (last photo):
There're some gems in other neighborhoods too. I regularly see these gorgeous old houses in North Camden from the train in the morning:
And of course the Cooper-Grant neighborhood by Rutgers has historic old homes as well as newer development:
It's all constantly in motion, as Cooper expands, Rowan and Rutgers expand and build new things (I think Rowan's going to expand the back of the historic bank building on Cooper Street they're located in, and Rutgers is building a nursing school around 5th & Federal), and now all these companies come in thanks to those tax breaks. And NJ Transit/DRPA/I forget who else has talked about redesigning the Walter Rand transit center (just to the west of Lanning Square) if the Glassboro-Camden line gets built, so who knows what's possible.