Jersey City's Greenville section is better than its violent image. I know; it's my home

Ricardo Kaulessar | NorthJersey

As the first reports of the unfolding horror in Jersey City filtered into the newsroom last week, a colleague told me that he'd heard of Greenville, the area where bullets were flying, where six people would ultimately lose their lives. It's a dangerous place, with lots of shootings, he said.

At least that's what his barber, who once lived in town, told him.

I know he meant no harm — and his barber was not wrong.

But I know Greenville in a different way. It has been my home since I was 3 years old.

Greenville is where my Guyanese immigrant parents moved me and my younger sister from our apartment in downtown Jersey City into our first house in November 1975.

Greenville is where three years later my newborn second sister came home from the hospital, and where her son arrived home 22 years after that.

It's where I remember first seeing then-mostly white neighbors for the first time, living in homes like ours with spacious backyards. It's where some homes get passed from generation to generation, and others bought by eager, often immigrant, first-time homeowners.

Greenville is where I went to my first school, Public School 30, which still stands on Gates Avenue. I have deep memories of going to class and playing with children of various backgrounds and races.

Greenville is where my grandparents settled after coming from Guyana in 1976, and where they are buried alongside my aunt in Bayview Cemetery, where Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals, a father of five, was shot and killed Tuesday.

Greenville is where I met working-class people who were friendly but possessed a hard-edged outlook on life. An outlook that could, and did, create tension within families and among neighbors that sometimes manifested itself in violent confrontation.

Greenville is where I saw young and old settle their differences with fisticuffs, like my elementary school classmates did in the school courtyard, without teachers or the principal knowing (they probably knew).

It is where I had a first kiss, rode my first bike and had my first custard cup.

And Greenville is where I am right now, trying to balance my role as a journalist covering the aftermath of the horrific events that occurred this past Tuesday with being a lifelong resident of this section of town who wishes it had never happened here.

This neighborhood is where my friend was trapped in his office building, located the next block over from the grocery while bullets flew. It's also where two young people about my nephew's age died recently in shootings a block from my house.

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Along with the adjoining Bergen-Lafayette section, Greenville has the highest concentration of African Americans in Jersey City, and many are families that have lived here for decades. The blocks surrounding the kosher grocery store are home to a sizable number of Latinos as well.

The shooters in the kosher market on Tuesday were African American, and one of the four victims was Latino.

But it was also predominantly African Americans and Latinos, along with the Orthodox Jewish transplants who have settled here in the past few years, who were trapped in their apartments and homes, frightened, for hours during and after the shooting.

Greenville is where two Latino police officers, and their African American superior officer were first on the scene and the heroes we needed at that moment.

It's where African Americans and Latinos could be seen by reporters like myself in recent days looking on as police carried out their investigation, and where Jewish men recovered the blood and body fragments of their brethren killed in the store to make sure their bodies were intact for burial in accordance with Jewish tradition.

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Jersey City calls for unity Jersey City Council President, Rolando Lavarro Jr. speaks at a press conference calling for unity two days after the mass shooting. Thursday, December 12, 2019

The neighborhood is where I got this phone message from a caller about an interviewee on a local TV news report on the shooting:

“I disagree with the statement that he called our community Jewish. This is not a Jewish community, it is a black community. You are telling me one store is up on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and that this became a Jewish community. Well, we need to have a conversation.”

The caller was echoing a point I'd heard from others, a reflection of the tension between newcomers and longtime residents who sense they are being ignored, pushed aside. Who feel that this shooting got so much more attention than the everyday gun violence they endure. Tension between people is nothing new in Greenville, but once it seemed simpler to resolve.

Greenville has its problems, to be sure. But the community I am proud to call home must, and will, find a way forward.

Ricardo Kaulessar is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com and The Record.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com Twitter: @ricardokaul