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PATERSON , NJ: The End of an Era...RIP to the Alabama Projects

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Khadijah

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i dont kno about yall but i think many of us nj dope heads past n present knew n loved the "dog pound' aka the Alabama projects...aka the alexander hamilton homes...

Right off market street, less than 5 minutes off route 80, you could drive up, cop your dope and be out in less than 10 minutes. route 80 was only a few blocks away and you were out just like that....for a long time it was "the' spot...before you had to roll into the hood and actually go deep into the city of paterson you use to be able to just cop at the projects, it was like havin a heroin drivethru no joke.

but time went by and the cops started makin it be so that only the most foolish fools would bother to hit up the pound (IDK if any of yall ever called it that. it was somethin that ppl who live in paterson used to call it but most of the junkies i ever knew always called em the Bama's) but anyways.....A few years ago they started movin everybody out, and you could still cop there for a while cuz the d boys was still chillin there by the few buildings that ppl still lived in....and then they moved to the lil store that was right near the entrance....but now its shut down and been shut down for a while now . A place that use to be the 24/7, 365, always always ready to serve dope spot is over. Well actually it been over for almost 2 years--But i made this thread becuz finally, after a whole lot of talk and draggin on for years n years, they actually started tearin em down.

Anybody who drives on route 80 use to be able to see the tops of the highrises right around exit 60, on the westbound side...But a few wks ago when i drove by i could barely see them, only the raggedy edges of them...Looks like they started by takin the roofs off first....Some of the mid rise units are already demolished completely.

So I wanted to say a RIP to the projects that served so many of us in their time, not just for the dope feens but for the people who lived there and had their life there , there is so many memories that place had and it is definately the end of a era.

I know that alot of yall are younger and didnt even start coppin dope until the pound had already been shut down, but the old timers on here I know yall gotta have a story of coppin at the Bama's. In the early 2000's and the 90's it was just so full of dope that you could not believe. they had special DEA , FBI, and ATF task forces JUST assigned to watchin that project it was so full of drugs n weapons. Shit was just on fire, aint seen nothing like it since. Even when it was still open 2 summers ago, it wasnt nothing at all like it use to been. And now its done for good but I would love to hear some of yall stories of the "glory days" of coppin down at the Pound....

Am i the only one who remembers it....I hope not...Cuz I aint that old....coppin there was like a tradition , its a place that will end up passed down in memories from the old heads to the young kids....Just like BT in newark, etc, I hope nobody forgets...Here is some pics from google, they are old they must be at least from 2007 or early 2008 bcuz it appears to be before they shut most of them down, u only see a couple buildings boarded up in these pics...Enjoy, and please share any stories or memories u got of the Bamas/ the Dog Pound.....RIP


DP7.jpg


DP5.jpg

DP2.jpg

The lo-rise buildings was clustered mostly in the middle with the highrises as a ring around the outside...

DP1-1-1.jpg

This parkin lot was the site of many dope sales and cops liked to block off the way out sinde it was a one way it was easy to get trapped there...
eventualy they set up a precint right ther on the grounds of the projects to try and stop the dope sales from happenin so much, but they didnt stop...
DP3.jpg


you could just park at the liquor store in front of the complex and walk in...if u werent too pussy of course...alot of kids was too afriad to go in witout their car...You can see the hollowed out shell of how the building looked after they evacuated everybody in this pic...
DP4.jpg


And the old view from route 80 when you would pass by..
DP6.jpg
 
Good stuff Lacey. Never copped at the Pound, but I've been through. Never was big on Paterson.

But since we are on the topic, I might as well post some pics of my favorite projects. They are also in the process of being torn down.

A. Harry Moore Housing Complex also known as Duncan Projects - Jersey City, NJ

These projects were huge in drug activity. And they are right on the West Side of the city, right off route 1&9/440. I use to take the turnpike to Exit 15 E and cross the rivers over the Lincoln Highway. Once past Hudson County Jail and you enter city limits, it literally is a 1 minute drive if you hit green lights and low traffic. You could get into JC, get over to Duncan and be on your way out within 2-3 minutes. These are the craziest projects I seen in Jersey City and I've pretty much scoped them all out. Shootings, murders, robberies, stabbings, tons of drugs. They were out of control when I first started going there a couple years ago. I was scared as shit to drive in so I parked on the dead end and would get served through the fence in the back. I eventually started driving into the back and it was literally a drive thru for anything you wanted; heroin, coke/crack, weed, PCP, etc. I was robbed there only one time and that was when I was on foot and I got most of my money back from the dude after I attacked him back. 24/7 365 days a year like Dog Pound.





Driving east on Duncan Ave off 440, you can see where they are doing construction next door. Those are all nice, low-medium income housing units now.






Front entrance on Duncan Ave. Looks like the dude in the picture is definitely holding to me. Most of the shit happened in the driveway and in the back lot, but there were times when I couple bold dudes sold right on the sidewalk and dudes were out in the street waving cars down. Mind you there's a Sheriff's precinct just across the road, about 1000 feet.




The infamous driveway. One way and one way out. If you go into the driveway, you would pretty much be served instantly. There's a middle courtyard in between the first two buildings. Sometimes there would be hundred's of people just chilling out on a Summer day. You would have to speed down the driveway and pass everyone quickly and get over the speed bump to get to the back lot, where there was even more action. And if you were meeting someone specific, it was a bitch trying to find them, you would be rushed in seconds.
Definitely some crazy shit happened there. Narcotics raided those projects constantly.

They officially kicked everyone out in like 2007, but there were still some stragglers and dealers still grinding there into 2009, when they just boarded shit up and taped it off. Nobody in, nobody out. It's a desert now. But back on a nice Summer day in 2005 or 2006, there would be hundreds of motherfuckers out there partying, selling drugs, getting wild.
 
They closed up a couple projects in Jersey City.... Evicted everyone out without notice and no place to go ......


shop was still open.... just a new stop.....they can not stop the money from coming in..
 
Cool read..we had projects but most of them been torn down before I got into the game, so I don't know what they sold...
 
haha! I actually went and found the Bama projects on gmaps using your description before i noticed you posted pics.. good read
 
Good luck 8) Aint nothin poppin down there for over a year now, thats why i posted it becuz it would be completely useless to use as a guide of where to cop at in paterson. especially cuz the area the projects is in, is right in the middle of a total non-drug area, so good luck :|

anyways, Im disappointed to see that aint nobody in here who knew this spot...there was some old time dope heads on here back a few years ago that i know they woulda been postin with the memories but i guess this is a new generation of kids these days that dont remember these old classic spots...its sad, its like a history that they dont even know about
 
Haha, Lacey, I feel you on that. This was one of the first places I copped dope in back in 03 in Paterson. No time right now for stories, but shit was crazy, that's for sure.
 
Sounds a lot like the old Jefferson projects in detroit. I think they went away 8 or 9 years ago. Seems like all good things come to an end!
 
your driving from jersey to new orleans?

fuck that you can buy a southwest flight for 150bucks
 
^^^ SW is more expensive on the east coast since they just expanded there

but SW is the way to go if your in the midwest (chicago for you, Dallas for me, both huge SW hub cities)
 
Great Post Lacey, I love these type of posts.! We used to have an appartement complex like that in EPA (East Palo Alto) that was kinda like that, with the dope dealers hanging out in the courtyard around 95' or 96'. In San Diego 32nd and commercial used to be full of dope houses were you handed your money behind gates, slots, ect... around 94'. The city buldozed those duplexes to make way for petco park- except they were a rip off. Place to go at 4:00 am when your sick and your connect was asleep. The EPA place was 24/7- decent dope.

From historic standpoint, East Village had a scene apparently in the 80s but alot of people were way too young. I only know about it from other dope fiends and an article in Newsweek or time from 82' when I was 11 0r 12. I think it was called Alphabet Town or Alphabet City and their was an article in Newsweek.

Anyway, thanks for the thread. Its cool- that way places like this wont be lost to history. By the way, from Nat Geo, the Police Chief of Paterson or whatever NJ town he was from has a serious weed up his ass- fucking facist narco swine.
 
From historic standpoint, East Village had a scene apparently in the 80s but alot of people were way too young. I only know about it from other dope fiends and an article in Newsweek or time from 82' when I was 11 0r 12. I think it was called Alphabet Town or Alphabet City and their was an article in Newsweek.

It's the Lower East Side and yea you are right, it's called Alphabet City. Was huge in the 80's and early 90's. You can still find stuff there today also. It's been cleaning up over the years like other parts of NYC, but it's still one of the few places in the city you can find some stuff out in the open without a phone or anything.
 
It looks a lot like the old Jeffries projects in Detroit. That place was one stop shopping for whatever you wanted, there was hard and soft blow, boy, weed, and some nasty ass whores. But I guess all good things have to come to an end everywhere as the Jeffries have been gone for quite a few years now.
 
hey dieselbaby good to see u around again....yea, shit it makes me feel old , and i aint even. most of the posters on here who knew all these old spots left when the dope stamp thread got shut down off here and aint around no more but i figured u would be one of the few who knew wat i am talking about. I felt a weird feeling of bein sad i gues when i seen the buildings all tore down like that. there is just so much history and memories in that place but it aint the kind that no Historical society is gonna wanna preserve so i guess all us dope heads and project folks n hood rats will have to keep the memories alive in our heads.
 
From historic standpoint, East Village had a scene apparently in the 80s but alot of people were way too young. I only know about it from other dope fiends and an article in Newsweek or time from 82' when I was 11 0r 12. I think it was called Alphabet Town or Alphabet City and their was an article in Newsweek.

The East Village of NYC had a pretty serious dope scene as late as 1994. At night you'd see guys in the streets wearing carpenter's aprons - instead of nails they had bags of H in one side and change in the other. There were junkies all over the place - both squatters and tourists. The stragglers from the punk/No Wave scene were still loving their opiates, and it wasn't at all uncommon to find used syringes on the sidewalk. That all got lost to gentrification. The city drove out the squatters and turned the East Village into yet another overpriced yuppie nest. Today the open-air drug markets are gone and even the punks look washed.
 
There was still alot of dope in NYC when I was staying there [2002'ish]. Open air markets in the parks, buildings, etc. Alot of people told me it was WAY worse in years prior. They would say you would have a hard time using the bathroom with out stepping on all the littered needles on the floor. I had no problems finding dope there. It pretty much started around and as you got in deeper it was all over.

I saw quite a few kids selling out of cargo vans parked on the street. Corner meets, etc. Also some of the people selling books on the street were selling heroin also. They would have tables set up with tons of old books and once you knew them you would just have to say I want 5 books, 10 books, etc. Than they would throw the bags in between the pages and tell you $__.

Those building remind me of some of the southside Chicago projects that used to sell dope like it was an art. Most of them are gone now. Those places were one stop shopping in its most extreme form. HUGE bags used to be easy double the size of westside bags and this was in the late 90's. Also a pretty big variety. You would walk out of the car and get ambushed by 10-15 people yelling out what kind of bags they were selling. Going there you usually knew what was the best dope from the word of mouth that goes along with that type of lifestyle. Once you made a decision and said I want the nickle black spade bags you were led into the building [some times frisked] and got in line. Some people would serve out of brown lunch bags that were just filled with dope. When you were ready to leave they had a army of spotters and security to make sure the coast was clear. Occasionally you would see guys standing on the roof holding 30 odd 6's. Even less occasionally you would see the Chicago PD swarm the buildings fishtailing thru the grass coming in off State.

That was an operation.

Here is a semi older article talking about dope and southside chicago
http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/crime/37616,cst-nws-ganga07.article

I remember getting ice cream cone bags for awhile during this time frame. I also used to cop right down the street from one the Crucial Conflicts grandmothers house on Grenshaw on the westside. They used to have a big ass white Toyota Landcruiser with the license plate 'CC'. LOTS of memories from back than. :\

peace.
seedless
 
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Yea Blah, to this day in NY people still talk about 'how many books u want"...that was never a jersey thing to us but the folks i know who fucks with NY always talkin about the books....I wonder how many people knows the background of so many of these slang words that we say....

If you think about it...This dont apply to everybody, becuz so many people has been junkies but they aint live that life of bein in the city like that....But for those of us who did its like a oral history passed down thru the generations of dope feens. People talkin about spots that was big back in the day, or the "good days" of coppin in Paterson, or newark, or NY, or wherever....the legends of each project that gets tore down...For us it was the Alabama Projects...just like before that it was CCP (christopher columbus projects) which is now the Towers another hi rise that they built right over where it had stood at, but aint nothing like a one stop dope spot.

Or for yall chicago heads, robert taylor homes, ida b wells, cabrini green, stateway gardens, rockwell gardens, henry horner homes.....And many more i am sure....

everywhere u go there is this un written history, of all these notorious places that we can all talk about but dont nobody know. Nobody else knows wat the best stamp at the Alabama Projects in june of 2001 was, and can talk about how those was the days, the police use to pull up across the street and watch people go in and pick them up on the way out but there was so many people they would catch that the car would be full in 10 minutes and you would get cut a break til they came back a hour later....Or how in 2003 they used to circle the block constantly and you had to time it just exactly right , cuz you had about 59 seconds to get in, then wait til they got around the other side of the building again, then get out before they came back around the block and saw you...And on and on....

all this shit is the "dopehead history" that you can only know if you been there or heard it passed on but alot of people these days esp kids who is new gettin into the game they dont know none of this shit and the story would just die with the people who know. its interstin to me that how everywhere and anywhere you go , whether its Bagochina coppin in the chicago projects or PureLife (where ever did he go?) and his coppin at Baxter Terrace in Newark....or all us paterson feens and the Dogg Pound in paterson.....we can all look back at that shit and be like damn, that was a part of history thats gone now...But it aint in no books, nobody knows this shit except us. I guess its intresting to me how much of a "culture' there really is with all us veteran ghetto coppers and how nobody would ever know about it unless they been a part of that life. How much information, how much "legends" of back in the day when so and so project was goin hard non stop before it got knocked down, all this shit that is passed down from junkie to junkie , is really there. And how much of it will end up totally forgotten becuz alot of the young users these days dont know nothing about the shit and will never know.

I aint tryna ramble, but hearin everybodys project coppin stories and memories of the best PJ's to cop at "back in da day" was just some memory lane type shit for me...
 
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