Where Everything Fails, Art Takes Root
By Scott Edwards

It’s still raw and very much in a formative stage, but a surprisingly-large, and growing, community of artists is establishing the sort of presence in Trenton that was starting to feel unimaginable. More improbable still, it’s not a hostile takeover in the name of some short-term attention. Just the opposite, in fact.

The unemployed mill about Trenton’s East Hanover Street, creating the impression, upon first sight, that something’s about to happen. But it’s the middle of a prematurely-darkening Wednesday afternoon in February, so it’s clear, once the senses settle, that nothing will.
Parking meters flash beside a dozen cars. They’re the most modern detail of the block. Many of the decaying, three-story, brick and concrete buildings that flank the street haven’t been inhabited for years. How long before an abandoned building is boarded up?

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