Tours offering a fresh look at a venerable Camden neighborhood are available online and on the ground -- thanks to an innovative "public history" partnership.
The Center for Environmental Transformation invited Rutgers University assistant professor Mary Rizzo and several of her students to research key locations on the center's hour-long walking tour of the Waterfront South neighborhood. This section of South Camden along the Delaware River is home to Sacred Heart Church, the South Camden Theatre Company, other vibrant community institutions and organizations -- and numerous environmentally damaged sites remaining from the city's industrial heydey.
"We've been doing what we call eco-tours since 2009," says Mark Doorley, the center's board chairman. "We identify the toxic properties and the brownfields, but also the places of rebirth."
Rizzo and three students began the research in the fall of 2013 and completed the work last December. Census records, historical archives and other sources yielded deeper, more detailed accounts about key buildings, vacant lots and other strategic spots in the neighborhood.
"People tend to look at Camden as this terrible place," Rizzo notes. "Adding complexity to its history is incredibly important."
Although the vintage maps and images available in the online tour are fascinating as nostalgia, they also provide context about how Waterfront South rose, fell -- and may well rise again.
"It's a tool," Doorley says. Adds Rizzo: "When we have these debates about how to 'save Camden,' we [must] look a little more deeply."
--KEVIN RIORDAN