"Alphaville" by Michael Cordella and Bruce Bennett

Mr. Cordella has, with this book, given us a look not only at the decay of New York City during the 1970's as a whole, but also a close up look at the Housing Authority and the mammoth job it takes to police it. He even takes us back to some of the early efforts to reform the poor on the Lower East Side, an area he would come to know well as a member of the New York Housing Authority Police. He also offers some insight into just how things got so messed up in what was designed to be a "utopian" project by Robert Moses back in the 1930's. It was idealistic in it's design, but flawed in that it cut people off from the community at large, becoming a vertical city all it's own.

The original residents who lived in the "projects", as they came to be known, were Italian, Jewish and Irish. They moved up and out. Replacing those groups were people who came from the Puerto Rican and the African-American migrations of the late 1940's through the early 1960's. Along with this changing demographic came the drug trade.

The book is written in an engaging fashion, with alternating chapters about the authors life leading up to his career as a Police Officer, and chapters about the projects, their unique set of rules for survival in a vertical jungle, and the politics that drove it all to where it is today. The land speculation of the late 1970's, which gave way to the revitilization of these blighted areas is not ignored here, but rather explored. Was it justifiable to price the poor out in order to create a tax base?

The author goes on to explain just how the Knapp Commission, and the politics, of the late 1960's further weakened any efforts at law enforcement. While corruption and vice raged all about, by the early 1980's the AIDS epidemic had reared it's head, further victimizing those on the bottom rungs of society, while the politicians and social engineers took almost 7 years to start a simple needle exchange program in an epidemic environment.

Using informants, and taking names in an effort to shut down one of the biggest dealers on the Lower East Side, the author manages to put a small dent in a problem of Biblical proportions.

An engaging portrait of a city in upheaval, and denial, this book puts you on the front lines of the failed War on Drugs, from Coney Island to the Lower East Side. If you grew up in New York City during those years, or even if you didn't, this book will take you beyond "NYPD Blue", "Homicide" and all the rest of the usual cop shows, giving you a ringside seat into the thoughts and actions behind the "War on Drugs." Be careful, you may not like what you read.

"Original Gangster" by Frank Lucas

From the very first page this book keeps you riveted to every word. The story opens in 1936 North Carolina on the morning that three white men, Ku Klux Klan members, come to the Lucas home and kill his 13 year old cousin, Obadiah. The crime was typical, he had looked at a white woman. For this, they blew his head off.

What follows is the real life story of Frank Lucas, notorious for decades as the reigning boss of the drug trade in Harlem; protege to "Bumpy" Johnson, the Al Capone of Harlem. This is a rare and fascinating look behind the African-American organized crime scene from the 1940's through the 1970's. It included drugs, gambling and prostitution. Flavored with many underworld characters, among them "Detroit Red", later to be known as Malcolm X, the book takes in politics, the code of the streets and the corruption that allows it all to exist, unhindered.

The book begins with a short dedication, admonishing the reader to stay in school, get a degree and not to follow in the path of it's author. For anyone who has seen the film "American Gangster" with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, this book will seem familiar. It should. That film was a synopsis of the life of Frank Lucas and his relationship with Bumpy Johnson, his mentor. This book offers so much more. This is the real story, told by the man who lived it. No special effects, just the words, plainly written to chronicle a life spent hustling to the top.

Written a few years after the release of the movie, the reader cannot help but wonder if Mr. Lucas saw the film and then decided to write the book to set the record straight. I believe he did.

"that bird has my wings" by jarvis jay masters

The small letters at the top of the page are no accident. No typo. They are indicative of the humility with which Mr. Masters writes of his life.

Dealt an awful hand at birth, he details his early years vividly. Raised for the first 4 or 5 years in a drug house in Long Beach, California his recollections there are of playing with the multi colored ballons which were popular in the late 1960's for dealing heroin. After being taken from his mother by the Department of Social Services, he is placed in a foster home. He speaks lovingly of Mr. and Mrs. Procks, two elderly Christian folks who never had a child of their own. Theirs may have been the only unconditional love that he has ever known. But this respite from misery doesn't last too long.

He is taken from Mr. and Mrs. Procks and sent to live with the Duponts, as villianous a couple as ever invented by Charles Dickens. Deprivations and beatings are the norm in this house. This is the point where you start to see the system fail the author. His innocence becomes a casualty of the very people who are supposed to protect him.

Running away to Los Angeles he meets and is befriended by "Rags", an elderly black shoeshine man, at the Greyhound Station. After about a week of living at the terminal "Rags" convinces him to be placed in Juvenile Hall.

The juvenile hall is where he first becomes “institutionalized.” He sees the fence surrounding him as being protective rather than restrictive. Having had all the love and it’s attendant experiences snatched from him twice already and with the experience of his last foster parents still fresh in his mind, he is comfortable in the predictability of his life at Juvenile Hall.

Being surrounded by kids whose lives have been as troubled as his own makes him feel “normal.” But he cannot stay there forever and his caseworker tries for a year to find him a home. But everywhere he is taken he can see the signs of abuse in the other childrens eyes, all the while wondering why the caseworker cannot.

After searching unsuccessfully for a year he is transferred, at his own request, to “Boys Town of the Desert.” This is an institution for troubled kids, ones who have been sent there by the courts. They eagerly count down the days until their release, which confuses Jarvis. After all, this is the first place he has been in since the first foster home that seems safe to him. He soon discovers the truth.

The place is run along the lines of a prison, with the inmates organized into rival gangs. At this point his life takes it’s first wrong turns. While the others use the point system to have their sentences shortened so they can go home, he begins to “act out” in order to remain incarcerated. After all, he has no where to go if they release him early. This would mean going back to a foster home, which, given his last experience, is not an option for him.

He is now in the grips of the system and it will have terrible ramifications for him in the years to come. This is the point at which the system truly fails him. All the warning signs are there and yet his case worker remains blind- concerned only with "placing him" somewhere.

After running away and getting caught several times he finally comes to live with his Aunt and Uncle and his cousins. They're into dealing pot and eventually he falls into a pattern of crime and spends most of his life incacerated. Finally he is charged with conspiracy to murder a guard and is sentenced to death. He is currently appealing that sentence based on a technicality, though he still maintains his innocence.

The book is well written and reads quickly. It is astonishing to me how so many people could have failed this kid so badly. His sense of self worth still intact, Mr. Jarvis has written a superb account of one of the most neglected groups in our country- juvenile offenders.

They are locked in a wasteland from which someone must rescue them now or pay the larger bill later. This is an exceptional read.