Like other residents who bought in Gordon Plaza in the 80s and early 90s,
“It’s gone from the American dream to a nightmare,” said Perkins, now 68. In his backyard, a giant orange tree grows, but he can’t eat any of its fruit.
“Sometimes I think it’s criminal,” said Perkins. “How can you treat human beings like this?”
For 50 years, from 1909 to 1958, the city’s medical, municipal and industrial waste was sent here to be incinerated and sprayed with now banned pesticides. In the late 90s city officials started planning low-income housing developments here.
Marilyn Amar doesn’t like to go outside. She keeps the windows and doors at her tidy Gordon Plaza home closed, dusts every day and changes the air vents “constantly”. A friend takes care of her lawn so she doesn’t have to be exposed to the dust,
Sheena Dedmond, 35 is sitting on her plush, champagne-colored couch, once owned by her mother
Her mother died of cancer her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor and she has watched nearly everyone on her block either get cancer or suffer from other disease