East Camden

A man beaten on Nov. 2 succumbed to his injuries on Friday making him the 58th homicide victim in Camden. The death matches the record number of homicides in the city set in 1995. Gregory Holder, 45 of Cherry Hill died Friday at about 12:30 p.m. The death was announced Saturday morning by Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk and Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson. Holder was assaulted on Broadway and Berkley Streets on Nov. 2 following an argument with two men over a drug transaction, officials said.

There was a song in 1994 called "A View of Camden" about a Philadelphia woman whose apartment overlooked the Delaware River and a New Jersey city she could hardly see. People living in Camden in 2012 say they, too, can barely recognize the city - particularly in recent headlines about horrifying crimes, floundering schools, and pervasive poverty. There's also that counter-intuitive plan to replace the city police department with a new county force. Posts on Facebook, YouTube and elsewhere bemoan the media's focusing on the city's potentially record-breaking homicide toll (48 so far this year)

Camden City recorded its 48th homicide of the year on Tuesday, creeping closer to its record of 58. Stephen Thomas, 18, of Camden was shot multiple times around North 35th Street and Rosedale Avenue in the East Camden neighborhood around 8:20 p.m., the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and city police said. Thomas was found lying in the street when authorities arrived. He died shortly afterward at Cooper University Hospital. The record of 58 homicides was set in 1995. With more than a quarter of the year left, 2012 is on pace to have about 65. Two of the most grisly homicides this year took the lives of children several weeks ago. Authorities are looking into whether those killings were linked to a virulent strain of the drug PCP. Chevonne Thomas, 33, decapitated her 2-year-old son, Zahree, on Aug. 22 in the Parkside section and placed his head in the freezer before committing suicide.

The sepia-tone photographs, some dating from the early 1900s, tell the story of another era, when Camden had a close-knit Jewish community, when residents along Kaighns and Haddon Avenues knew each other for generations and showed up to land a hand when someone was sick. Through most of the 20th century, Jewish shopkeepers, judges, lawyers, and doctors helped build the city, and developed institutions and agencies to care for others in the community. For Ruth Bogutz, the images she has collected evoke warm memories of a golden age in Camden - from about 1920 to 1970 - before its Jewish residents dispersed to the suburbs.

The sepia-tone photographs, some dating from the early 1900s, tell the story of another era, when Camden had a close-knit Jewish community, when residents along Kaighns and Haddon Avenues knew each other for generations and showed up to land a hand when someone was sick. Through most of the 20th century, Jewish shopkeepers, judges, lawyers, and doctors helped build the city, and developed institutions and agencies to care for others in the community. For Ruth Bogutz, the images she has collected evoke warm memories of a golden age in Camden - from about 1920 to 1970 - before its Jewish residents dispersed to the suburbs.

When 18-year-old twins Jordan and Brandon Tabb walk into Latino Barbershop II in East Camden, they are greeted with a smile - and responsibilities. The brothers help barber Jorge Maldonado mop the floors and wipe the windows between clients, or sometimes before or after business hours. Cleaning is part of working at a small business, Maldonado, 24, tells them, stressing to his young friends that running a business is hard work. Since January, Maldonado has been mentoring the twins as part of a citywide program through the Center for Family Services, a nonprofit that runs more than 40 social-services programs in South Jersey.

The Fresh Grocer chain of Drexel Hill signed a letter of intent Monday to open a store in a planned Camden transit village, pending a state decision on Thursday whether to approve $50 million in tax credits for the entire village project. The Fresh Grocer would be part of the long-delayed Haddon Avenue Transit Village project, which has been in the works since 2008 but has yet to put a shovel in the ground. One of the main issues was finding a supermarket to anchor the planned mixed-use development in a city that has only one supermarket for its 77,000 residents.

High noon, downtown Camden. The young blond woman staggering along Broadway in ultrashort shorts makes it clear she doesn't want any help. But a block away, Maxine Bennett eagerly waves to the Covenant House van I'm riding in. The privately funded nonprofit agency "really got me what I needed," says Bennett, 22, who on this occasion needs a ride to her Fairview home with daughter, Paris, 1. "Things are getting better," Maxine says as...