Sense of Place

I think this is why I stop to read everything that has By Robert McFadden at the top. He puts me there so the straight news can follow. By the third graf I feel I know the place: A powerful explosion killed a construction worker and critically injured four others in a hardscrabble town in New Jersey yesterday as it leveled a nearly built home and an abandoned apartment building and sent a hurricane of fiery debris, splintered wood and shattered glass flying for blocks around.
The blast — apparently the fault of bumbling vagrants who broke in to the new house to steal pipes for scrap and severed a natural gas line — was yet another blow to the run-down East Ward of Irvington, N.J., an old industrial town west of Newark that has been plagued for years by criminal gangs, drug addicts, prostitutes and poverty.
To its neighbors on a struggling block of trash-strewn lots and modest homes — some occupied by working-class families, others gutted by fires and vandals and boarded up — the three-story house under construction at 20th Avenue and 22nd Street was an island of hope. It was to be sold next week, Mayor Wayne Smith said.

The blast — apparently the fault of bumbling vagrants who broke in to the new house to steal pipes for scrap and severed a natural gas line — was yet another blow to the run-down East Ward of Irvington, N.J., an old industrial town west of Newark that has been plagued for years by criminal gangs, drug addicts, prostitutes and poverty.

To its neighbors on a struggling block of trash-strewn lots and modest homes — some occupied by working-class families, others gutted by fires and vandals and boarded up — the three-story house under construction at 20th Avenue and 22nd Street was an island of hope. It was to be sold next week, Mayor Wayne Smith said.

It's almost like every graf has a character: "Hurricane of Fiery Debris" then "Bumbling Vagrants" then "Island of Hope."

Three thick chunks, at the very top. But it doesn't feel frontloaded.

Here is another one, from about ten years ago.

It was just after 10 o'clock and Harlem had begun like an orchestra to tune up for another great performance. Traffic rumbled. Stores were open. Sidewalk vendors were out. And people moved briskly in the cold December morning, headed for work or shops or favorite haunts, carrying bags like responsibilities.
Across from the famed Apollo Theater, on the southeast corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the gunman appeared out of nowhere at Freddie's Fashion Mart, a white-owned business that for months had been picketed and boycotted over a plan to expand that meant the eviction of a black-owned record shop next door. Feelings had run high. There had been threats.

Across from the famed Apollo Theater, on the southeast corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the gunman appeared out of nowhere at Freddie's Fashion Mart, a white-owned business that for months had been picketed and boycotted over a plan to expand that meant the eviction of a black-owned record shop next door. Feelings had run high. There had been threats.

Who else sets the stage this well? Who are you guys reading?