Documentary crew filming 'Five-Finger Discount' author on changing face of Jersey City

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

Jersey City today is ?radically, radically different? from the Jersey City author Helene Stapinski remembers.

Stapinski, 48, chronicled Jersey City when she was a reporter for The Jersey Journal from 1989 to 1991, and also in her best-selling memoir, Five-Finger Discount, first published in 2001.

The book, which weaves her family's story with Jersey City's history, is the focus of a planned documentary about Stapinski?s family and the resurgence of her hometown. This week, a two-man documentary crew is following Stapinski around as she visits some old haunts, meets the new mayor and points out all the shiny new skyscrapers.

?It's a hip place to live now,? she told The Jersey Journal today outside City Hall. ?It was a not a hip place to live when I grew up here."

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