The Demise of Newark

A public housing project in Newark before its demolition. Economic troubles, social strife, and other major problems developed for the city in the 20th century.

The Great Depression brought on the start of Newark's urban flight, and manufacturers steadily left the city, taking their jobs with them. By the s, Newark was a poor urban center surrounded by but disconnected from its middle class suburbs. As its white population shrank from , in the s to , in , its black population grew from 70, to , during the same period. The African American population had very quickly become the majority, and found itself concentrated in substandard housing projects and struggling with unemployment and political disenfranchisement.

As the city continued its economic decline in the s and s the middle class population continued its exodus, leaving behind poor and polarized minority communities.

• The Arcade and Other Strange Tales.
• Special Report: The Life and Death of Newark's Eighteenth Avenue School.
• Épopée indienne (French Edition).
• Belwin Master Solos, Volume 1 (Trumpet);
• History of Newark, New Jersey.

By , the population of Newark had more or less stabilized and was estimated at , Thirty-one percent were living below the poverty line and the city's unemployment rate was 12 percent. Fifteen percent of people between the ages of 16 and 19 were high school dropouts. Nearly 60 percent of the population was African American, nearly 30 percent were Hispanic or Latino and 18 percent were white. Newark now contains the largest community of Portuguese immigrants in the US. Newark is New Jersey's largest city and its industrial center. However, areas like the Central Ward still suffer from high levels of crime and poverty.

Newark was founded in by Connecticut Puritans led by Robert Treat from the New Haven Colony to avoid losing political power to others not of their own church after the union of the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. They sought to establish a colony with strict church rules similar to the one they had established in Milford, Connecticut.

Treat wanted to name the community "Milford. Treat and the party bought the property on the Passaic River from the Hackensack Indians by exchanging gunpowder , one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, guns, pistols, swords, kettles, blankets, knives, beer, and ten pairs of breeches.

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The first four settlers built houses at what is now the intersection of Broad Street and Market Street, also known as "Four Corners. The total control of the community by the Puritan Church continued until when Josiah Ogden harvested wheat on a Sunday following a lengthy rainstorm and was disciplined by the Church for Sabbath breaking. It took 70 years to eliminate the last vestiges of theocracy from Newark, when the right to hold office was finally granted to non-Protestants.

Newark's rapid growth began in the early 19th century, much of it due to a Massachusetts transplant named Seth Boyden. Boyden came to Newark in , and immediately began a torrent of improvements to leather manufacture, culminating in the process for making patent leather. In , Boyden, bored with leather, found a way to produce malleable iron. Newark also prospered by the construction of the Morris Canal in The canal connected Newark with the New Jersey hinterland, at that time a major iron and farm area.

Railroads arrived in and A flourishing shipping business resulted, and Newark became the area's industrial center. By , Newark's population stood at 8,, ten times the number. The middle 19th century saw continued growth and diversification of Newark's industrial base. The first commercially successful plastic — Celluloid — was produced in a factory on Mechanic Street by John Wesley Hyatt. Hyatt's Celluloid found its way into Newark-made carriages, billiard balls , and dentures. Edward Weston perfected a process for zinc electroplating , as well as a superior arc lamp in Newark.

Newark's Military Park had the first public electric lamps anywhere in the United States.

He invented the stock ticker in the Brick City. In the late 19th century, Newark's industry was further developed, especially through the efforts of such men as J. From the mid-century on, numerous Irish and German immigrants moved to the city. The Germans were primarily refugees from the revolutions of , [17] and, as other groups later did, established their own ethnic enterprises, such as newspapers and breweries.

However, tensions existed between the "native stock" and the newer groups. In the middle 19th century, Newark added insurance to its repertoire of businesses; Mutual Benefit was founded in the city in and Prudential in Prudential, or "the Pru" as generations knew it, was founded by another transplanted New Englander, John Fairfield Dryden.

He found a niche catering to the middle and lower classes. In the late s, companies based in Newark sold more insurance than those in any city except Hartford, Connecticut. In , Newark's population stood at , in at ,; in at ,; and in at ,, a jump of , in three decades. It was said in It is the red blood in its veins — this basic strength that is going to carry it over whatever hurdles it may encounter, enable it to recover from whatever losses it may suffer and battle its way to still higher achievement industrially and financially, making it eventually perhaps the greatest industrial center in the world".

Sanitary conditions were bad throughout urban America in the 19th century, but Newark had an especially bad reputation because of the accumulation of human and horse waste built up on the city streets, its inadequate sewage systems, and the dubious quality of its water supply.

Newark was bustling in the early-to-midth century. Market and Broad Streets served as a center of retail commerce for the region, anchored by four flourishing department stores: In , Newark had 63 live theaters, 46 movie theaters, and an active nightlife. Dutch Schultz was killed in at the local Palace Bar.

Billie Holiday frequently stayed at the Coleman Hotel. By some measures, the intersection of Broad and Market Streets — known as the " Four Corners " — was the busiest intersection in the United States. In , Public Service counted over , pedestrian crossings in one thirteen-hour period. Eleven years later, on October 26, , a State Motor Vehicle Department check at the Four Corners counted 2, trolleys, 4, buses, taxis, commercial vehicles, and 23, automobiles.

Traffic in Newark was so heavy that the city converted the old bed of the Morris Canal into the Newark City Subway , making Newark one of the few cities in the country to have an underground system. Essex County was the first county park system in the country. The population also grew as immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe settled there. Newark was the center of distinctive neighborhoods, including a large Eastern European Jewish community concentrated along Prince Street.

Problems existed underneath the industrial hum. In , a city commissioner told the Optimists, a local booster club:. While many observers attributed Newark's decline to post- World War II phenomena, others point to an earlier decline in the city budget as an indicator of problems. This was a slow recovery from the Great Depression. The buildup to World War II was causing an increase in the nation's economy. Some attribute Newark's downfall to its propensity for building large housing projects. Newark's housing had long been a matter of concern, as much of it was older. A city-commissioned study showed that 31 percent of all Newark dwelling units were below standards of health, and only 17 percent of Newark's units were owner-occupied.

Vast sections of Newark consisted of wooden tenements, and at least 5, units failed to meet thresholds of being a decent place to live. Bad housing was the cause of demands that government intervene in the housing market to improve conditions. He makes a point of stressing that, in a larger sense, Jewish Newark had begun its inexorable decline decades before, with a steady stream of Jews slowly making their way out of the city and into the surrounding suburbs. But it was the escalating tensions between Jews and blacks that added a sense of urgency to Jewish flight.

Neighborhoods across the country were witness to the seemingly anomalous spectacle of liberal Jews fleeing their homes and neighborhoods at the first sighting of black newcomers — while presumably more conservative blue-collar white ethnics stayed put. The journalist Max Geltman, in The Confrontation: But in Newark things were different. My daughter heard the word schwartze for the first time in her life — from friends whose parents were members of the A.

There was a time when black-Jewish relations in Newark held at least a semblance of promise. But that relatively idyllic state of affairs could not survive the contrasting fortunes of an upwardly mobile Jewish community and a black populace struggling, mostly unsuccessfully, to overcome poverty, prejudice and a series of ill-advised government policies. As the old cities decayed, they were surrounded by a glittering array of shopping malls, corporate parks and residential communities whose newness seemingly underscored the inferiority of urban life.

Although many old cities experienced much the same decline after World War II, few rivaled the losses which Newark sustained in population, vitality, and prestige. The riots of July served as the coffin nails for a Jewish community that had for all intents and purposes died years before. For Jews, Newark today is little more than a graveyard, figuratively and literally: The city is home to at most a few hundred Jewish residents and nearly Jewish cemeteries.

Repeating their names is like reciting Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. Scan this QR code to visit this page online: This advertisement will close in seconds