Jason Stevenson

This essay recalls the Summer of 1998 when I lived and worked in the Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey. It appeared in the Harvard Crimson in November 1998.

MY Newark conversations began long before I arrived there. They started months in advance as I discussed my summer plans with college friends over dining hall tables, and continued as I slowly convinced my parents to allow me to live in this city more famous for burning its neighborhoods than for re-building them.

These first few conversations were always defensive - I could never adequately explain why I wanted to go to Newark. I blamed it on simple idealism, little patience with another summer of long commutes, and the widening gap between what I was taught to me and what I wanted to learn. Having grown-up in the famously quiet suburbs of Ohio, I needed to get away from my past - if only for a college summer. I came to Newark drawn by the elusive aspects of urban collapse it symbolizes; the unhealed scars of the 1960's riots, a sinking public school system, and the deeply negative perceptions its name invokes.

Another factor that drew me to this city is my hobby of drawing old buildings; I spent many hours over the summer sketching the abandoned buildings reflecting Newark's brilliant past. Many of my memorable conversations came about as I sat alone trying to resurrect the old Newark in pencil and paper.

I met Raymond, an un-apologetic drunk, as I sat drawing the vacant S. Klein's department store on Broad Street, Newark's main avenue. Nursing a brown-bagged beer at 10:30 on a Friday morning, Raymond sat down next to me and remembered aloud how S. Klein's once anchored the vibrant string of stores along Broad. Thinking back to the fifties and sixties, he praised the treatment of the "little guy" under the old Italian Mayor Addonizio, the mayor whose bungling and corruption contributed to the 1967 uprising.
"If you wanted a job back then, you go to him - you got a job." Raymond told me while leaning close enough so I could smell his breath. Pointing to where city hall stood, he attacked the current mayor, Sharpe James, "And all that guy James cares about is the suburbs and the rich folks." I must have looked confused; Raymond was an African-American who vilified James, Newark's second black mayor, and praised the infamous Mayor Addonizio who brought the riots to the city. Raymond didn't harbor the suspicions of his stereotype.

Weeks later I realized Raymond's comments were driven less by his knowledge of political regimes, and more by his memories of the old Newark he grew up with. Sitting on he sidewalk with me, Raymond could remember the days when Broad Street bustled with the best shopping in New Jersey. He blamed the city's current distress - sidewalks sparkling with broken glass and grand old buildings in shambles - on the present-day political leaders, rather then unfortunate legacies from the past. Raymond's view struck me as unique; most Newarkers are content to invoke the city's sordid history as an excuse for present and continued failures. His honestly contradictory statements made me realize that Newark is a city with a deep institutional memory still influenced by politicians and events as dead as the buildings I drew. But Raymond showed me that not all of Newark's past should be buried, and that some should be reclaimed and restored.

I met Raymond's urban counterpart the next day in the form of a mounted Newark police officer who patrolled the park adjacent to the brand-new New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). I sat drawing the castle-like turrets of the once-glamorous Military Park building when Officer Eddie leaned down from his horse to look at my sketch. We started to talk about Newark and he blamed the bad reputation of the downtown on the bands of homeless men like Raymond who roamed the streets after the shelters emptied every morning. He shook his head in disbelief when he told me the $180 million NJPAC was built at the center of five homeless shelters and next door to the city's main church soup kitchen.

To illustrate this bad planning, Eddie related a story about the September 1997 grand opening of NJPAC. On duty that night, he watched as a crowd of elegantly dressed concert-goers with $1000 tickets waited to cross the street and enter the Center. From out of the night appeared a shuffling group of homeless men in shabby clothes who walked up and stood silently behind them. Noting their new companions, the out-of-towners in tuxedos and evening gowns shifted uncomfortably and looked sharply at Eddie and the other police officers to intervene. The officers, however, could not prevent the very rich and the very poor from standing together on the same sidewalk and did nothing. As the walk sign blinked on, both groups stepped off the curb and went their very separate ways.

I told Eddie that perhaps the class-mixing experience showed the concert-goers that NJPAC didn't solve all of Newark's social problems and that much still needed to be done. But the policeman wondered how many of those wealthy art patrons would venture back to Newark and NJPAC. I wondered too, but I tried to imagine what the hundreds of homeless men thought of the gleaming glass and brick arts center they passed every day to get a free meal.

My most memorable conversation took place with the troubled past of this city. On a sticky night in late July I took a bus to the corner in the Central Ward where the Newark riots began 31 years before. The Hayes Homes housing projects once stood on this site, but now half these dead buildings are dynamited to rubble and dust. When I arrived at the 17th Ave. bus stop, a large crowd milled about preparing to march in memory of the 26 uprising victims. An excited and youthful marching band, followed by step dancers and the brightly uniformed Little League teams led off the procession as I joined a loose group of residents, activists, and curious onlookers who walked behind.

As we pushed up Irvine Turner Boulevard, past the vibrant bars and vacant lots, the charged night air began to sound with sharp rifle-like cracks and shrieking sirens. But these weren't the sounds of National Guard guns and police sirens that accompanied Newark's demise for five, hot, summer days in 1967, rather the staccato drum beats of the band were loud enough to set off blaring car alarms in the vehicles we marched beside. Heads poked out of upstairs windows and front doors opened in the public housing townhouses that replaced the Hayes Homes as people paused to watch the commotion pass in the street. Feeling the crescendo of noise and emotion, the drums beat a little louder, drowning out and then leaving behind the sounds of car alarms, as the growing crowd crested the hill and marched out of Newark's past.

Conversations in Newark