Word: newarker
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...Raymond, an un-apologetic drunk, as I sat drawing the vacant S. Klein 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 in the fifties and sixties. Thinking back to those days, he praised the treatment of the "little guy" under Mayor Hugh Addonizio, the politician whose bungling and corruption led to the catastrophic 1967 riots...
...later realized Raymond's comments were driven less by his knowledge of political regimes, and more by his memories of the Newark he grew up with. As an old man, he 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 than unfortunate legacies from the past. He showed me that not all of Newark's past should be buried, that some should be reclaimed and restored...
...antithesis of Raymond the next day in the form of a mounted Newark police officer outside the brand-new New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). As we talked about Newark, he blamed the bad reputation of the downtown on the bands of homeless men like Raymond who roamed the streets. He shook his head in disbelief when he told me the city built the $180 million NJPAC in the midst of five homeless shelters and next door to the city's main church soup kitchen...
...most memorable conversation occured at an event to remember the troubled past of the 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 Rev. William Hayes housing projects once stood on this site, but now half these dead buildings have been dynamited into rubble and the rest wait to collapse. When I arrived at the 17th Avenue bus stop, a large crowd milled around preparing to march in memory of the uprising victims. Soon a youthful marching band, followed by dancers...
...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 as people paused to watch the commotion pass...