Leafy "Projects"

Yesterday I took a little trip, 1.7 miles from my house to that of a co-worker, to take pix of her 18-year-old son for possible use on a CD album cover. He's a rapper. Alma said that he wanted to take some pix of "the projects", and I pictured high-rise urban warehouses for the poor. She said the project in question was across the street. Well, I've been by Alma's house, and didn't notice any "projects". She told me by phone that they are right across the street, a bunch of three-story buildings. So today, when I went to her house, I looked, and sure enuf, there are indeed a bunch of three-story, brown-brick apartment buildings across from her townhouse.
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I had seen these buildings from the South Orange Avenue side, and wondered what they were. They didn't seem as nice as the New Community Corporation housing complexes of similar height and density. Alma says they are a Newark Housing Authority complex: "projects". My friend Joe from Belleville (a suburb just over the Newark line to the north), thinks they are the Stephen Crane Houses. (The famed short-story writer was born in Newark.)
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These are nothing like what one thinks of when s/he hears the term "the projects". Here's a picture.

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Here's another picture.

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Newark has had some horrible high-rise projects in the past, but the City Government long ago recognized that the idea of warehousing the poor in floor after floor of densely packed ghettos was insane, so started demolishing such projects years ago. A short film of the demolition of the last of them, the hideous Stella Wright Homes, appears at http://members.aol.com/ResurgenceCity/Stella.html.
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But the bad old days in Newark are gone. Many other cities can learn a lot from Newark.

Blackout on Smith Street

When I drove up to my house on coming home from work last nite, I thought the porch lite had finally burned out. Then I realized the whole block was dark.
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Two police cars, lites flashing but no siren, had pulled up from far behind while I was still on South Orange Avenue (the main drag of my part of Newark, the Vailsburg section) and, much to my surprise, turned left onto Smith Street with me. I pulled over, not thinking they could be after me, and they passed by to go further up Smith. In the direction of my house. Hmm.
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I followed. They went past my house, thank goodness. I parked, turned off my headlites, and only then noticed the blackout.
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As my eyes adjusted to the gloom (no full moon, alas) I saw some neighbors out on the sidewalk opposite my house and asked how long this had been going on. About an hour. This happened several months ago, a miniblackout affecting only my immediate neighborhood, so my neighbors, Italians and blacks, were chatting about a possible cause, maybe an old transformer probably installed around the same time as our houses were built. I said, "My house was built in 1930. I'd be breaking down by now myself."
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There was a streetlite on at the end of the block (a very, very long block), and they speculated that a new transformer had been put in for that part of the street for a new daycare center built by Unified Vailsburg Service Organization, a local nonprofit group. Sanford Avenue, one block west, and Mead Street, one block east, had lites. Only our block was out.
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We were all pleased that the police had been circling during the blackout, to prevent any trouble (I was glad to see, as I observed, "Our tax dollars at work."). Newark is like that. It's a lot safer and a lot better-policed than most people imagine.
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They probably needn't have bothered. My block is ordinarily very safe. When I went to my car to go to work that very morning, I found that I had left the driver's-side window completely open, down to the door! Smart, huh? Nothing was disturbed. Nothing touched. A $300 digital camera was in its place in the glove compartment. (I carry a camera with me at all times to document Newark for my Resurgence City website). Still, you've got to be glad to see the police concerned with preventing crime, since this country has enormous trouble convicting criminals after the fact.
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My neighbors were grumbling a bit about our own transformer (or whatever) not being replaced yet, despite two short blackouts in a single nite several months ago. I said I would write the mayor a letter except that (due to the blackout) my computer's not working! Then I bid them goodnite, wondering what I could do of any use in the dark. I have one candle and no candleholders. No emergency lantern. These are things I should remedy if Smith Street doesn't get a new transformer (or whatever). I've got flashlites, but you can't do much while holding a flashlite, even if anything worked.
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But nothing worked. I couldn't reheat in the microwave the McDonald's hamburger I brought home from the office. I could cook with the stove, but couldn't see what to cook! No TV. No checking email. No sorting papers (I had just that morning figured out a way to keep the kittens from scattering papers, but had to round them up before I could protect them within plastic bins.)
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Well, I'd been up since around 8:30 that morning. I'd just go to bed early and trust that everything would be back to normal by morning. Just as I sat down on the bed and started to take my cellphone off, the lites went back on. The Electric Age had returned to Smith Street, and the police could return to guarding less fortunate parts of our fair city.
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But as for me, I had decided to go to sleep, so I went to sleep. All the work I might have done that nite would still be there the next morning. And it was.

Welcome to Newark USA

"Newark USA" will be an occasional journal about LIVING in New Jersey's largest and most cultured city.
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I was born and raised in New Jersey, but in the 'burbs: suburbs and exurbs (outer suburbs). At age 19 I left NJ ('enjay') for New York City. The exurbs are no place for young gay men. After 35 years in Manhattan, however, the crowds, pressures, lack of living and storage space, constant hassles from panhandlers, constant menace of con artists and criminals of various sorts, and on, and on, had become oppressive. When offered a buyout by the landlord of my building, who wanted to get rid of a long-term tenant to raise the rent starkly, I jumped at the chance to buy a house, using the buyout as downpayment. But where?
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I was still working in New York at the time, Midtown, 42nd and Madison, and had been walking to work from West 46th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Plainly, I couldn't afford to buy in Manhattan. Queens? Queens is so Archie Bunker, characterless, crowded, urban. I'd have to ride the subways and might not get a seat for a trip that could take an hour or more. And Queens (or Brooklyn: more character but higher prices and greater density) is still New York, with all the urban negatives of New York, plus high prices and high insurance rates.
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Ah, New Jersey, where I'm from! But where in NJ? I wanted a separate house, not attached to another, with windows and yards on all sides. Where could I afford that? I wanted some urban conveniences and (since I didn't have a car) good public transportation, 24 hours a day to and from Manhattan. That limited me to areas served by the PATH: Jersey City, Harrison, and Newark.
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Jersey City didn't much appeal to me, unless I could get a view of Manhattan, and places like that would likely be too expensive and too urban, no separation from your neighbors, no yard of size for gardening. And in a quick driving survey of the area, that seemed the case. Harrison, I knew nothing about and didn't care to know. No panache.
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My friend Joe, who lives in Belleville, a suburb just north of the Newark line, drove me around Downtown Newark one day to point out that Newark has everything a great city needs, even a subway. I was impressed, so if I could find a house I could afford with a yard and driveway, Newark it would be.
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I found the house: an old, unpretentious, three-story, white frame house on a double urban lot, 55 feet wide by 100 feet deep. Little front yard. Porch 16 steps above the sidewalk, so I could sit with family or friends and chat with passing neighbors if I wanted but have some physical separation from strangers. Side yard to the left with room for plantings of my choice. Useless little side yard to the right, but the driveway to the next building is right alongside, between my house and that one, so I have lots of separation from the neighbors there too. Driveway the entire depth of the property to the far left. Back yard almost 50 feet wide and maybe that deep. Trees, big trees, all over! I have front stairs. I have back stairs. Two baths, one on the ground floor, with stall shower; one on the second (bedroom) floor, with a tub shower. Great big room on the third floor with windows on three sides for my office. Almost full basement (unfinished) with a washer and dryer already in place.
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I'll take it. And I did.
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That's how I ended up in Newark USA. I'll have been here four years next month. Owning a house can be costly - I have to replace my roof, for instance, and last month I spent a small fortune trimming the trees to give me more lite and stop one of my oaks from attacking my neighbor's roof. But the perks are great.
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I just planted 11 azaleas and 5 rhododendrons in my left side yard. They will provide me with greenery year-round and flowers for weeks at a time each and every year. Plant once, enjoy in perpetuity. I have tulips and irises that I planted last autumn blooming in my little front yard. The hyacinths and daffodils I also planted last autumn have finished. Lilies have come up but not yet bloomed. The great big yew to the right of my front stairs has lite-green tufts of new growth against the dark green of prior years. And my new little strawberry plant already has five flowers on it, which means five strawberries in the making, and I just planted it.
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So if you're jammed, crammed, and frazzled in Manhattan, and want a greener and saner place with low house prices and taxes, lower cost of living, and less hassles of all kinds, think of moving to Newark. Because it's not yet well known that Newark has bounced back and is doing really well, and is a very pleasant and surprisingly safe place to live, housing prices are still very low compared to other places, and taxes in Newark are much lower than in even its immediate suburbs. Because an influx of white middle-class, young, artsy-craftsy, gay, and "buppie" types (Black Urban Professionals) is only in its first stages, you can still find real bargains, and not just fixer-uppers (tho if you're good with a hammer and paintbrush, there are even more great houses to choose from). So come to Newark. There's plenty of room, and we'd love to see you.