Name Change for the Better

My friend Gaetano from the Ironbound spotted an item on NJBiz.com yesterday about an event today:

Newark Mayor Cory Booker will address attendees of tomorrow’s Newark Insiders forum series to report on his administration’s progress and to discuss possible collaborations between the city and its business community. The forum is presented by the Regional Business Partnership and Sovereign Bank. It will officially mark the Partnership’s name change to the Newark Regional Business Partnership. . . . The forum will be held at the Washington Square Conference Center, the IDT Building, 520 Broad Street in Newark.

That's a welcome development.
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I was thinking on the way to work (in Manhattan) on the PATH yesterday how close we came to a total disaster. Had it not been for county, state, and federal facilities, like courts, and a few brave corporate citizens, like Prudential, Newark might have been completely destroyed by the white flite that had preceded but massively increased following the Riots. Suburbanites summoned for jury service might have revolted and asked why they should take their lives in their hands just to serve on a jury, against their will, in central Newark, and the corporations that fled to suburban office campuses might have demanded decentralization of all kinds of government facilities out into the suburbs, robbing Newark of core activities.
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But somehow the center held long enuf for Mayor James to stop the outward rush, stabilize the core, and start things coming back in, or at least stabilize them in close orbit around the center. Picture a huge solar flare lifting off the surface of the sun. You wonder if it will fly off into space and become solar wind, or simply arc around and return to the sun again. Either could happen. In Newark's case, the massive flare returned to its place, and the center held. Whew!
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Now Cory Booker picks up where Sharpe James left off. Booker's Rhodes Scholar image helps in the ongoing process of making the word "Newark" respectable again. The general improvement over the past two decades, and especially in the past 6 years (since I moved here — coincidence?), has reached the point where people are starting no longer to be ashamed to 'admit' they're from Newark. I am heartened by the fact that one business group that had not mentioned Newark in its name before, is proud to add it now, and call itself the "Newark Regional Business Partnership". Good for them. May their reputation burnish Newark's, and Newark's, theirs.
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Today's picture is of part of the skyline of Downtown Newark as seen from University Avenue. This is the back of the area shown yesterday. If you look closely you can recognize the low building below the IDT Building as being the Newark Public Library, from its sloped roof. The central, white building is where today's meeting is being held.