SPORTING NEWS Nonsense

My friend Gaetano in the Ironbound sent me a link to an opinion piece by someone in the national publication, The Sporting News. Some dumb dame said she couldn't understand why the New Jersey Devils hockey team would move to Newark, because this city is so dangerous nobody from the suburbs would dare venture Downtown after dark. I was, as you might imagine, incensed, and went to the trouble of registering at SportingNews.com in order to post this reply:

Ms. Yorio is out of her mind, and if she runs any red lites in Newark, she should be arrested. I drive in Newark at nite, and I don't want to have to watch out for some scared-rabbit fool running red lites.
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"Crime" is an excuse. RACE is the real issue in the antagonism of some white people to Newark. They think Newark is all-black, when in fact it is only 54% black, and that percentage may be dropping, not rising. Newark is not remotely as dangerous as its reputation, which is at least 10 years out-of-date. Racists looking for "cover" as to their racial fears and distastes pretend that the problem is crime, even tho there have been literally millions of visits to NJPAC, at nite, by white people from the suburbs who haven't had a single bad incident. They've come into the city by car or train, had dinner in the Ironbound, seen a concert, opera, or dance performance, had a terrific time, and lived to tell about it.
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I wander all over Newark at all hours of the day and nite, taking pictures for my fotoblog and have never had a single bad incident from it. I'm white, almost 62 years old, and walk with a slite limp. If I can walk the streets of Newark nite and day without being victimized by those bad old black people – and "blacks" in New York are "black people" in Newark: working-class and middle-class black PEOPLE who have good manners and watch out for good people, of any color – so can the ruf-tuf hockey fans who would attend Devils games.
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I have never in my life attended a hockey game. When the Devils come to town, tho, I will. And other white people who don't live in fear will too.
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Newark is terrific. If you don't know that, you don't know Newark.

I'll check back from time to time to see if anyone comments on my comment.
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Today's foto is part of what cannot be a very large feature, synagogs of Newark. Were there more, there might be a regular "Synagog Saturday" feature. There is, however, only one working synagog left in the city, I think. But there are historical synagogs, now serving other uses, that I can show. I've already shown the two Newark buildings once occupied by Oheb Shalom, the first, on Prince Street, and the second, on High Street (now MLK Boulevard), as well as the former B'nai Jeshurun. The foto below is of a different view of the original Oheb Shalom, with one of the gardens of the Greater Newark Conservancy's Prudential Outdoor Learning Center in the foreground. I hope someday to get inside to take "before" pix and, when the renovation is complete, "after" pix.