Urban jumble

Today's picture shows a portion of the view from Mulberry Street looking west, a mix of buildings of differing architectural styles and economic uses, residential and commercial. Note also the steel structure atop one of the buildings, which presumably once supported a billboard but no longer does. The owner should remove that visual clutter, which detracts from the appeal of the building.

Then and (right) now

Yesterday I said I thought I had a picture of a plaque showing George Washington's line of march thru Newark during the Revolution but did not have time to look for it. I found it.

Tho it's impossible to read at this resolution, the fourth dot from the top right is labeled "NEWARK". The leaf shape near the Delaware on the left is an actual oak leaf resting on the plaque, not part of the plaque's design. If you want to see more detail, you need merely drop by Washington Park some sunny afternoon to see it in person.
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You don't have to leave your house at all to see a picture of the construction site of the Newark Arena now going up elsewhere in Downtown. My friend Joe from Belleville alerted me to a webcam that The City of Newark has placed to display progress. The foto is updated regularly (apparently at least every quarter hour, tho I don't know the exact interval). If you would like to check once every couple of weeks, the URL to bookmark is http://www.earthcam.net/users/interface.php?id=1033&projectid=593&clientid=400.

An old patriot town

In this independence week, it is appropriate to remember that Newark played a role in the American Revolution. Newarkers fought the British and hosted patriots.
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Near the PSE&G Plaza shown in the past two days appears this kiosk for directions to local attractions.

Here's a closeup of the bottom plaque, which speaks of Elisha Boudinot, a Newark patriot, who in 1824 hosted the Marquis de La Fayette on a return visit to the country he helped to found.

Lafayette may not have been to Newark before then, but a plaque on Trinity and St. Philip's Episcopal Cathedral, which appears at the third foto gallery of my Resurgence City site, records that Washington led his troops right past it thru Downtown Newark. There is also a plaque in Washington Park about the line of march. I may have a picture of it on disk somewhere but don't have time to look right now.

Classic Twilight Zone

The Sci Fi Channel is showing a marathon of the original Twilight Zone TV series, and I chanced across my favorite episode, "To Serve Man". What I did not remember is that Newark is mentioned prominently in that show. One website gives a plot summary that includes this point:

on a normal April day, with the world facing all its usual problems, a spaceship landed outside Newark, NJ, bearing creatures from outer space.

Golly. Every now and then I see other mentions of Newark in old movies and such. If you see something, let me know and I'll pass it along.
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Today's foto shows yesterday's waterwall in its setting.

I took this picture on a Saturday afternoon, which helps explain why the plaza is empty of people. It is to remedy the absence of people to enjoy Downtown parks and other facilities that developers are now building lots of apartments in the neighborhood. Perhaps five years from now, a similar picture on a beautiful summer Saturday will be filled with people, vendors, and movement — kids with balloons and hot dogs, couples sitting by the waterfall. I'm looking forward to taking pix of that Downtown.

Waterwall

OK. Here's the question. There is a water feature at the plaza in front of the PSE&G Building, a wide low waterfall, the only thing like a fountain there seems to be in Newark.

Is this a fountain, or not a fountain? If you have a strong view one way or the other, let me know at ResurgenceCity@aol.com (also let me know if I may quote you and if you want your name and location noted here).
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Tomorrow I'll show a view of this waterfall in context.

Shiloh

This "Church Day", I present a picture of Shiloh Full Gospel Church, which, as you can see, is just across the street from Saint Rocco's in the Central Ward.

Bookerfest (4 pix)

Today I attended the Inauguration Day Family Festival at the Newark Museum, which featured an appearance by the new Mayor (I almost said "mayor-elect", but he is now actually Mayor), Cory Booker. While there, I re-joined the Museum, to which I used to belong (but I had to let my membership lapse when I was unfairly fired by a Downtown Newark law firm, supposedly because they didn't like my politics as expressed on the Internet — tho that may have been a pretext for an illegal firing). Happily, there was a 10%-off special running today as part of the celebration of the new mayor's installation. The Museum probably assumed — rightly, I think — that hundreds of Newarkers who had never actually been inside the Museum would be there today, and wanted to capture some as members. One good way to do so, tho it wasn't shown prominently (if at all) in the lobby where membership could be taken, was to offer a discount on regular membership. In any case, I lucked out, and the annual individual membership of $50 cost me only $45 today.
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Considering that the requested donation for an adult is $7.00 per visit, this is a great deal, and I encourage others of you who have it in mind to join to do so even if you don't get the 10% discount you could have gotten had you visited today, because once you have a membership, you can drop by anytime you're near without having to pony up seven bucks each time. If you have an hour to fill (note I did not use the despicable idiom "kill" (time)) and you're right there, you just pop in, see the adorable little critters in the mini-zoo, some beautiful objects in a gallery you haven't visited in a while, or the special show of the moment without worrying about paying each time.
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In any case, Booker was running late on his first day, what with the dizzying array of appearances he was scheduled for, from his inauguration in front of a crowd in NJPAC's Prudential Hall, to the Newark Museum appearance, to perhaps an appearance at a free concert at Essex County College, to who-knows-what. I got to the Museum later than I might have liked (that's what happens when you work nites; you don't get up early), but well in time to see him — and his brother, who looks enuf like him (shaved head and all) to make you wonder at first if that could possibly be Cory. But the brother is fat. (Unkind word for an unwise state.) The brother was arriving by limo as I first approached the garden where Cory was to speak inside a magnificent white tent (see below). A number of onlookers were puzzled by the similarity of appearance and the arrival of an obvious VIP in a black limousine. I decided it wasn't Cory, so didn't take a picture.
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I thought I might have time to free my hands of the membership packet I picked up in the lobby, so walked back to my car less than a block away. You may like this: when I first went to park, I found a close-in spot on Washington Street and started to put quarters into the meter, when a nice (black) woman in the car ahead of me went to the trouble of opening her door and telling me it was free today! That is Newark. I just love it here. (I mention race sometimes because every reader is inclined to think his or her own race when s/he sees "woman", and I want to make plain that no matter the race, Newarkers are generally very, very nice — to everybody, not just "their own kind". It is a joy to live among such considerate, mannerly people.)
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After dropping the membership packet on my (car's) front seat, I walked back to the garden, and before I could even pass thru the entryway between brick walls (apt, for "Brick City"), the Great Man Himself appeared. His limo dropped him near the main entrance, and he walked past that entryway, presumably so anyone there could see to follow him to the garden. I asked a cop nearby if it would be OK to take a picture. He asked if I was with a media organization or just an interested citizen, and I showed him my Resurgence City/Newark USA card. He said it should be alrite. So as Booker approached, I got this pic.

I suspect the little girls beside him are his nieces, but do not know that for a fact. He seems devoted to them.
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The Mayor paused at the entrance to the garden to pose for pictures with the Museum's director, Mary Sue Sweeney Price (whose house on Lincoln Park I pictured May 30th), and I got this picture before the formal pose solidified. I also should have gotten a picture of the posed group — but my camera failed. (You can see visual evidence of my camera's mental breakdown in the foto for June 7th.) Darn. I did, however, get this picture of the scene before everyone took their place in a staged foto-op. It shows some media people on-scene.

Booker and such of his Team as came to the Museum (muzeam? to rhyme with Team?) then proceeded to the enormous, wonderful white tent that stands in the garden, and addressed the crowd. The tent seats were less than filled, which disappointed me — except that I got a seat, in the second-last row. Seats toward the front were "Reserved Seating Only". But you wouldn't want to sit there anyway, because the "Millennium Marching Band", made up of kids from at least three public schools, played later, and you'd have been knocked over by the sound waves!
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Booker introduced Ms. Price, praising the Newark Museum as the greatest museum in the entire State of New Jersey (which, plainly, it is; I'm a member. Nyaa nyaa nya nyaa nyaa.), then introduced some 5 or 6 of his Team of councilmembers, starting with Donald Payne, Jr. I applauded politely for all but Ronald Rice, Jr., who ran against his father. I have no use for ungrateful and disloyal sons.
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Then Cory gave us a little peptalk about his hopes for this terrific city.
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I must say that he came across, close up, as more normal and sane than he did on TV. Perhaps there's something about the liting used for TV that makes him look a little crazy-eyed. He does have "lazy eye" (strabismus), meaning his two eyes do not point in quite the same direction. Of course, it is impossible to tell which eye is correct and which is a little off (as with Peter Falk and his glass eye). Apparently his brain has learned how to navigate despite the conflicting signals of two eyes each of which gives slitely different information. But he doesn't have crazed eyes in person.
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I have now been 3 times near the Mayor of Newark, twice with (now-)former Mayor James (see pix toward the end of the second picture gallery on my Resurgence City site for one occasion) and once with Booker. This is one of the advantages of living in a smaller city. I have never seen New York's Mayor Bloomberg (tho I must admit I did see Ed Koch when he was mayor, marching down Ninth Avenue behind a brass band for one International Food Festival).
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Newark's Millennium Public School Marching Band played a couple of numbers, mostly terrific percussives (the drums had two different heads, one clear and one white, which had different sounds). Alas, as it marched out (covering Booker's move into the Museum's buildings), I was sad to note that altho it was drawn from different public schools, it was also drawn from only one race, black. Newark is much more diverse than that, and the organizers of the band should be ashamed of themselves for settling for an all-black band.**
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After the Mayor withdrew to the interior of the Museum, up the stairs from the wonderful garden area, a salsa band, Wil Vega and Friends, started to play. The Vega band is racially much more representative of Newark than the Millennium Band, and very good. Unfortunately, I don't care for salsa, so I went on my way, walking briefly thru the garden, which has been denuded of its artworks, tho the plaques remain. Perhaps they are being repaired or weatherized, to prepare them for year-round exposure to the elements in a sculpture garden. I saw some rust on the concrete platform of one removed work, whose plaque said it was stone and steel. I guess the steel part rusted so the stone part also had to be removed until the entire work could be protected from the elements by some coating or other.
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Here's a picture of the tent — which is perhaps 50 feet deep by 125 feet wide (just a guesstimate) — in its setting.

I have been to the Museum a number of times, and even posed alongside a yak (hmm; where is that picture? — not that I'm as heavy now as I was then) in an area near it, but had never been in the garden before today. There's a lot to see at the museum. As its slogan says, "80 galleries of inspiration & exploration". I think they should add "And a sculpture garden" once the works are returned to their intended locations.
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As I left the garden, I headed first into the Museum by the same stairs Booker used minutes earlier, and saw various activities in the area where members' events are held. (I've been to at least one, where wine and cheese, and veggies and dip, were served in that open court area.)
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There was a two-man band playing in the left-near corner of the inner court (Englehard?); a man making a chalk drawing of a visitor in the left far-corner; a man displaying newly created clay pots, vases and such in the right far-corner; and a table for kids to draw their own visions for Newark up the stairs. It was already 4:15, and the Museum hadn't kicked anyone out, tho the initial announcement said plainly that the inauguration-day event would last only till 4pm. People just didn't want to leave, and a museum's got to be grateful for that.
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I then walked to my car and went off to check out the plaza in front of the PSE&G Building. Jeffrey Bennett, webmaster of the Newarkology website, had sent me two contradictory emails about there being or not being a fountain there, and I needed to see for myself. I knew there was a pool with an overflow waterfall. Does a waterfall count as a fountain? Check the pix Monday and Tuesday (tomorrow is Church Day) and vote.
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I got a couple of pix before my camera failed again. I also tried to take a picture of the immense sword-shaped concrete form in Military Park in front of Gutzon Borglum's Wars of America that Jeff Bennett thinks was once a fountain, but my camera had gone haywire again and the picture did not store. As I was walking away, an Oriental couple asked if I could take a picture of them with their camera. They weren't clear as to what should be in the background, the S. Klein building, the JFK statue and cannons to the left, the Borglum statue on the right. I suggested the Borglum statue and asked if they knew about it. They did not. So I told them that what they saw before them, a couple of hundred feet distant, was the largest bronze statue ever made by the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. Then I took their picture, handed back their camera, and went on my way after asking where they are from. Hawaii. Great! That's about as far as one can get from Newark geographically (and ethnically) and still be in the United States. I don't know why they were walking around and taking pix in Newark, but it's great having tourists in this wonderful city that so many people misunderstand.
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I started for my car. They walked toward the statue. I then decided to ask if they'd like me to take another picture, this one with the statue close by in the background. They gladly assented. I then told them that my sister lived in Hawaii for a while, in one of those communities with a long Hawaiian name that nobody can remember, and handed them my Resurgence City/Newark USA card, saying that if on returning home they told people Newark was nice but their friends thought they were full of crap, they could refer them to two places on the Internet that has pictures galore to prove it.
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Then I headed home, but decided to stop for Chinese food on South Orange Avenue about 3/4 of a mile from my house.
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There was no place to park right out front, but a couple of hundred feet on, I saw a spot. I pulled in and was about to pull up toward the front of a two-car spot when, simultaneously, the driver ahead started to pull out and a (black) woman started to back up into the spot behind me, which she might have had to crowd into had the guy ahead of us both not pulled out. We both waited for the car ahead to leave, then had plenty of room for both our cars. As I exited, we smiled at each other and I said that that worked out fine!
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I had called ahead on my cellphone, but not all my food was ready. While waiting, I chatted with the young Chinese woman behind the counter (and some heavy plexiglas, alas). Someone, years ago, remarked to me that Chinese restaurants in various places adapt to local tastes — which might explain why the Chinese food I had in London, Ontario (or was it Toronto?) perhaps 30 years ago seemed, to me, dreadful. That person also said that it is not customary in China to eat soup with the noodles standardly supplied in Chinese restaurants here. I asked this very nice girl, who is always super-pleasant to me, if she were from China (yes, she said: "Peking" — not "Beijing"; I guess she felt "Peking" would be more familiar to Americans) and then asked if in her area people ate noodles with their soup. She said yes. So there.
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My food was still not ready, which suited me, since I wanted to go a couple of doors down the block to "Hope Basket", a new farmer's market run by Orientals that has milk for $2.49 a gallon and all kinds of fresh produce, including bok choy ("Chinese cabbage"). So when she turned to me and said my food would be ready soon, I told her I'm just going nextdoor and will be right back. When I returned, I remarked that I had bought some bok choy and peppers so I could make my own stir-fry. I had ulterior motives. You see, in some parts of this country, chow mein is made with celery rather than bok choy because bok choy is not locally available. I wanted to make sure that she understood that bok choy is available three doors down (so I don't want to find celery in my chow mein).
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By then, my food was ready, and I headed home after a very pleasant day, one of many pleasant days Newarkers now have in the New Newark. Before we go, let's see one more picture of the magnificent tent in the leafy, restful garden of the Newark Museum, this one showing Newarkers of all ages pouring in to see our new Mayor Booker address his constituents.

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* Something is wrong with both of my Olympus cameras, and I have not yet received a reply from customer support as to what the problem might be. You'd think that having two digital still cameras would be insurance enuf, but it's not. I have one digital camera left (a Canon, I think), which is mainly for videos but has a still-foto capacity as well. Alas, I was in such a rush to get to the post office and then Museum that I completely forgot to take that camera with me. Besides, I haven't used it in months, and the battery might have discharged.

** There was one little girl who might have been white or of mixed race. All the others were plainly black. Tho the adult leader of the band said that the members were drawn from Weequahic, Barringer, and Shabazz High Schools, there were some little kids there who sure did not look like high-schoolers to me.