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Newark USA

A fotojournal about LIVING in Newark USA, New Jersey's largest and most cultured city, by the author of the foto-essay website RESURGENCE CITY: Newark USA.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

What's Wrong with this Picture?

In reviewing on my computer the pix I took Friday, I noticed a detail from the first picture shown yesterday, as below.
[Tombstone with name 'Church' but Star of David, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, southern Newark, NJ]
Do you see the oddity?
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Time's up. The tombstone at center-left has the name "Church" but a Star of David on it. Hm.
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Apparently, there are two subcemeteries in the same area, not separated by any obvious fence, a Catholic Mt. Olivet and a Jewish Mt. Olivet. The crosses of the Catholic portion are plain in the second foto shown yesterday.
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There's another oddity. One of the attractive features of this little cemetery complex is a charming brick building on the west side of the avenue.
[Jewish cemetery administrative building opposite Mt. Olivet Cemetery, southern Newark, NJ]
If you zoom in on a detail of the central portion of the building, you see this:
[Star of David central to little building on Mt. Olivet Avenue, southern Newark, NJ]
We will pass over (you should pardon the expression) the fact that the frames of the double-windows, top and (especially) bottom, form subliminal crosses) and focus on the central feature of the entire building, a Star of David. To the right of that view is this sign:
[Gomel Chesed sign, southern Newark, NJ]
(The Star of David is vertically scrunched in the original; that is not an error in my processing of the foto in my graphics program.) So I thought I must have crossed over into Elizabeth. Most of "Newark" Airport's Terminal A is in Elizabeth (which argues for annexing Elizabeth to a Greater Newark), so the boundary is very close by. But no, when I consulted my .PDF electronic Official Map of the City of Newark, I found that both the building and the sign are in Newark. It is the Society that is in Elizabeth. I did not cross the line.
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In dead-reckoning my way home from there, a place I'd never been before, I passed by the cemetery for B'nai Jeshurun, the congregation that built the magnificent building on MLK that is now Hopewell Baptist Church. I showed here many pix of that structure, outside and in, on
May 20 and 21st, 2006.
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I passed thru part of Hillside, which adjoins Newark on the south, to the west of Elizabeth, and found my way to Petland Discount in the Valley Fair shopping center on Chancellor Avenue in Irvington without once consulting a map. I was very impressed with myself, which gave me confidence to tackle restoring goldfish to a tank that had been empty of fish for months. Success in one thing does tend to inspire action on other things.

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