Tourism; Museum Website Redesign

Mayor Booker seems keen on bringing in outside, private money in the form of investments to bring business expansion and jobs. What about tourism? Newark doesn't have a Convention & Visitors Bureau. Why not? There are towns 1/10th our size that have a Convention & Visitors Bureau. Over 30 million people pass thru Newark Airport every year; millions more pass thru the city proper in motor vehicles on the Turnpike, Parkway, I-280 and 78, or on trains passing thru the wonderful Art Deco Newark Penn Station who don't give so much as two seconds' thought to stopping off to see what Newark has to offer. Why is that? Because neither the City of Newark nor the business community devotes so much as five seconds to promoting tourism.
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Do we have anything tourists might want to see? Well, let's think about that for a moment. We have a first-class Performing Arts Center, but as its name suggests, it is basically oriented to New Jerseyans, not to distant tourists. I don't know if NJPAC does any publicity in the tourism industry outside New Jersey.

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Group of seniors takes guided tour of the interior of the Cathedral.

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We have a world-class museum with very high-quality art, a planetarium, science collections, and mini-zoo. But tourists never visit museums. Oh, wait. That's one of the top things tourists look for, museums! Which collections in the Newark Museum would most appeal to which tourists? We need to think about that and do some targeted publicity to those audiences. For instance, Asiaphiles, be they from the U.S., Europe, or Asia itself, might want to see the Museum's vaunted Tibetan collection, especially now that (a) outside tourism to Tibet is restricted and (b) policies of the Communist Chinese government seem deliberately to be destroying Tibetan traditional culture, flooding the region with people who are ethnically and culturally Chinese rather than Tibetan.
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The Museum's extensive American art collection would appeal to many audiences, domestic and foreign, varying from jingoists at home to enthusiasts of everything American from Japan, Europe, and Latin America. The Frank Stella five-panel piece, Voice of the City of New York Interpreted, which has its own room, so struck my friend Joe from Belleville that he sat on the bench in front of it and listened to the taped commentary on the headsets provided for that room.
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In looking for more examples of things at NMu of special appeal to tourists, I just went to the Newark Museum's website and find, to my absolute delite, that it has been redesigned, with a lite-colored background instead of the dismal, offputting black background it has had for years. What a wonderful change! Thank you, Newark Museum. There still, however, seem not to appear on the website any floor plans. They need to post them so people planning ahead can mentally map out what they particularly want to see, before they even get to the building.
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While at the NMu website, I thought to pull out my wallet and check my membership card (I received a renewal notice but hadn't dealt with it yet), and found that today is its last valid day, so I renewed online. $50 (cheap!) for an individual membership allows you to visit as often as you like (as against $7 per visit). I have also received at least two copies of Access, a quarterly Newark Museum magazine. (The Summer 2007 edition features a great, closeup picture of the Wars of America statue I mention below. Curiously, I don't see a subscription to that magazine mentioned among member benefits.) Plus you get invites to nifty get-togethers of the artsy-craftsy, public-spirited set, of which I am of course a member, tho they don't yet issue membership cards. Wouldn't that make a great Newark organization? "The Artsy-Craftsy Public-Spirited Set of Newark" — "Inc."!)
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I see that, opening at the NMu in September, is an exhibition of fotografy and video art from India. Great idea. There are now major contacts between the U.S. and South Asia, and there are many Indian businessmen (not just the "Desi" residents of Edison and Iselin) who will gladly go out of their way to see what an American museum is saying about the Subcontinent. (The Museum's webmaster should correct the semi-literate phrase at that page, "is comprised of". "Comprise" is best used in active voice.)
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What else, might which tourists like to see? The African collection (particularly appealing to black Americans and Caribbean, European, and Asian visitors who cannot or do not want to visit that troubled continent). There's a Fire Museum outside the main building, which I didn't even know about but see on the website. There are lots of professional and volunteer firefiters who would like to see that, if it's any good. Indeed, many would want to see it even if it isn't particularly good! "Art of the Americas" (North, South, and Central) should appeal to tourists from various cultures represented .
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Let me address, for a moment, the Museum's directors. If you display a few choice pieces of Canadian art in a Canadian gallery, you can increase your visits from Canadians by a LOT, because Canadians are always complaining that they are ignored. I wanted to search the site for "Canada" and/or "Canadian", but find no search function on the site. You might think about adding one.
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And don't shy away from the terms "Indian", "American Indian", and "Amerind" out of misguided political correctness. Your designation "Art of the Americas" obscures the fact that a lot of that art is INDIAN art. The Smithsonian isn't shy about having a Museum of the American Indian in New York City. And that must increase tourism to that institution. "Art of the Americas" obscures the Indian element and thus does not engage people who want to see (American) Indian pottery, basketry, beadwork, deerskin leggings, and the like. The mere fact that "Indian" can be confused with "India" is not a good reason to avoid the term for what in Canada is called "First Nations" art. Altho some organizations promote "Native American", most American Indians use "Indian" for themselves. Think about the militant organization "American Indian Movement". It's not "Native American Movement".

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We see here the Indian half of Gutzon Borglum's ''Indian and Puritan" statue at the northern end of Washington Park.

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What else is there for tourists in Newark? In the arts area, Aljira, Gallery Aferro, City Without Walls; Gutzon Borglum's Wars of America, seated Lincoln, and Indian and Pilgrim, as well as the magnificent interior of the Old Essex County courthouse.

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The same day as the seniors tour I chanced across in other fotos today,
I overheard a man telling a woman outside the Cathedral that this is the
only cathedral with twin towers turned diagonally to the building's axis.
I don't know if that's true but found it interesting, so thought I'd pass it along.

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In the religious-buildings area of touristic interest, Newark has the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Peddie Memorial, Sacred Heart of Vailsburg, and Hopewell Baptist Church (a double attraction, for Christians and Jews, since it was formerly synagog B'nai Jeshurun).

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Here's another view of the interior of the Cathedral taken during the seniors' group tour.

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For dining and relaxation, especially for people thinking of staying overnite in Newark, there are the Iberian restaurants and Portuguese bakeries, and street scene in the Ironbound (special audiences: Portuguese and Brazilians, and people interested in those cultures, such as students learning Portuguese, there being very few places in the United States where you can practice Portuguese on the street). And then there are the parks Downtown, with their statues: Luis Muñoz Rivera (of special interest to Puerto Ricans); José Artigas (Uruguayans); José Martí (Cubans); JFK (many admirers, from many places). And of course we will soon (less than three months!) have a major stadium for hockey games and concerts, with public ice-skating on a second sheet of ice.
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Maybe no one of those things – nor many more that other people could come up with; this list is just off the top of my head – would in itself be enuf to draw significant numbers of tourists, but forming connections among all these things in the minds of tourists would make at least a day trip from Manhattan or a sidetrip on the way into Manhattan from Newark Airport attractive to many different types of tourist. Heck, differential pricing between Manhattan hotels and Newark hotels (including the one the Devils are supposed to build as part of the Arena package) might induce some tourists to stay in Newark and go into Manhattan as their day trip(s), if they thought there was anything to see in Newark. Tourists don't know that there IS something to see in Newark, because we haven't done anything to tell them.
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Tourism is "free money". You don't have to build anything. You just show off what you already have, and the only thing you have to create is a visitors' center, some brochures or comprehensive tourbook, and a few businesses to offer half-day or full-day guided bus tours, walking tours, and the like. Startup costs for an official Convention & Visitors Bureau should be minimal, and might qualify for State aid from New Jersey Travel and Tourism. So let me publicly urge, of Mayor Booker: Do it! Oh: Do it, please.
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The foto below shows something that would puzzle most sightseers: a statue of Abraham Coles in Washington Park. Abraham who? Newarkology's Lincoln Park Statues page says something about who he was, in connection with a statue of something else, that his son donated to the city from the father's sculpture collection. Modern visitors to the Coles statue will have no idea who he was, and will be very puzzled by the plaque on the pedestal, which is headed "The Rock of Ages", described as "A National Song of Praise". No, that's not the hymn we all know ("Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee"). Coles's "National Song of Praise" is today unknown but was very big in the 19th Century. This is the kind of thing a tourguide (written or auditory; person, book(let), or device) would need to clarify. Of course, inasmuch as Abraham Coles is now unknown, and a second statue relating to him is in Lincoln Park, it might be a good idea to move the Coles bust out of Washington Park, which is in the heart of things, to Lincoln Park, a bit out of the way, and replace it at Washington Park with something more attractive to today's tourists.

Didn't Know That

Gaetano sent me a link to an article on PoliticsNJ.com today about radicals being unhappy with the Booker Administration, and about my councilman, Ron Rice, Jr., defending the hard necessities of cutting jobs at City Hall (tho not his). The main thrust of the article is that outside sources of public money have dried up, and if the City cannot bring in private money, it has little option but to cut public employment — altho Booker has apparently found city jobs for some campaign contributors. Booker's pro-business attitude and coziness with outside money has riled local radicals.
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I was particularly intrigued by two things in the article. First, this paragraph:

Newark has always been a city of radicals. The most radical of American Revolutionaries, Tom Paine, wrote the Crisis Papers in Trinity Churchyard before the diminished U.S. forces pressed on to a key victory in Trenton. While the Victorian Henry James was writing about lady’s drawing rooms, Newark-born Stephen Crane forced the country to take a look at "Maggie, Girl of the Streets," the country’s first fiction expose of urban poverty. Then there was the Socialist Party of America — founded in Newark — where else — and the consolidation of Black Power that rose out of the 1967 Newark riots.

I had never heard that Thomas Paine, one of my heros, wrote anything in Newark, so checked it out. Sure enuf, he began writing one of his most important works, The American Crisis, in Newark. Moreover, the text itself, not far in, specifically mentions Newark. You know this work. It's the one that starts:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

That's something many of us try to remember when times are difficult, along with quotes like "When the going gets tuf, the tuf get going." (Attributed to Joseph P. Kennedy, father of JFK)
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There is a little error in that paragraph. It is the Socialist LABOR Party that was established in Newark.
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The second thing I found particularly interesting about the article was this quote from Ron Rice, Jr., the City Council member for my area, the West Ward:

Of a City Hall cadre of nay-sayers intent on magnifying Booker’s first-year stumbles, Rice says, "Those people coming to the meetings should be on those boards and commissions. They need to be part of the solution. I tell them, ‘I need you to step up.’"

My younger (or perhaps I should say "less-old") sister serves on the civilian complaint board for the police department of Long Beach, California, and has recommended I look into serving on a city commission to my liking in Newark. So I thought I'd contact Rice and see what kinds of commissions have vacancies. Alas, email addresses of Municipal Councilmembers are apparently very carefully guarded secrets. None appears on the City's website. And something has gone wrong with that website recently. So I sent the following message via the City's online Suggestion Box:

Your City Directory alphabetic shortcut at the top of the page is not working and has not been working for days. Did someone reorganize as to put a subdirectory between the main site and subsites, then forget to insert that directory name in every URL? Pls fix that. Also, you need to show email addresses for key figures, or at least feedback forms for members of the City Council, Board of Ed, etc., not just a feedback form for the mayor. Ron Rice is cited in a PoliticsNJ.com article today as suggesting that people join a City commission, and I wanted to write to ask what commissions need members, but see no email address. (My sister serves on a Long Beach, CA city commission and has recommended I do the same.) Not providing email addresses/feedback forms slows down the process and dissuades people from participation, for giving them the impression that the City really does NOT want to hear from them.

Today's foto shows the source of much of Booker's campaign funding and hoped-for private investment, seen past the corner of the Essex County Parks Administration Building on Clifton Avenue in the near North Ward.

Newark is really pretty close to the financial capital of the world, isn't it? Altho Jersey City is closer to Manhattan, Newark has more going for it in terms of centrality to transportation and other infrastructure. Smart investors from Manhattan should find Newark much more sensible a place to put at least some of their money now that they have a friend in City Hall.

Sacred Heart of Vailsburg, Interior

This "Church Day" at the Newark USA fotoblog, I present Part II of a two-part presentation about my neighborhood Catholic church, the "Interior" of magnificent Sacred Heart of Vailsburg. Part I, the Exterior, only today appeared at the entry for May 6th, where I had originally posted only a placeholder, as promise of an entry of many fotos to come.
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It took me almost 3 months to get the last foto I needed for that post, because the church's doors are almost always locked. Once I got that foto, I realized that I had so many fotos that it made better sense to split them between two entries than put them all into one blog post.
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Sacred Heart of Vailsburg is a great church, in physical dimensions as much as in architectural distinction:

211' long, 142' transept, 65' nave, 70' height, 168' tower * * *

This massive gray church, with its majestic towers and entranceway, was built on a scale usually associated with cathedrals. It is an adaptation of the Baroque style, simplified and with Art Deco details, typical of the 1920s when it was designed and constructed. When built, it was the largest parish church in the United States. The preacher at the dedication ceremony in 1929 was Rev. Fulton J. Sheen. The roof is copper, now toned into a uniform green. * * *

The striking rose window features a crucifix that divides it in a three dimensional manner. The soft glow in this window is produced by alabaster, not glass.

The exterior is restrained, almost austere, but elegant. The interior is thus much warmer than you might expect. Here's a tall view of the nave.

And this is a wide view from the same location.

Here is a closer view of the altar area with applied, Art Deco-style mosaics of stone in the apse beyond.

Although Gothic churches have more window space than do Romanesque, of which this 'Baroque' church is a variation, there are striking stained-glass windows on both sides of the building. Here's one side.

Here's the other.

One of the most striking, and unusual, features of this church is a round painting on the ceiling. Unfortunately, there are hanging lanterns around it that produce glare. This foto is the best I could do to show the whole thing. Glare has washed out the left side.

I don't know what the stylized objects around the central figure are supposed to represent. The foto above is a good representation of what the painting actually looks like. The following foto shows the central figure as processed in my graphics program to bring out detail. The colors are falsely more dramatic, but the figure's fineness is made plain. (I zoomed in with my graphics program rather than camera, so it is a tad fuzzy. Pretend it isn't.)

The last two pix today show a wide view of the South Orange Avenue end of the building, with the doors open! This is darned near thrilling to me, since those doors — well, all of the church's doors — are almost always locked. They are beautiful doors (see close views May 6th), but a locked door is a wall. Doors welcome visitors; walls block them.

You can't see it here, and indeed I had to zoom in within my graphics program to read it, but under the circular window (alabaster!) is this legend:

WE•ADORE•THEE•O•CHRIST•AND•PRAISE•THEE•BECAUSE•
BY•THY•HOLY•CROSS•THOU•HAST•REDEEMED•THE•WORLD

Newark is very lucky to have a number of magnificent buildings, from the Cathedral* Basilica of the Sacred Heart, to the National Newark Building, to Peddie Memorial Church, to Sacred Heart of Vailsburg. Thanks to landmarking, we are not likely to lose any of these great buildings to development, and can even dare hope that the quality of Newark's historical landmarks will inspire developers to produce new buildings of comparable distinction long into the future.

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* In the name "Cathedral Basilica", "Basilica" is the noun and "Cathedral" is an adjective, describing the kind of basilica it is: one that contains the "cathedra", the throne of a bishop — or, in the case of Newark's basilica, an arch bishop.

Outdoor Festival at Lincoln Park

I didn't hear about this until most of the event was over, but one day remains to the four-day Second Annual Lincoln Park Music Festival in the southern portion of Downtown Newark. The story Gaetano sent me from today's Star-Ledger says:

A hip-hop concert tomorrow [Sunday] from noon to 8 p.m. will feature Bobbito Garcia & End of the Weak hosting the Rock Steady Crew's 30th anniversary Celebration with performances by EPMD, Naughty by Nature, Biz Markie and Grandmaster Melle Mel.

Food, arts and crafts, and local vendors will accentuate the activities, along with a Green Vendor Market, environmental program, children's skateboarding camp and painting demonstrations by artists.

Today's fotos are of two prominent structures in the Lincoln Park area, the former South Park Presbyterian Church, only the facade of which remains, and Lincoln Park Towers.

South Park Church is the building from the front steps of which Abraham Lincoln briefly addressed Newarkers on February 21, 1861. His remarks, along with pictures of the church in its prime, are shown on Newarkology's South Park page. It is due to that appearance that what was originally South Park was renamed Lincoln Park after the assassination of the President.

The church became structurally unsound but did not collapse of its own weight. It suffered a fire. You can see what may be a melted stained-glass window in the side of the church. Or perhaps it was just destroyed by vandals.

Altho there has been talk of building a Museum of African American Music, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, that would incorporate the church's remaining facade, I have heard of no progress in that direction. The Smithsonian is already developing a National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, but the Smithsonian's website does show a Newark music institution, affiliated with the LPCCD (see below) among its affiliations. A placeholder page at the LPCCD website says what the Museum is intended to do, but says nothing about when it is expected to be completed.
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The Lincoln Park Towers building appears, from what little I find on the Internet, to be an "affordable" apartment building. It has a very handsome entry archway.

The music festival is in what is now an up-and-coming neighborhood, the Lincoln Park/Coast Cultural District ("LPCCD"). A community organization of the same name has more information about the festival on its website. LPCCD also has information about residential developments in that area that a reader alerted me to earlier this week.
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You might think, while in the neighborhood, of stopping in at the City Without Walls gallery at 6 Crawford Street. But unless it has changed its schedule to accommodate the festival, it's closed Sunday.

In researching the Lincoln Park neighborhood, I found the website of the Greater Newark & Jersey City LISC ("Local Initiatives Support Corporation"), which is active in the Lincoln Park area. Gaetano also alerted me to the inauguration this past Tuesday of the Newark Community Foundation. The Star-Ledger says:

The Newark Community Foundation will be the first citywide group that will manage donations from individuals, businesses and philanthropic groups and fund grants to the arts, nonprofit groups, scholarships and economic development.

To be most appealing, the Foundation should allow donors to specify which of the areas the Foundation supports that they want their money to go to, if they have a preference.
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There seems now to be emerging a confluence of money and activism for the improvement of this city that we have been building to for a long time. Let's hope we can maintain the momentum.

Can-Can Land

I was very busy today, driving hither and yon, some 35 miles total, from home to Motor Vehicles on Frelinghuysen Avenue to renew my license; to State Fair (an above-ground-swimming-pool and patio-furniture store) and Alpine Nursery (adjoining, in Belleville, a suburb on Newark's northern border); to the Belleville Kmart; to the farthest destination, what Joe (my friend from Belleville) calls "the Italian ShopRite" on Franklin Avenue in Nutley; then to Downtown Newark; then home.
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Nutley is Martha Stewart's old stomping grounds. (I named one of my kittens "Martha" shortly after prison gates slammed shut behind New Jersey's own guru of traditional feminine specialities. Ms. Stewart may have moved to Connecticut and the fancier precincts of Long Island, but she's really just a "[New] Jersey Girl", and shouldn't put on airs. My "Martha" doesn't. She's a [New] Jersey Cat, and glad to be one.)
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ShopRite's twice-yearly "Can-Can Special" ends its summer run tomorrow, and I didn't want to miss out. Unfortunately, there are no ShopRites in Newark. Widely regarded as the best general-public supermarket chain in this region, ShopRite has not, thus far, chosen to open a Newark location. The closest ShopRite to me is in East Orange, near the Brick Church railroad station. But during the hours I am most likely to get there (early evenings; it is usually closed by 9pm!), you're not allowed to take the shopping carts into the parking lot. I guess many have been stolen. Much of East Orange is economically depressed. It could definitely benefit from being annexed to Newark.
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The next most convenient ShopRite to me is in Millburn, across the street from where I went to real-estate school. They have more upscale items than the East Orange store (ShopRites tend to customize their offerings for the vicinity) but they also close by 9:00. The only 24-hour ShopRite (except weekends, when it closes by midnite Saturday and 10pm Sunday) anywhere around here is in Kearny, which I can easily go to from the Harrison PATH station on the way home from work in Manhattan or from the Pulaski Skyway on the way home from driving in to meet friends in the Village (Greenwich Village, that is), but its parking lot slopes, so you aren't allowed to take shopping carts off the level platform immediately outside the store. I don't have anyone to stay by my groceries while I fetch the car, so the Kearny ShopRite is much less than ideal, even as regards its hours. I'm spoiled by Newark's genuinely 24-hour Pathmarks (Bergen Street in the Central Ward, Ferry Street in the Ironbound). They close early only a couple of times a year (Christmas and by noon or 1pm on Easter). And the people at Pathmark are really helpful. I've had someone walk a couple of hundred feet to show me where pickles and relish are!
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Joe recommended the Nutley store, which is 3 miles farther from my house than the Millburn Shoprite. But I didn't start for the ShopRite from home. I was at Motor Vehicles on Frelinghuysen Avenue, and wanted to stop at State Fair, Alpine Nursery, and Kmart in Belleville first. All three of those businesses are easy to get to via McCarter Highway (Route 21), which is only two blocks from Motor Vehicles (tho not all intersecting streets permit two-way connections with the highway; at some streets you would have to go south on 21 even if you want to go north, so you have to find a different entry point). I found a way onto 21 at South Street, so off I went. (I didn't know we even had a South Street (tho I did know Manhattan has a South Street). And Newark's South Street isn't particularly far south within Newark!)
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Nutley is a very nice little town, but its economy seems a little shaky, judging from some unoccupied retail spaces along Franklin Avenue. Never having been to the Nutley ShopRite, I didn't want to stop along the way to take pix in good lite, but used daylite to help me find the store. There are times, if rare, that I can stick to a specific goal, and not wander. Still, along the way I noted a very handsome, freestanding, four-faced clock (like the one I showed here July 17th) that I resolved to fotograf on the way back, lite permitting.

The Nutley ShopRite has an odd configuration. The 24-hour Pathmarks in Newark (the Nutley ShopRite closes at 11pm, 10 on weekends) are big, simple rectangles approaching square. The Nutley Shoprite is long and drawn out, with a constricted midsection.
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As for its customer base being largely Italian (Joe and, not surprisingly, our mutual friend Gaetano are both Italian; most of my friends, it seems, are Italian — hey! This is New Jersey — or should I say "Nuova Italia"?), I saw one woman in a sari who was close enuf for several minutes for me to ask if she knew of anyplace around there that carries frozen Indian dinners (the Nutley ShopRite apparently does not, altho it does have a section for Oriental and Indian foods), but I was in no mood to make another stop, so didn't ask. There are, I am told, many Indian stores in Jersey City on, no joke, Newark Avenue, but I have not yet gotten there.
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In any case, among the first things you see when you come from the parking lot into the Nutley ShopRite is a stand of mini-rosebushes that are (supposed to be) winter-hardy in most parts of North America, 2 for $10. I bought a yellow rose of Canada, where these plants were grown, not Texas (where one of my brothers lives, tho he will soon be retiring elsewhere, probably Arizona) and one of a color I can't name, a subdued, elegant brownish-red. It occurs to me now that I should have bought more. Hm. Maybe I'll go back Saturday for the last day of the Can-Can Special (I think. I just love those commercials, don't you? — tho there were years when I didn't see a one) to get more big cans of cat food/dog food (my cats aren't fussy, given that if they don't eat canned food, they have only dry, which gets tedious after a while). Maybe those little rosebushes won't survive the winter, even tho they are supposed to. Maybe they will. But they should assuredly briten my yard till the first hard frost, which around here doesn't 'fall' till about December 3rd.
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I had earlier bought broccoli (6 plantlets), cabbage (6), pink(!) eggplant (6 also), and 3 different types of perennial daisies at Alpine Nursery and Kmart on the way to Nutley, so have a lot of planting to do this weekend. Some of the plants at Kmart were dangerously dried out, and I asked if there were a hose outside I could use to water one of my plants with. The cashier didn't know about that, but got a paper cup and showed me to a water spout at the nearby soda bar, with which I watered the poor little plant. The female security guard at the exit, who saw my watering activity, said that there seemed to have been a conscious decision not to trouble to water the plants remaining outdoors, because this was the last stand of summer plants, and once they were sold, no others would be offered. I told her, however, that that's not smart because nobody is going to buy a dying plant. She said, actually some people do, thinking they will perk up once they get some water. (She didn't mention that Kmart offers a one-year guarantee on plants bought there. If one dies, you take it back, with the receipt, and they replace it.) The Belleville Kmart (Main Street at Joralemon Street) is first-rate. It even has an 'Internet Café' you can use free for an hour! Newark doesn't have a Kmart, altho a number of years ago, Jesse Jackson was here and said Newark would soon have one. I wonder what made him think that.
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I love having a yard to grow flowers and veggies in. Last year, I bought white eggplant (the original color; thus the name "egg"plant) and dark-purple eggplant plantlets, and put them into my backyard. The white bore fruit, lots. (Hm. I put aside some seeds from those. Now, what did I do with them? Someday I must get organized.) The purple didn't produce a single eggplant. Not one. Let's see what happens with pink.
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On the way back from the ShopRite, I found a parking space on Franklin Avenue very near the clock I had passed in my rush to get to ShopRite. Alas, it was by then very late in the day, and the lite was faint. Still, I took the foto above and this one, of a takeout restaurant whose sign I liked. Note the second line.

I did not see until I reviewed that foto in my graffics program that above the sign is not a blank, brick wall but ceramic variation of color and form, brick ends, rather than sides, pointing out.
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As I pulled away from my parking spot near the clock, I noticed brass plaques on the base of the clock and of the streetlites nearby (but didn't get pix), which presumably acknowledged financial assistance in erecting them. Only when I zoomed in within my graffics program, however, did I see that this is not an old clock, which it appears to be, but a memorial to 9/11.

Three people from Nutley died in the 9/11 attacks. I don't know how many Newarkers perished in that event. Flite 93, in which passengers heroically fought back, too late, only to die in a crash in Pennsylvania (before the plane could destroy the White House or Capitol, perhaps) took off from Newark Airport. None of the passengers of that flite from Newark could have anticipated what would happen during that flite. As I mentioned in connection with the Weequahic four-sided, freestanding clock I showed here, it's a very good thing to be reminded from time to time that we don't have all the time in the world. Ultimately, every last one of us, even the most laid-back, faces a deadline.
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Nor did I notice until I zoomed in within my graffics program (thus the fuzziness; I didn't think to walk closer, and I was already zoomed in as far as my camera would take me) that the ornate streetlites bear an "N", much like the fancy streetlites outside Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium (see the 4th foto at the entry to this blog of November 14, 2006). Surely that's a compelling argument for annexing Nutley (along, of course, with the entire remainder of Essex County) to Newark? There are a number of consolidated city-county governments around the Nation. Let's make Newark & Essex one of them, "Greater Newark".

I spent a lot of money today, from $24 for a three-year extension of my driver's license (which seems to me a bargain) to $130 at the Nutley ShopRite on MANY cans and other items (tho they didn't have black-eyed peas in a can, which struck me as odd, tho I did buy a four-can special of something called "Roman beans", which I never heard of; maybe that IS an Italian ShopRite after all), and once I made it home, I had to unload from the car all the things I bought and distribute them among my three floors above-ground. (Cans that don't fit into my cupboards and pantry can go into my basement. Manhattanites need to think about how much they miss out on, in the way of savings from sales and big-box stores, by not having anyplace at all to store things.)
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The whole trip took about 5 hours, and I was tuckered. I'm reminded of a bit by standup comic Larry Miller, who marveled at the stamina of our ancestors, who worked twelve-hour days five days a week, and six on Saturday: "If I go to the bank and the cleaners in the same day, I need a nap."

A Little Imagination

This morning I sent the following email to Mayor Booker via the City's website.

Newark might get some favorable national publicity on late-nite television. Certainly we've had unfavorable mentions, by the like of Jay Leno and David Letterman. Craig Ferguson, of CBS's Late Late Show (owned by David Letterman's production company), is a Scot who is in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. He is also seeking ("legally meaningless") honorary citizenship from American states and municipalities. Various governors and mayors have won national exposure for their area by making Craig Ferguson an honorary citizen. Why not Newark? You could make a 1-minute video in which you advise that the City Council has conferred honorary Newark citizenship upon him, and even harken to your Rhodes Scholar days in Britain (tho Ferguson, as a Scot, shows some animosity toward the English, at least for comedic purposes). You could send him, in the package with the video, an elegant certificate of honorary citizenship with a handsome foto of Downtown Newark in the background (see, e.g., the foto atop the home page of www.ResurgenceCity.org), and offer to present him with the key to the City if he comes to perform at Sugar Ray's House of Comedy or NJPAC right nextdoor. Such a measure would take little time and energy, but might produce a very favorable reaction in Ferguson's millions of viewers all over the Nation.

Mayor Booker is certainly not averse to making videos. There's one on the opening page of the City's website right now urging people to check out their eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. And I know he knows about Sugar Ray's, because I saw a picture of him with the manager in the manager's office there.
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Newark has fared badly at the hands of late-nite 'comics'. Let's see if we can turn that around, at least on one show.
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Today I show three pix of how a little imagination can make the best of a bad thing. This first picture shows a half-barrel planter in the treepit area of a house on Carolina Avenue in my area, Vailsburg, which lost its tree, apparently fairly recently.

The planter looks good, doesn't it?The stump doesn't. The tree cut down must have been enormous, because as you can see from this next foto, in which I put my foot on the stump to show the diameter of the tree, it was some 4 feet across when cut down.

A couple of blocks away, on Pinegrove Terrace, someone thought to use a stump in their treepit as pedestal for a planter!

See what a little imagination can do?

Temporary Art in Harrison

Walking to my car near the Harrison PATH Station on my way home from work in Midtown Manhattan last Sunday nite (well, very early Monday morning, technically) I saw a sign and mural along the fence around the MetroCentre construction site. The sign explains the mural.

MetroCentre is a project that is to mix a 25,000-seat soccer stadium for the "New York" Red Bulls, "New York style" townhouse residences, and retail spaces of varying sizes built around "a modern, yet traditionally styled, urban environment".

This development seeks to parasitize Newark, using our transportation hub and our skyline views to advance Harrison's fortunes at Newark's expense. The Harrison MetroCentre threatens to compete destructively with Newark office, residential, and retail space. It is also a very big gamble for a small town, which would be ruined if it went awry, because the Town has pledged its credit for the project's bonds. If this project proceeds, Newark should lobby the state to merge Harrison into Newark. The Corzine administration favors municipal consolidations, and preventing Harrison from subverting Newark has to be in the state's best interest.

Lilies in Vailsburg, Part II (My Yard)

I showed here last Wednesday a picture of massed pink lilies in the side yard of a private residence two blocks from me, and mentioned that it was then too wet and gray for me to take pix of similar lilies in my own yard. This past Saturday it stopped raining long enuf for me to get a couple of pix before the flowers withered (which they have now done), so let me show you what my own, speckled-pink lilies look like in full bloom. They are very large flowers, perhaps 6" across and of equal depth, and ordinarily appear in groups of at least four per stem. This year, for reasons I do not understand, many of the buds died before blooming. You can see withered buds at the top rite of this foto.

I had to sharpen the focus of today's pix in my graphics program, because I didn't have time to figure out how to get to the Macro mode in my camera. There is so much to learn with these technological devices. Engineers just love buttons that do more than one thing. I, however, would much rather have one button per function, such that if I want Macro mode (for taking very close pictures, as to show the details of flowers or a kitty's eyes), I press the "M" button, but to switch to "Nite Scene" I press an "N" button. Today's electronics engineers will have none of that 'nonsense'. They hate the very idea of a panoply of buttons each of which performs but one task. No, they like 5 buttons that do 60 different things, and all you have to do is memorize which of the 5 allows you eventually to accéss the function you want, and then navigate the sequence of six distinct steps you need to take to get to the thing you actually want to do, checking a different menu of options at every step along the way. There's an expression, "Too clever by half", in which "by half" means "by half again", or 150%. Today's electronics engineers are too clever by ten (ten times, that is, or 1,000%). You really shouldn't have to spend hours learning how to use a camera.
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I mentioned here last Wednesday that I deliberately chose not to mass my lilies, but scattered them to various parts of my front yard, to punctuate the overgrown greenness that my front yard becomes each summer. I hope that each of these plants will vegetatively propagate itself so that, years hence, I will have clusters of speckled pink lilies here and there across the yard.
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The foto below shows one of the lilies that produced no flowers its first two years (these lilies are perennials: plant once, enjoy forever), but that finally came into bloom this year. The greenery around the flower is provided by some vigorous vine that produces little white flowers but is mostly foliage.

I didn't plant that vine, so don't know what it's called. There may even be variant strains to it, one of which produces red berries after the flowers fade. I like it, but passersby may think it makes my yard look too wild — abandoned and neglected. My yard is not neglected, but natural, filled with unexpected delites as well as the things I have planted. And I have much more to plant. If only I had as much energy as I have ambition, my yard would be the talk of Vailsburg.
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Now, if you'll excuse me, the sun is up (I've been up all nite, which is fairly common for me, given that I spent some 30 years working evening or graveyard shift), and I want to sit on my porch and soak in the sun.

Cabrini Statue

Last week I showed two fotos of the statuary head of José Martí that marks the east end of Mother Cabrini Park. Today I show the statue at the west end of that park, of the woman for whom the park is named. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-born nun, was the first U.S. citizen to be elevated to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church, 61 years ago, on July 7, 1946. The first American-born saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, was canonized on September 14, 1975 — 19 years after Mother Cabrini, even tho Mother Seton was born 76 years earlier.

I'm not clear as to why Newark has a statue of Mother Cabrini, and adjoining South Orange has a university named for Mother Seton. As far as I have found, neither of those Catholic personages had any connection to Newark or even New Jersey more generally, tho both had New York City connections.
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The Cabrini statue was erected in 1958 by Catholic War Veterans. Newark now has an active public art board with a very large budget. I trust that some of its installations will be simple, representational homages to people of worth — but who have actual, substantial connections to Newark — even if other public art works should be abstract aspirations to give shape to things that exist only in the imagination.

Rehoboth Deliverance

This "Church Day" at Newark USA, I present pix of Rehoboth Deliverance Temple in my part of town, Vailsburg. As you can see from the banner, they are having a special event this week.

I didn't find a website for this tiny Temple, but I did find reference to it in a City of Newark webpage that says there are approximately 60 churches in the West Ward. Oddly, that page does not show telephone numbers. Nor does the sign on the Temple itself, which also lacks a ZIP code.

I did find a telephone number on the Net, and a ZIP, so here's the full info: 1013 18th Avenue, Newark, NJ 07106; (973) 371-2120.
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(This is an entry for Sunday uploaded Monday due to time constraints; I had to work for pay in Manhattan on Sunday. This also helps me avoid 'cabin fever', since I am mainly retired and days go by that I scarcely step out onto my porch or into my back yard.)

High Rise but Not High Life

Newark has not yet created a balance between density of residential population and density of urban activities. The closest thing we have to Manhattan's Central Park is Branch Brook Park, but it is a bit out of the way, and is not ringed by highrise apartment buildings to provide a human backdrop to its natural beauty. Branch Brook does attract joggers and loungers in greater number than other Essex County parks I've seen, and there are pockets of day- and nitetime activities for young singles here and there in the city, but it's taking much longer than seems to me reasonable for us to create the kind of 24-hour-a-day community that affluent young people, single or married, will flock to. There's not yet the equivalent here of Greenwich Village, the East Village, SoHo, Tribeca, or the Upper West Side. Halsey Village is working in that direction, but has very far to go.
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The area that seems to have the highest proportion of market-rate, highrise apartment buildings, Mount Prospect Avenue, is dominantly residential, with only a few businesses and just about nothing in the way of restaurants, bars, and clubs open late that might lure sociable young people. Not everyone wants to just kick back in the Lazy Boy after a hard day's work, have something to eat, and watch TV.
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Today's picture is of a highrise Mount Prospect apartment tower with balconies and great views. But when you come down in the elevator and step out of the building, there's not much to do in the neighborhood.

The pattern of standalone apartment houses surrounded by parklike grounds may suit people who have a full family life inside their own apartment, but an unbroken blockfront of convenience stores, restaurants, clubs, coffee bars, upscale shops, and galleries is more what Newark needs to attract the people who could radically transform its image from grimy to trendy.

Friday Nite Outside the Tabernacle

I had errands to run this evening and was driving down South Orange Avenue a bit after 9pm in my part of town, Vailsburg, when I had to stop at the lite at Stuyvesant Avenue. What should I hear but music coming from outside the Newark Gospel Tabernacle (former Stanley Theater). I pointed my camera out the window and got this picture of a drum set and at least one keyboard in use to lift the spirits of evening churchgoers.

I had only enuf time to snap two pictures, with the camera resting on the window frame. The first was with flash (which happened to be the setting for the last foto before then and would not have been right for this distance in any case), and then this foto without flash. I didn't have time to change the Mode setting to Nite Scene, which might have produced better results. What I didn't realize until I saw the pictures afterward is that the traffic cones used to keep an open space at the curb have reflective stripes on them that pop dazzlingly overbrite in a camera's flash. So altho the flash foto is less fuzzy, the glare off the cones rendered the foto unusable. Live and learn. From now on, when I leave the house after dark, I'll set my camera's Mode to Nite Scene to take advantage of any unexpected foto op. And yes, I do always carry a camera. Two, actually, since my cellphone contains a camera.
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I don't know if this jam session is a regular Friday-nite feature of the Tabernacle's mission, but it seems to me a most welcome development. I like the idea of a city of live music in the open air, of Newark as impromptu summer festival.

Newark's Watershed

On June 11th, I corrected the record on quality of Newark's water. Jeffrey Bennett, webmaster of the Newarkology website, recently hiked in our watershed and sent this email and a bunch of fotos.

Hi, a few weeks ago you addressed someone's ignorant complaint that Newark had bad water. You correctly said that the water came from the Highlands.

Anyway, I went hiking on Saturday in the Pequannock Watershed, the source of Newark's water. Let me attest that the watershed is completely pristine. At 35,000 acres, the Newark Watershed is approximately twice the size of any state park in Northern New Jersey, plus it is bordered by tens of thousands of acres preserved by counties and the State of New Jersey. Sorry to use a superlative, but the Pequannock Watershed is closer to a wilderness than anything else within fifty miles of New York City. You will be happy to hear that the water is very clean. I could see down ~five feet into the depths of the lakes.

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Water lilies galore bloom in Newark's watershed.

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Unlike state parks, the Pequannock Watershed does not appear on any maps. Even experienced hikers I have talked to have never heard of it. Of hikers who do know of it, many are probably deterred by the $8 hiking permit that one must buy. As a consequence of the watershed's low profile and permit access only, the trails there are barely used. We hiked seven or eight miles and did not see a single other hiker, though we did see boaters on the reservoirs. The trails were covered in moss and in many places practically obscured by brush.

Here are some pics from around the Clinton Reservoir, one of the five reservoirs of the watershed. I hope you can use them for your website. The small pond is Buckabear Pond, an incredibly pristine lake with a swamp at its southern end. Buckabear drains into the Clinton Reservoir.

I took some pics from the mountain we climbed, but there were no unobscured views.

Remember, all that you can see in those pics is owned by Newark.

The mayor who acquired the Pequannock watershed was Joseph Haynes. [See] my feature on the Bloomfield Ave tower. It's a memorial to Haynes and a former pump house.

My thanks to Jeff for this info and picture proof of Newark's splendid pristine watershed. I trust this puts to rest any doubts anyone may have about the quality and purity of Newark's drinking water, which goes into the Anheuser-Busch beers brewed here.

P.S. I also put up some pix of the Pequannock tower, on September 4th and 5th of last year.

Lilies in Vailsburg

On this gray, wet day let me remind you what the rain is for — or, not to be etiological about it, what the copious rains of our region afford us.

Some of my lilies of the same kind have finally opened, but it's too wet and grim outside to take a picture. My speckled pink lilies are not as numerous as those shown above, and mine are deliberately scattered to different areas of my small front yard rather than massed. Some shriveled in the bud this year, however, the first time that has happened. I'm not sure why it happened, but perhaps we had too much rain for a while.
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I have an unusually patterned black-eyed susan to plant, tho I let it dry out too much, which badly injured it. I hope it will recover. I can of course buy another, but I hate to have plants that depend upon my care die from my inexcusable neglect.
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It's wonderful to have space to grow such flowering plants. I spent 35 years in Manhattan apartments, and having my own house and yard is a very good change. I recommend it to crammed-jammed Manhattanites. Come to Newark and start your own garden. I'm affiliated with a real-estate broker who can show you around, so if you are really sick of being packed in like sardines, and thinking seriously of moving someplace where your nearest neighbor is a 70-foot oak but is within easy 24-hour reach of Manhattan, write me at ResurgenceCity@aol.com and I'll hook you up.

Another Asinine Remark from the Barbarian

NBC has just changed its late-nite schedule, and when I tuned in at 3:05am last nite (or, technically, this morning) expecting to see Jay Leno, I saw Conan O'Brien instead. As far as New Jersey is concerned, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. They are both nasty bast... snipers. Jay Leno at least is often funny, which I cannot say for Conan O'Brien. I was astounded when O'Brien's original contract was renewed, and the idea that he is to replace Leno when Leno has had enuf, absolutely astonishes me.
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In any case, I was desperate for entertainment at that point so consented to watch the monolog. The 3:05 airing is a rerun, usually of the show from exactly a week earlier. In last nite's repeat, O'Brien insults New Jersey in the course of ostensibly clarifying exactly what was supposed to be "embarrassing" in the fotos with which Miss New Jersey was then being blackmailed.

Apparently the photo shows her in a sash that says "New Jersey".

NLOL. To use almost as tired a formula remark as his, Conan O'Brien is about as funny as a rubber crutch. That he would dare to attack New Jersey from a studio in Rockefeller Center, just across the Hudson, is appalling. Why didn't New Jerseyans in the audience boo fiercely, even tell him to shut the ... heck ... up?
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Time's Up. I took today's foto when we were on Newarkology's tour of the Weequahic section last year. We passed this freestanding clock on a sidewalk — outside a funeral home. I found that a tad odd, but perhaps it's apt, a reminder that we don't have all the time in the world. Too bad Conan O'Brien's clock is still ticking. But sooner or later he will stop attacking New Jersey.

The clock is not vertically centered in the picture above because my camera does not have a viewfinder, and brite sunlite, which we had that day, makes it very hard to see the monitor to align shots or even check what has been fotograffed. This year I bought a big, floppy straw hat, at once to protect my head from sunburn — I'm a skinhead, but only anatomically; Nature sheared me — and to shade the camera monitor so I can see what I'm trying to fotograf.
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Speaking of Newarkology tours, next month's walking tour of the Ironbound has been moved to a day earlier, Saturday, August 11th. It's even at a more reasonable time for people like me, 2:30pm. The other tours started a couple of hours earlier. 2:30 is much, much better.

Marti Statue

Just inside the Ironbound going east on Market Street is a triangular park at the east end of which stands a monument to José Martí, Cuba's national hero. Wikipedia describes Martí as "a great writer, poet, translator, diplomat[,] ... journalist, ... [and] painter." Here we see an overview of the statue, its pedestal, Mother Cabrini Park, and One Gateway Center in the background.

Alas, Martí was not a great soldier, and apparently got himself killed in a display of conspicuous foolhardiness, in his first military engagement against Spain. New York City (where Martí lived for some years) has a heroic equestrian statue of Marti at the Avenue of the Americas entrance to Central Park. Newark has a closeup of the man's face.

There are two plaques on the two-stage pedestal. The bilingual plaque directly beneath the statue says:

JOSE MARTI
HERO OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE
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MANERA DE MORIRSE ES ESTA, DE VIVIR ALEJADO DE LA PATRIA.

JOSE MARTI

The untranslated quotation means, "Manner of dying is this, to live far from one's country." The second plaque, on the recessed part of the pedestal to the right, is wholly in Spanish:

OBRA, AUSPICIADA POR EL CLUB DE LEONES CUBANOS DE NEWARK, N.J. Y LA COLABORACION DE ORGANIZACIONES CIVICAS, PROFESIONALES, FRATERNALES, CULTURALES, PATRIOTICAS, RELIGIOSAS Y DE CLASES DE ESTA COMUNIDAD MAYO 20 DE 1976

"[This] Work, sponsored by the Cuban Lions Club of Newark, N.J. and the colaboration of civic, professional, fraternal, cultural, patriotic, [and] religious organizations and of classes from this community, May 20 of 1976". May 20, 1902 marked the end of U.S. occupation of Cuba after the Spanish-American War, and is popularly regarded as Cuba's Independence Day — altho the Castro Government does not so recognize it.
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A Latin matinee idol in many old Hollywood films, César Romero, claimed to be Martí's grandson on his mother's side. Tho that appears to have been possible, and Martí accepted designation as Romero's godfather, Martí himself never claimed to have fathered Romero's mother. I guess we'll never know for sure. One thing I didn't know until I looked at the Wikipedia article is that César Romero, the great onscreen ladies' man, was apparently gay. It's sad that he felt he couldn't let that fact be widely known, at least after his run as matinee idol was done. Any time a famous man "comes out", he makes life easier for every gay kid trying to cope with feeling utterly alone in the world.

Assembly of God (15 pix)

I was awakened this "Church Day" at the Newark USA fotoblog less than five hours after I got to sleep by a cat meowing outside the bedroom door. (I close off some parts of the house from the cats, and they don't like it, so sometimes call to me thru the door.) It was 20 minutes past noon (I work nites, so my sleep cycle runs late) and I thought I might as well get up and see if I can get to my local church, Sacred Heart of Vailsburg, to take a picture I forgot to get the last (and only) time I got inside. So I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and headed out to walk to SHV, taking pix along the way. Hm. Camera is not zooming. I fiddle with it and manage to get it to zoom, but focus seems off. I'm concerned.
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Alas, by the time I got to SHV, the church was closed up tite as a drum. My own foto of the church's circular stained-glass window (not exactly a rose window) will have to wait. The church's website has one, but it's not very big and not particularly good.
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I had a backup plan, to walk to a Protestant church at South Orange Avenue and Norwood Street, just past the Shell station at Stuyvesant Avenue. Before I got there, I saw that the Newark Tabernacle appeared to be open, so I went to see what it looks like inside. I asked a man at the door if it was open and when he said yes, I went in. What a wonderful place. Jeffrey Bennett did a really good feature on it in his Newarkology website, but I wanted to take pix of my own. Different fotografers have different visions, and besides, there was a service in progress, which Jeff's pix did not show. But I didn't want to offend anyone, so asked an elderly gent sitting at the entrance to the sanctuary if I could take pictures. I told him I have a fotoblog about living in Newark, and gave him my card. He said I should ask a woman back toward the street, whom he pointed out. I approached her, asked the same thing, and gave her my card too. She was uncertain too, so the elderly gentleman walked over and referred me to the man I had first asked at the front if the church was open. Again, I gave him my card and asked if it would be okay to take pix. He too was unsure and thought the preacher should be the one to ask, but of course I didn't want to interfere with the service, so I merely asked him to pass along my request to take fotos during a service and have someone advise me by email one way or the other. I then went on my way, very pleased to have seen some of the interior of that wonderful space.
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The church I was originally heading for was less than two blocks further on, and I took a couple of exterior fotos, then looked for an entrance. The front door didn't look promising, and it was up some stairs. Since I'm not good with stairs, I asked a man near the front if he knew where the main entrance is, and he suggested I try the back of the building. There were several people at the back door, by the parking lot, and the building was open, so I went inside, to look, again, for someone to ask if it was alrite to take pix. A nice young lady found the Youth Pastor for me, a very pleasant and well-spoken young man named Jermel Mayo, who not only said that was fine, but also showed me around — everywhere!

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The first big room we entered was this combination basketball court and stage. The court is small, but does have two baskets. There appear to be picnic-style tables on rollers on the right in this picture. The Youth Pastor said the church had the basketball court put in when it bought the building in 1992.

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We went downstairs and emerged into this spare but splendid sanctuary. The structure was built as Kilburn Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1912.

The view above shows the large round window overlooking South Orange Avenue, whose structural supports form a cross. We walked toward that wall, where this information table and bulletin board stand.

Mr. Mayo remarked that the church is very active in missionary work, internally, within the United States ("Home Missions"), and abroad ("World Missions"). He pointed out that the Newark church was reopened after the Presbyterian era by a married couple who have now gone on to another new church, in Pennsylvania, as part of the work of the Assemblies of God 's "Church Planting Ministries". The Vailsburg church feels a special connection with missionaries in Boston, Kenya, Mexico, and Chile, and contributes as well as to the denomination's "Global University" and other World Missions. I remarked, ironically, as a nominal Catholic, that I'm sure the Catholic Church appreciates their work, then added that Protestant activities make the Catholic Church work harder, which is all to the good.
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Mayo gave me a copy of the first edition of the newspaper Local Talk Newark that contains an article about the church's "I Love Newark Day", on which 45 volunteers cleaned up a 24-block area around the church! I said that that sounded like "Beautiful Newark Day", but he hadn't heard of that effort by the Board of Education to instill in kids a desire to make Newark clean and keep it clean.
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Here's a wide view of the Norwood Street side of the church's interior. Note the lamps suspended from each side of the horizontal beam of the crosses that dot the walls.

Here are two closeups of particular windows, first the ornate window on the north.

Now the ornate window to the south.

Mayo then led me toward the altar, and I took this picture, which shows him in the middle distance and a pipe organ and drum set beyond. I didn't notice the organ until I was reviewing these fotos, so didn't ask if it works. I hope it does, and they have a gifted organist to play it.

He wanted to show me the Kid Zone, so upstairs we went. Here you see the back of his "I Love Newark Day" teeshirt and the black-shrouded puppet theater beyond.

Here's a closer view of the teeshirt.

One of the small rooms off the large open and interconnected areas is this computer center, with 15 computers for the kids to learn and use.

The Kid Zone serves a number of purposes, one of which is to allow the adults to devote their full attention to services while trustworthy people take care of the kids, another of which is to give kids religious instruction tailored to their concerns, vocabulary level, etc. Besides, what kid wants to be surrounded by adults all day Sunday? As we walked back to the stairway down, I took this foto of the cheerful east wall of the Kid Zone.

Mr. Mayo said, in response to my queries, that there's something happening at the church every day of the week, from 7:00am to 5:45pm. He starts at 8:30 and works much of the rest of the time the church is open. And, in fact, on Sundays there is a youth group that meets at 9pm, so he was going home for just a few hours before having to return. "I live here." Well, actually, he recently settled in Union. "Union?!?", I chided him, and said he should live in Newark! It would, you have to admit, be more convenient to live near the church, and I know it's a good neighborhood because I live there!
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I told him that I have noticed that churches have been key to Newark's resurgence. In the most thoroughly redeveloped neighborhoods you see a block of new housing, then a church; another block of new housing, and another little church, on and on, with the churches anchoring the revitalized neighborhood. You stabilize and spur development of enuf neighborhoods and you get a wholly revitalized city.
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Youth Pastor Mayo then took me down two flites to show me the quarters of the Growing Garden Preschool & Kindergarten (ages 2½ to 5 years) and the Vailsburg Christian Academy (1st to 3rd grades), which you can contact at (973) 375-0502. During the summer, the Preschool is a Summer Camp. On the way we passed the Corner Café, which offers beverages and snacks to keep the kids going, and coffee for the adults (who surely deserve it).

Here is a room for the little ones, with highchairs and plenty of soft stuffed animals.

Here's one of the open areas in the preschool. The stacked blue objects on the right appear to be cots for naptime. What a great idea.

The rest of that large floor of the building is dedicated to classrooms and play areas.
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I came away very impressed by the many good works of the Vailsburg Assembly of God in its surprisingly spacious building, and wish the staff and volunteers all the best in building the character while others build the structures of resurgent Newark.
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(This is an entry for Sunday uploaded Monday due to time (and energy) constraints.)