NRBP Seminar; Beautiful Downtown Newark

The problem I had yesterday with the website on which I store fotos resolved itself, after stealing a couple of hours of my life that I do not have to spare. The Support area of the webhost had said that all servers were working normally, at the very same time as my pix were not appearing. Irritating. (If at any time you should see blank spots in this blog where fotos should be, please let me know so I can complain to my server. I pay for this foto-storage space, and deserve the service I pay for.) Altho the problems with my website resolved themselves, the Newark Downtown District's website is still not working. Why is that? I wondered aloud the other day if that organization is still active, but today I was Downtown in 744 Broad Street and saw the NDD's canopy on Clinton Street from the window, then saw a guy with an NDD jacket sweeping up, and then saw an NDD truck moving on Halsey Street ahead of me with the website address I have plugged into browsers repeatedly over the past two days, http://www.downtownnewark.com/, painted across the back. So what's the problem? The Newark Regional Business Partnership's website takes a preposterously long time to appear. Perhaps they need to get a new webhost or simplify the design of their opening page. Studies have found that a lot of potential visitors will not wait more than 30 seconds or so for a website to appear but will assume that it's not working ("dead") if it doesn't come up right away, then go elsewhere and possibly never return, for assuming that the site is defunct.

---

Today's fotos are of views from 744 Broad Street, Newark's tallest building, at 465 feet, and an elegant classical structure from Newark's 1930's heyday. Emporis.com, a terrific buildings website, says:

- This was the tallest building in New Jersey from 1931 until the completion of Exchange Place Centre in Jersey City in 1989.
- Chief exterior materials are tan brick and limestone.
- The top of the building is modeled after the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the 7 Wonders of the World.
- The mezzanine is decorated with ten murals by J. Monroe Hewlett and Charles Gulbrandsen which depict the growth of commerce in Newark.
- A $68 million renovation was completed in 2002.

I didn't know about the murals, and now have to make another trip to find them!

---

This has been an eventful week for me, but not all good. As mentioned above, on Tuesday, when I went to post an entry for Monday, I found that something had gone very wrong with the server on which I store fotos, so all my recent fotos were blank and I could not upload new ones. I was thus unable to post foto entries for either Monday or Tuesday. That was specially irritating in that on Monday two noteworthy things happened, one during the day, the other during the evening, that I had intended to address on successive days. Instead of trying to reconstruct Monday on Wednesday, I'll just deal with Wednesday now, while it's fresh in my mind, and return to Monday's two topics later.

Note the sword-shaped concrete area surrounded by the grass of Military Park. Jeffrey Bennett, webmaster of the Newarkology website, thinks it might once have been an extended decorative fountain, but it is now only a bare concrete imprint upon the park that almost no one at street level will realize has the form of a sword.

---

Today, I was up hours earlier than usual (losing a lot of sleep in the process) to attend a free "Essentials of Small Business" seminar held by the Newark Regional Business Partnership (NRBP) on the 26th floor of 744 Broad Street. The NRBP is our member of the national Chamber of Commerce, but the listing for Newark at the C of C national website shows its old name, just "Regional Business Partnership", without the "Newark". The NRBP should insist the national Chamber correct that. (The NRBP website still bears the "rbp.com" name, and ideally the NRBP should correct that, tho an abbreviation in a URL is far less connsequential than a wrong listing of the Partnership's name in words on the national Chamber of Commerce's website.
+
I wanted to attend the small-business seminar because I have some ideas for a business of my own but have no idea how to proceed. I have mentioned here that I have a couple of thousand fotos of Newark, some of them actually good. I'd like to offer people from Newark and the Newark Diaspora (people who used to live or work in Newark but have since moved elsewhere) the opportunity to create individualized calendars of Newark sights, or to buy teeshirts, mugs, or other items with Newark images, to display in their home. I'd also like to create a central repository of AllThingsNewark(.com) or EverythingNewark(.com), both of which domain names I have already reserved, thru which people might order hats, sweatshirts, and other items imprinted with the logos of Newark entities that do not presently have their own Internet store. NCC, the Cathedral Basilica, St. Rocco's, St. Lucy's, and other entities that cannot even contemplate creating their own online store might be happy to offer items for purchase (the proceeds, less a processing/shipping fee) would go to them, thru a central Newark online store that would do all the order-taking and 'fulfillment' operations for all kinds of merchandise they might offer. AllThingsNewark or EverythingNewark would as well help organizations, churches, schools, etc., to design and market their own baseball caps, teeshirts, calendars, and such to their widely scattered enthusiasts. There are a lot of people, all over the country, even in various other countries, who still love Newark and would love to have a sign of their identification with Newark to display on their head or chest or wall. I'd like to give them the chance to own that pride.

There are some fairly large organizations that don't have their own online store. The Newark Public Library is one. Maybe there's a market for "NPL" baseball-style caps, or teeshirts, which could serve as a conversation-starter outside our area. "What is 'NPL'?", asks someone in Arizona. "That's the Newark Public Library, the headquarters of which is a magnificent building, and repository of an enormous collection of art as well as books."
+
Tho I tried to get to sleep earlier than usual, I couldn't, so didn't manage to get out as early as intended. I arrived almost a half hour late, but wasn't the last person to get there. Nor was everyone as attentive as I (once I got there). A few people conducted private conversations during parts of the proceedings. And the guy next to me irritated the heck out of me in ignoring the speaker to conduct a text-message exchange on his Blackberry. If you want to 'chat' with someone by text message, take it outside, buddy. Why on Earth would you attend a seminar physically, but send your mind elsewhere?
+
In any case, tho I missed some of the information offered, I learned something worth far more than the $9.50 parking fee I incurred for the Military Park Garage.

---

Here you see the view looking East-Northeast from the 26th floor of the National Newark Building. Both Midtown and Downtown Manhattan are visible, Midtown to the left of center, Downtown to the right.

---

Microsoft sent a man to talk to us about Microsoft's small-business software solutions. Even before I heard him speak, I had concluded that if one were to select a software suite to be most compatible with potential customers, it would have to be Microsoft's. Dan Woodman, the MS guy, of course knew about Microsoft's negative image among various segments of the general and computing public. Someone in the audience offered the word "monopoly". The Justice Department examined the monopoly issue some years back but decided not to force MS to divide. I think that was a very serious error, and perhaps a Democratic President (should the Democrats ever nominate someone remotely acceptable to the general public) will reopen the issue and force MS to break up into several competing companies. In view of what now exists, however, everyone in at least the U.S. has to accept the reality that for maximal software compatibility, there is no choice but Microsoft.
+
Tho I am a WordPerfect guy from wayback, I have to concede that MS does have some good features, tho in some ways WordPerf is still superior. When WordPerfect was a standalone word-processing company in Utah, it was unchallengeable as to customer service. Then Canadians bought the company, moved it to Canada, and discontinued its superlative, toll-free technical support. It's been downhill ever since. Whereas WordPerfect Utah was able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft, WordPerfect/Corel Canada crumbled into insignificance, and Microsoft Word eradicated WordPerfect as a serious challenger. Now everyone must dance to Word's tune.

---

In these eastward-looking views, note the bare framework for a billboard that has long since vanished. It may or may not be that City regulations now ban billboards in such a location, but there has never, in the seven years I have lived here, been a billboard on that framework. It's time to take it down and recycle the metal.

---

Still, MS does offer some good things, and I found out about one of them today: Office Live Small Business, which offers a free 500MB website and free domain name, plus free MS accounting software for startup small businesses.
+
I decided to see if the domain name "TourismNewark" was available, and claim it if it was. It was. So now I own "TourismNewark.org", tho I have yet to read thru all the STUFF that Microsoft has placed in its website-creation area before I can create a mockup website for it, as discussed here Saturday. Unfortunately I have some very urgent personal business to tend to, with the Internal Revenue Service. They claim I owe them a lot of money, but it turns out they counted as income a rollover from a profit-sharing plan into a 401(k) plan, so they owe me money, but I have to fill out various forms to fix this. Meanwhile, they confiscated my Federal tax refund from last year and my NJ property-tax rebate just this week. I have to submit all necessary documentation by December 2nd. So if there are no entries here for several days, you know why.

There was time to do some networking at the NRBP event, during a break and after the formal session ended, but since I had had perhaps 3 hours' sleep, I was in no mood to network with anyone about anything.
+
When I left the seminar, I revisited the Newark Arts Council art exhibit on the 6th floor of the same building, 744 (it's still open, until December 8th), and saw some things literally in a different lite, daylite as distinct from the artificial lite of the exhibit's opening on the evening of October 28th. I took some fotos that I will use here at some point in the near future.
+
I then tried to visit another art exhibit in the same building, on the ground floor, but it apparently closed as of November 9th, tho the artworks were still visible thru the plate-glass windows of that available retail space. It is taking a long time for Newark to absorb all the retail and office space already on offer, which militates against new construction. But as the pictures today should indicate, a really tall new skyscraper would afford tenants not just a first-class building designed for the computer age but also terrific views in all directions, as far as Manhattan (Midtown and Downtown) to the east and the Watchung Mountains to the west.
+
When I left 744, I didn't head directly to my car but made a couple of little detours. The three-tier pricing structure at the Military Park underground garage is one hour/two hours/all day, so there was no rush to get to the car, since I had already exceeded two hours.
+
Someone emailed me a week or more ago to ask if I had a clearer foto, not marred by graffiti, of the round route-map sign for the NJTransit "Loop" bus than the one I showed here a year ago. I told him I did not, but would look for one. On the way back to my car today, I found a round Loop sign that showed where the bus stops by NJPAC, and went over to see if it bore a route map. It did not. Hm. I then went to my car and headed for the Washington Park area, where there are supposed to be other Loop stops, but could not find a parking space so could not hunt down the Loop signs there to see if any of them bore a map and were clear of graffiti. Drat. I could not check off that item from my To Do list(s).
+
I did, however, stop into the Key Club (on Park Place near the NJ Historical Society) to check out the foto exhibit that was its contribution to the Newark Arts Council's big week. I don't know if it originally comprised more pix, or the present exhibit is something different altogether, but there are now on display at the front of the restaurant a half-dozen large-format fotos of some musical personages. Some were NJ artists, like Sarah Vaughn (Newark) and Count Basie (Red Bank), who appears next to Eubie Blake at some NJ event. There's also a picture of B.B. King. Has he ever been to Newark? If not yet, he should endeavor to get here. He'd find a very warm welcome.
+
Had I been a day person, I'd have had a very good day. I am not a day person, tho I'm trying to move my sleep cycle to the early part of the day in the short days we are now in. Instead of being refreshed by the things I'd done, I was exhausted, so had to go to sleep. And now my sleep cycle is set back to even later than it had been to begin with! I really hate to have to sleep, but I'm human, not robot, so must. I have heard that some people actually like to sleep. I don't "get" it.

Foto Server Down

I don't know what has happened, but all of my webpages and domains on the Australian company, HostOnce, that hosts my websites are inaccessible, suddenly, today. All the fotos stored to that server are thus blank. I don't know what's going on. I called the U.S. office of the Australian company to see if there was some kind of billing problem, but they found nothing. The woman in North Carolina gave me an email address for technical support, but the email I sent came back. The main HostOnce website comes up, but when I try to log in, it says the info I entered is invalid. I tried to go to the FTP site I used yesterday, and it too came up Not Found. Something is very seriously wrong, and it may take some time for me to sort this out. If the company has somehow screwed up my account, I may be able to sort things out quickly. If the company's servers are down, they may come back up on their own. If the company has gone out of business, I will have to find another webhost and move hundreds of webpages and fotos to a new host.
+
It is absolutely maddening how much trouble we have with computers and the Internet. There is no regulation to force manufacturers or online services to perform as promised or face punishment. And so we can have endless problems that we have to sort out for ourselves. It is truly infuriating.
+
Since I have no idea what the problem is, I have no idea how long it will last. In the alternative, for new posts, I may still have some storage space on AOL or other services that I can utilize for new fotos, but that requires investigation I do not have time for right now. All I can say is, please check back later. I would apologize for the problem except that I didn't cause it!

Mt. Carmel; R. Kelly at the Rock; Two Movies; Basketball

Today's "Church Day" fotos are of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, which I saw on Newarkology's walking tour of the Ironbound.

---

The concert appearance in Newark of the controversial R&B artist R. Kelly came off without a hitch or incident on Thanksgiving Day. So uneventful was the day that not a word of it made the news I saw that day. Today, I thought to check when it was or was yet to be, and found an article on NJ.com, that had some comments afterward. Only one was by someone who was there:

It was not a complete sell out the atmosphere was very nice...young and old alike enjoyed the performances and the sound system is hot in the arena......when R. Kelly performed 90% of the audience stood up for the entire 2 hour set there were blacks, whites, asians,arabics,spanish you name it they were in the building singing and dancing in peace and harmony.......why do people want the Arena to fail[?]

The reference to people who want the Arena to fail was prompted by vicious anti-Newark propaganda in earlier comments. Hatred of Newark, as I have mentioned here before, seems to infest the comments area at NJ.com. One person claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint after a Bon Jovi concert. I did a Google search for such an incident and found nothing, so left this comment:

The claim that two women were robbed of their money and cellphones at gunpoint does not jibe with official reports that show no such incident ever occurred, unless media just failed to report that the police did acknowledge such a crime. Certainly the NJ Crime Stats page on the NJ.com website has no record of any such incident, but it may be too recent to be included. If there was any such incident, one has to ask if the (alleged) victims made out a police report. If so, I'm sure someone at the Star-Ledger, News 12 New Jersey, or other media would want to see a copy. Newspapers love to expose police coverups. Until and unless such a media exposé occurs, we must conclude that this incident is an absolute fabrication by anti-Newark propagandists.

There is still an Italian mass at this church.

What motivates these people? It's not hard to see. Another comment reads:

For those of you who enter negative comments about the [Prudential Center] everyday, you really are showing your true colors. You show them to people like me that can read between the lines.

I know those lines! Good choice of words: "true colors".

Movies with an NJ Connection. For some reason, in this age of endless repetition on television, two movies involving New Jersey are being shown at least three times each this weekend on the Lifetime cable channel. In Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock plays an FBI agent placed as the Miss New Jersey contestant in a beauty — sorry: scholarship — pageant to prevent some murderous loon from blowing the pageant up. Why New Jersey? Well, it's a comedy, and New Jersey is supposed to be funny, I guess. The original contestant had to drop out due to her being found out as having starred in a porno movie, Armageddon On! I watched only enuf (of Miss Congeniality) to find out why the FBI agent was to be Miss New Jersey, since Sandra Bullock is from Virginia (tho she spent much of her childhood traveling in Europe with her mother, a German opera singer) and has no New Jersey connection.
+
The other oft-repeated movie this weekend, Beauty Shop, stars Newark's own Queen Latifah, as owner of an Atlanta beauty salon. Someday Miss Owens (Dana Owens is Queen Latifah's real name) may have enuf clout to set the movies she stars in, in New Jersey, and preferably Newark. This year, Newark's Queen and Englewood's John Travolta starred together in the movie Hairspray, set in Baltimore. Maybe someday someone will produce a movie set in New Jersey and starring prominent New Jerseyans. We've got lots to choose from.

Basketball Blog. Gaetano found a Sports Illustrated/CNN fotoblog entry, by Luke Winn, about Friday's Legends Classic that showed four pix, one of them of the sparse crowd after the main event. A couple of the negative comments prompted me to add my own:

The hard-luck story of one person (even if it can be believed; a desperately poor person who nonetheless has Internet access) who was laid low by a stroke has nothing to do with the Arena or the condition of the city of Newark generally.

There are two plaques about bells. I guess that means that there are at least two bells in the belltower shown, below, in the last foto today.

It will indeed take a while to build an audience for Prudential Center events that are as poorly publicized as the Legends Classic was, but over 200,000 people have visited in the Arena's first month. Only implicit in the blog writer's account and fotos is that Newark has some beautiful things, and people can attend events at the Prudential Center without being killed, maimed, or even robbed! -- so a lot of what they've been told about 'hellhole Newark' is absolutely false. It's too bad people have to divine that for themselves rather than see it stated expressly.

As for the crowd, or lack thereof, if there had been a New Jersey team in these games, Seton Hall or Rutgers, that would have been an entirely different story. Why would New Jerseyans (and New Yorkers, a quick train ride away) care about college basketball teams from New Mexico, Texas, West Virginia, and Tennessee? You put Duke against Rutgers, or Seton Hall against St. John's, and you've got a crowd.

The Legends Classic was created only this year. Whether it builds in popularity or is discontinued due to lack of interest remains to be seen. If a "March Madness" late-round series of games in the Rock were to fail to get a crowd, we'd know we have a problem. But it's much too soon to worry about the viability of an Arena in which the city has invested so much money and hope. I'm sure it will be fine.

The sun is close to the right top of this foto, so the lite leak has partly ruined it. In that I could not know how soon I'd get back (all the way across the city), I'm showing this less-than-splendid picture anyway.

Symphony Out of Debt; 'Tourism Newark' Mockup

Gaetano found a press release from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra that says the Orchestra has succeeded in what seemed a hugely speculative investment, the purchase from Dr. Herbert Axelrod of a group of 30 valuable musical instruments for $15.9 million in 2003. Now, pressed financially, the Symphony has in turn sold the "Golden Age Collection" to "Brook and Seth Taube and a group of investors" for $20 million up front and a share in the proceeds when the Taube brothers resell them after five years.

The sale of the instruments places us free of debt for the first time in more than a decade, allowing us to deliver on our promise to make the Orchestra’s financial health a top priority. The sale of these instruments provides a firm foundation for revitalized fundraising efforts to support artistic excellence and outstanding educational programming.

We are delighted that [28 of the 30] instruments will still be in the hands of our musicians, who will play them at concerts throughout the next five years.

---

Today's fotos are of the Settlers Monument in Fairmount Cemetery, western Newark. One category of tourist (see second item today) is the history buff, and Newark has lots of history, some of it shown in graphics and words on the sides of this monument.

---

The initial purchase struck me as very unsound (no pun intended: orchestra/sound) financial management, to go deep into debt to buy a collection of classic instruments, only to need to sell them four years down the road to get out of the debt the acquisition required. What if there had been no buyer? The apparent hope was that the fame of the collection would draw more concertgoers. That seems not to have panned out, so now the collection has been sold to other speculators. As regular viewers of Antiques Roadshow know, not everything goes up in value over time. Instead, the market for any antique goes up or down according to fashion, in a fickle collector environment.
+
I trust the Symphony will never again 'play' so dangerous a financial game.

Tourism Newark. I have busied myself today with starts on two major projects. First, I was wakened after less than five hours of sleep by thoughts about "Tourism Newark", my proposed name for a Newark Convention & Visitors Bureau, and a website therefor. Aside from other things I have mentioned in connection with tourism in this blog (like Newark-on-Trent, England's many wonderful 360-degree panoramic videos), I started to think about how I would like things organized if I were new to Newark. That's pretty easy for me to do, because not so long ago I myself was new to Newark.

I plan to establish an area on my Resurgence City website as a mockup of what a Tourism Newark website might look like, and to set out the approach I think such an agency should take. That website would solicit reactions and suggestions from readers, since no one person nor small committee can know what people in general are thinking and what they find easy or difficult to use. A website that solicits reader suggestions might save a lot of money, and delay, on market research.
+
GoNewark.com (which, in combination with the Newark Regional Business Partnership,* is supposed to be developing a Convention & Visitors Bureau, has a Newark Business District map with some points of interest noted in blue-circled numbers, but there is no quick way to go from the alpha list to the location of the number on the map, nor the other way around. There's got to be better indexing on a tourist map.

The lettering above seems to span disparate architectural elements on the monument, almost like a double-exposure or titles floating above a background, but the apparent separation of the surface into different areas is a consequence of discoloration of parts of what is actually a single continuous surface.

A mockup website would ask for feedback as to what people think are the most important sites to promote to tourists. It would solicit the same types of information about each site, so that all descriptions would have comparable data, website links, etc. Thru such a website, Tourism Newark could spread the workload of compiling very large amounts of information over many more people than a standalone tourism entity could hire. A mockup website would function something like a "Wiki" site, except that people would offer info by email rather than actually insert it into the webpage text. A small number of editors could then sort thru the info offered, do some fact-checking, test offered links, then upload the info thus generated to the site for further reactions, in the expectation that people who spot errors will report them. And of course a tourist website would have to have lots of fotos, at least one for every site on the list. Amateur and professional fotografers could offer their own pix, and state the terms of such use (price; form of foto credit; whether a credit in lieu of payment would suffice; etc.).

Enter project number two that I started today.
+
I mentioned recently that there are over 1,700 fotos in my Blogpix directory, of fotos already used here. It's now over 1,900. I also have over a thousand unused fotos to select from, and I take more pix once a week or more. As you might imagine, finding appropriate fotos is sometimes time-consuming, because I haven't indexed most of them geographically or by subject matter. So today I copied all the present directories to an Archived area, then started moving pix out of the current chronological directories ("folders", in Microsoft jargon) into subject-matter directories (for instance, Downtown, Art [indoor], Vailsburg, Public Art [outdoors], Parks, etc.). But I have to keep track of which fotos have already been used here or on the Resurgence City site, so have to maintain a Used subdirectory under each category. This can get pretty confusing, pretty quickly, so will take awhile. And if I am dragging a group of pix and accidentally let go of the mouse button too soon, they all drop into the wrong directory and I have to go in, find them, and move them out! There is a safe way to move these things without dragging, but it is more time-consuming — tho not, perhaps, more time-consuming than undoing a mistake that moves 37 pix to the wrong directory!

When I have a mockup of a "Tourism Newark" website, I will show a link to it here, for you to check and offer suggestions. Meanwhile, I invite readers to design visually or suggest in words a logo for Tourism Newark, preferably something graphical rather than alphabetical (calligraphic). "TN" is the zip-code designation for Tennessee, not Newark; and NT will be associated by many people with an operating system, not "Newark Tourism". Besides, "Newark Tourism" is used by others and requires something like "Authority", "Board", or "Commission" after it, whereas "Tourism Newark" is striking and requires only those two words.
+
I don't associate Newark with any particular image we could use in the way that Paris can use the Eiffel Tower or New York the Empire State Building or Saint Louis its Arch. We can establish a new graphical identity, like McDonald's and its golden arches or Wendy's with its ridiculous red pigtail wig as in a series of bizarre commercials now running — but something not absurd, please. Something clean, modern, true to Newark; progressive, jazzy, cool, classy. Put on your thinking caps, boys and girls, and come up with an uncomplicated visual symbol for Newark that travelers the world over can come to recognize at any size, from postage stamp to highway billboard.
____________________

* The NRBP is holding a free 2-hour program this coming Wednesday, "Small Business Essentials", starting at 8:30am and running to 11am. (Yes, we all know that is 2½ hours, but it is described as a two-hour program, so I guess the extra half-hour is for unstructured networking. Bring business cards.)

Mosque; College Basketball

Today is one of occasional "Mosque Fridays" at Newark USA, which are not nearly so common as "Church Sundays" because there are far more churches than mosques in this city (and far more mosques than synagogs), and because most mosques don't draw attention to themselves so I haven't chanced across many to fotograf. Today's fotos show one mosque that wasn't shy, Muhammad's Mosque #25. But the lettering may not indicate the present location of this mosque.

Muhammad's Mosque #25 is apparently an institution of long-standing, since I found a website that refers to a man reciting his "Student Enrollment" in Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslim movement there in 1980. Even before then, on September 16, 1959, Malcolm X was there:

Narrates movies of recent trip abroad at NOI meeting at Temple No. 25 in Newark, New Jersey.

That is the only reference to Newark I see on a website that gives a chronology of the life of Malcolm X. (I saw the dauter of Malcolm X late last nite on Newark's stolen TV station, WNET. 'Thirteen' was running a mini-marathon, of their walking-tour series with David Hartman and Barry Lewis. They showed the episodes concerning Brooklyn, Harlem (Malcolm X's dauter was in that one), Queens, and the Bronx. Curiously missing was the walk thru Newark. How very odd, that a station assigned to Newark by the FCC, but which now almost always hides its "Newark" ID and calls itself "WNET New York" on its website, refuses to show a program it troubled to make with the same two gentlemen walking thru Newark. The bast*ds. Mayor Booker should lodge a formal complaint with the FCC that WNET does not serve the needs of its city of license.)
+
Getting back to Mosque #25, I also found a Village Voice article from October 11-17, 2000 that says in part:

While Farrakhan awaits a meeting with [Joseph] Lieberman [then the Democratic candidate for Vice President], some black Muslims, anguished over the rift inside the NOI [Nation of Islam], fear that the minister, who is battling prostate cancer, has lost control of the 91 mosques that make up his religious empire. People are defecting to Orthodox Islamic groups. "I think many others want to leave, but they don't know how," says Bashir Muhammad Akinyele, cofounder of the Pan Afrikan Muslim Association, who says he was forced out of Mosque No. 25 in Newark, New Jersey, for speaking out. "When I was a part of the organization, our numbers were much greater. There was a higher spirit. You saw more of the FOI [Fruit of Islam] soldiers selling The Final Call. There are many brothers and sisters who stepped off, who left the mosques, for various reasons. Most of it involves contradictions and inconsistencies in Nation of Islam teachings and money." ***

In New York City, Harlem's historic Mosque No. 7 also is struggling to pay its bills. And Mosque No. 25 in Newark, New Jersey, a key temple in East Coast recruiting efforts and sales of The Final Call, the NOI's newspaper, is crumbling under the weight of its own financial burdens and allegations of squandered funds. Akinyele told the Voice he became suspicious of "arbitrary" fundraising drives when Mosque No. 25 officials failed on several occasions to purchase the building in which the temple was housed or bail it out of chronic debt. "We would raise all this money, tens of thousands of dollars, and the money would go to Chicago or to the leadership in the mosque [who] would have better cars, nicer cars, new cars," Akinyele charges. ***

Sex scandals are unraveling the once unquestioned moral fiber of Louis Farrakhan's Nation. Bashir Muhammad Akinyele says one of his reasons for leaving the NOI is the blatant adultery he has witnessed at Mosque No. 25. "Some of the officials in the Nation of Islam were doing things that were against what the Nation had stood for," he claims. "There was even adultery at Mosque No. 25, and there were many of us who disapproved, and spoke out against it."

As you can see, there is a FOR SALE/RENT sign on the building. Altho the name of the Mosque is still on this building at William Street near Washington, and a foto I found on the Internet shows a farm delivery to Washington Street in 2003, Google presently shows a "Muhammad Mosque #25" at 15 James Street, many blocks away; (973) 624-5532. I did not find a website for the Mosque itself to clarify the situation, and I don't want to call on a Friday, the main go-to-meetin' day in Islam, Moslems' Sunday.
+
This wider view shows a couple of businesses still in that building, Amin's Halal Restaurant and Mimi's African Restaurant. I find on the Internet that the full name of the first is "Amin's Chinese Halal Restaurant", a name shared with a restaurant in Jersey City (same owner?). I find no website belonging to either Amin's or Mimi's, only address info (Amin's: 57 William Street, (973) 621-2111; Mimi's: 55 William Street; (973) 424-9996.

College Basketball in the Arena. Gaetano found a surprising item. It appears that the first men's basketball game to be held in the Prudential Center, tonite, is not a Seton Hall game:

The seventh-ranked Tennessee Volunteers and the West Virginia Mountaineers meet up in Newark, New Jersey this evening, as they battle one another in semifinal action of the Legend's Classic at the Prudential Center.

It turns out that the Legends Classic (whatever that is) is playing its semifinal game tonite and its final tomorrow at The Rock. The Chattanoogan says:

UT [that's the University of Tennessee, not Utah] will play the West Virginia Mountaineers at 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 23, in the semifinals and will then meet either New Mexico State or Texas Saturday.

Versus [Cablevision channel 146 in Newark] will televise both semifinal games Friday (9:00-11:00pm) and the championship game Saturday.

So we have a national college basketball tournament's final rounds in an Arena that opened less than a month ago. Neato keen.

P.S. It turns out that the Tennessee-West Virginia game was the second basketball game in the Arena, the first being played immediately before it, between Texas and New Mexico. I tuned into the TN-WV game briefly to see what the Arena looks like when set up for basketball. Both ends of the court say "SETON HALL PIRATES", and the words "Prudential [large] Center [smaller, and underneath]" also appear on the boards. The TN-WV game was not well attended, judging from the many empty seats that could be seen in some areas of the Arena, tho one central portion did seem well occupied. Hey, it's a start.

Chateau of Spain

On this day devoted to food, and now only secondarily to counting our blessings, let me show a wide and closer view of something that struck me when I had to go to the main post office recently. Between the post office and Broad Street, across from City Hall at Federal Square, I chanced to see what appears to be an elegant second-floor dining room and the sign that says to what restaurant it belongs.

I had thought that all of our Iberian restaurants were in the Ironbound, but see I was mistaken. Chateau of Spain has a fancy website but what seem to me moderate prices. In the view below, reflections of trees on the outside add to the visual richness. Are those gas lamps inside, or just pointed lite bulbs?

I hope you have all had a great day. I got a free turkey from Pathmark, so of course I'm having a good day!

Ultimate Fiting, Boxing for Newark

[The two entries about the international print exhibits at the Newark Public Library and Robeson Gallery are now online, at November 14th and 15th, below. The Library entry contains 20 fotos; the Robeson entry, 8.]
+
Gaetano attended the UFC 78 event last Saturday at the Prudential Center. "UFC" stands for "Ultimate Fiting Championship". That's not the kind of thing that would ever appeal to me, but Gaetano got a kick out of it. (Not literally.) It was an international matchup. Gaetano found a story about it on the website of one of Britain's best-regarded newspapers, The Daily Telegraph.

---

Today's fotos are of historical plaques on the exterior of the Robert Treat Hotel, mentioned later in this entry. This first tells who Robert Treat was. Along with the next plaque, it tells something of the history of the first days of Newark.

---

Newark's Prudential Center hosted the event which was attended by 15,000 people and had a British fighter headlining in the US for the first time since the sport began. Michael Bisping, 28, from Clitheroe, in Lancashire, may have lost a controversial split points decision against former Olympic wrestler Rashad Evans, of Michigan, and his 15-fight unbeaten record, but he won the hearts and minds of American fans.

There were also some British fans in attendance. Gaetano spoke with some, and said he met people from other distant places at the event as well.

Earlier, the Telegraph told something of the history of "ultimate fiting".

The Ultimate Fighting Championships' first fight night took place 14 years ago today, but the mixed martial arts sport of the present day bears little resemblance to its giddy inception.

The first staging was marketed as a one-off event with only one rule: that there weren't any rules. "There are three ways of winning" proclaimed an over-zealous marketing campaign at the time, "by knockout, submission or death".

Little wonder that mixed martial arts and UFC were banned across every state in America by 1997, and then went underground. The events were then organised through the internet after cable television contracts were terminated.

Senator John McCain, of Arizona, led the charge to ban these competitions from cable television, describing the events as "human cock fighting". Now he has revised his opinion, saying: "The sport has grown up. The rules have been adopted to give its athletes better protections and to ensure fairer competition."

The American won what a blog Gaetano also found called a "lackluster main event".

The Telegraph says that "The fight night grossed $2.5 million (£1.2 million)." If that is correct, the Arena might well attract more such events. Meanwhile, boxing is also coming to Newark, but not, apparently, to the Prudential Center. Gaetano found this story:

Joe DeGuardia's Star Boxing, announced today the exciting Light Heavyweight match up between dangerous Philadelphian Eric “Magic 2000” Harding (23-4-1 7KO's) and Brooklyn, NY's, Shaun George (15-2-2 7KO's) on Thursday, December 6, 2007, at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, NJ.

Huh? Where in the Robert Treat Hotel is there room for a boxing match?

Building on the Truth

I had to leave another comment on a website today, the "Watchdog" blog of newsday.com Sportswatch columnist Neil Best. Gaetano found the story, about some zoo-radio fool named Craig Carton who said this to a guest on his show who was going to talk to elementary-school children in Newark about consuming more dairy products:

"While you're there suggest they put the guns down, too. A little dairy is good, but no more guns, ya?"

How many Newark elementary-school kids does this Carton creature think are using guns? Would Carton make the same remark about New York City schoolchildren? Suburban schoolchildren? Or are listeners to that show, co-hosted by Boomer Esiason, supposed to wink knowingly and leap to agree that Newark is specially violent? (I don't have any fotos of gun-toting 8-year-olds to show you, so today's pix will show City Hall during and after its renovation this past year.)

Here, the whole of City Hall is under tarps, presumably to protect workers from the elements and perhaps also to keep the wind from moving loose items. Only a few steel girders poking up between City Hall and the mirror-glass façade of the PSE&G Building mark the spot where the Newark Arena (its name then) was going up .

Some of the "haters" we have discussed in recent days were out in force, posting slanders of Newark as comments after that story. So I left my own comment. This is the last time. at least for a while, that I will place such remarks here, and that's mainly to let readers know what I see happening and see as well the kinds of things they might want to write in answer to anti-Newark propaganda they themselves might see in the future.

Newarkers are very tired of mindless slander from people who don't know what they're talking about. NJIT [mentioned in one negative comment] is in Newark, and thousands of people attend it for four years apiece without serious incident. For 7 years I have driven at all hours of day and nite in various parts of Newark and never had a problem. I have walked at various times of nite in areas from the Ironbound (far to the east) to Downtown to Vailsburg (all the way to the west) without incident. I've published over 1,700 fotos on the "Newark USA" fotoblog from all over the city, taken day and nite. And people can see the truth from those fotos, even if they can't get into town to see for themselves. But, thanks to the Arena, lots of people ARE now seeing for themselves. And what they see is very different from what they've been told.

There are bad blocks in Newark, as in any big city, but NJIT isn't near any of them. Racists who know to hide their bigotry behind coded discussions about 'violence' or 'crime' are fooling no one. Newark is NOT a "hellhole", tho some people can make even Beverly Hills or Park Avenue into their own personal hell thru drugs, which are the source of the great preponderance of such crime as does afflict Newark -- as they afflict every major city. Newark overall is NOT a slum, tho there are individual blocks and buildings for which the term "slum" is, alas, appropriate. We're working to fix that.

In this wider view, part of the Prudential Center appears to the left of City Hall.

Good people want good things for other people. Bad people delite in others' problems, and do not content themselves with speaking the truth about hard problems but exaggerate those problems beyond recognition, out of malice. Still, over 200,000 people have in the past month alone attended events at the Arena without suffering a single crime. The Newark-slanderers are going to have to step up the lies and increase the volume, because the truth is getting out, and slanders on the Internet don't jibe with the Newark that people have seen with their own eyes. Too bad for the liars that eyes trump lies every time.

In this view that shows 744 and 1180, as in the first foto in this series, you get a sense of how close together major sites are in Downtown Newark.

Once outsiders become comfortable with the Prudential Center area, we can hope they will want to see other parts of Newark. The police had better start preparing to make all parts of what will become Tourist Newark safe. That means, at the least, from Lincoln Park and the City Without Walls area on the south to Bears & Eagles Stadium and the Broad Street Station on the north, plus the restaurant area of the Ironbound to the east of Newark Penn Station. Ideally, and especially during certain times of the year, the area from St. Lucy's to the lions on the lake opposite the Catheral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Branch Brook Park should also be heavily patrolled. Tourism is free money, but safety, for tourists and residents, isn't free. City and police department officials cannot, however, think in terms of tradeoffs. To make Tourist Newark safe at the cost of pulling police out of more vulnerable areas is not an acceptable tradeoff. You have to spend money to make money, and creating a safe Tourist Newark will repay our investment many times over.

Banking on Newark

The President and CEO of the New Jersey Historical Society, Linda Caldwell Epps (a black woman), wrote an opinion piece for "NJ Voices" that Gaetano found on NJ.com October 30th. It speaks to the kind of city a revitalized Newark and the kind of state New Jersey will be after Newark resumes its role of New Jersey's own metropolis.

Newark will never be what it was 50 or 60 years ago when it was the New Jersey mecca for shopping and cultural life according to those who long for the "good old days". We must remind ourselves that the "good old days" were only good for a select group. Thankfully, our democracy has moved beyond what it was during Newark's "good old days".

Newark and other great cities of the United States will never again be the centers of industrial revolution. Cities will never again be the enclaves of Anglo art and culture.

We have grown as a country. We are brown, black, red and yellow with this rainbow generation clamoring for their rightful place in our society. Our different hues have changed our perceptions, our living conditions, and our culture. ***

There is not a separation between what is good for Newark and what is good for the rest of New Jersey. Newark is New Jersey and New Jersey is Newark. Let us hope that we arrive at this understanding soon. Our future depends on it.

Lusitania Savings Bank is a Newark-based independent bank with four branches, two in Newark, one in Harrison, and one in Hillside. It is oriented to the Portuguese-speaking community, which in Newark is mainly Portuguese and Brazilians. ("Lusitania" was a province of the Roman Empire that included all of Portugal and part of Spain. People who speak Portuguese are called "Lusophone".)

Alas, not everyone agrees with Ms. Epps, and "the haters" were out in force, practically drowning out her hopeful opinion piece with negative comments appended to the end. I didn't recognize the names — well, not names, actually; these people don't use their names — but I did recognize the same 'color'-coded remarks. Different names, same crap.
+
The white-flite crowd want Newark to fail, because if people in general should ever come to realize that Newark could have recovered from the Riots quickly if the middle class by scores of thousands hadn't run like little white rabbits with their cottontails between their legs, then the cowardice and racism of those who did flee will be understood to have been not just contemptible but also stupid. Newark businesses and neighborhoods could have come back decades ago, after just a few years — instead of four decades — of dislocations and readjustments.
+
Altho "the haters" flock to NJ.com to post noxious comments about Newark, they do not speak for New Jerseyans generally. New Jerseyans would love to have a great city of their own, one with its own towers, not one that looks across the Hudson to somebody else's towers. They want respect when the name "New Jersey" is spoken, and are sick of "Joisey" jokes.

Portuguese-speaking mmigrants have done a lot to revive the Ironbound. Altho one might think this influx recent, the newspaper Luso-Americano was founded in Newark in 1928.

Who can champion New Jersey? Who represents and speaks for New Jersey? The 'burbs? New Jersey's suburbs are the same as every other city's suburbs, except that a few are a bit blacker. Jersey City has our name, but does it have our back? JC is an extension of New York City, and its skyscrapers were built with New York money to house backoffice jobs for New York businesses. That's fine. But some people in Jersey City insist on calling J.C. "the Sixth Boro" (of NYC). Newark is nobody's 'boro'.
+
New Jerseyans would love a broad-shouldered, powerful, yet smart, cultured, classy Newark to make the world stop looking down its nose at New Jersey.

Ironbound Bank, founded in 1988 in Newark. Despite its name, it is no longer an Ironbound institution but part of New York Community Bancorp, Inc.

I don't know where the money to build a taller, better Newark is going to come from. Our own banks probably don't have enuf. Newark-based businesses can help, when they add jobs, pay taxes, and lease more space. Businesses that outgrow their current space in the suburbs and opt for Newark bring not just jobs but also energy and economic dynamism. Newark-area artists and musicians can help Newark grow, as they draw outsiders in to spend some money in local venues and tell people, when they go home, that Newark is back. Immigrants, especially well-educated people from places like India and China, can help, especially if they bring their business acumen with them. But I suspect our best hope is to in-gather the scattered who should never have scattered, and their children who are now emptying the parental nest. Newark will have 'arrived' when New Jersey kids who can't stand the isolation of the suburbs and think of moving to "the city" think "Newark", a smaller, cheaper, friendlier city, rather than "New York". Home, but not their parents' home.

Grace Reformed Baptist; Vecsey on Newark

For this "Church Sunday" at Newark USA I present a foto of a church very near me in what appears to be an ordinary house on Sandford Avenue. Were it not for the sign out front, I wouldn't even know there was a church there.

I found a website for the church that says it originated with a group of Newarkers affiliated with Trinity Baptist Church in Montville. But now they have their own meeting place in Vailsburg, at 639 Sandford Avenue; (973) 371-9005.

Vecsey on Newark. Gaetano found a commentary about Newark today by George Vecsey, sports columnist for The New York Times, in connection with the new ease of accessibility of Devils games for hockey fans from New York via the train.

Parallel steel rails now connect the three hockey franchises in the area. The tripartite rivalry [Devils, Rangers, Islanders] can never match the days when the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Manhattan Giants and the Bronx Yankees were all connected by subway lines — ask your grandfather — but it gets people out of the swamps, and that is something. ***

[But, he says later,] (The Islanders' arena is not within walking distance of a train, alas.) [Hm.] ***

I have to admit, as a lifelong New Yorker, I had never set foot in downtown Newark until Friday. Now I look forward to getting back for a Seton Hall game or taking the light-rail line to the Newark Museum. This city is more inviting this fall — for people wearing Islanders gear or even Rangers gear.

See what a major-league sports arena can do? Mayor James was right. If you build it, they will come. And once they get here, they will see that Newark is much better than they thought it was, and easy to get to. For many, their first trip to Newark will not be their last.

Jazz Marathon; More on Newark 'Scum'

Before we get to the jazz marathon, let me share this reader's reaction to the "Most of Newark is scum" email exchange from yesterday.

In response to the unpleasant email you received I say this:

That person said they knew the Newark you will never know. To him/her I give my 'congratulations'. So now I say: someone who lived in Newark so long ago could never understand how far the city has come. I lived in Newark in the 80s when there was so much more to complain about. Newark is NOTHING like the way it was in the 80s.

-The city has come so far since then, so someone who lived there in perhaps the 50s could never understand that kind of progress. That person even says "what a resurgence that is" (sarcastically). That proves my point. He remembers glory-days Newark, so he can never understand the progress made from the 80s until now. He cites FBI crime stats that include Newark as one the most dangerous US cities (number 22nd I believe). So I would like to ask him: do you remember sir/ma'am when Newark, NJ was the NUMBER 1 most dangerous US city? And you're going to tell me this city didn't come a long way?

-That person speaks as if he has some sort of 'one-up' on you even though you choose to live Newark now and I'm certain know MUCH more about the city.

E.A. Steed, Old Bridge, NJ (Lived in Newark in the 80s (Osbourne Ter); now reside in Old Bridge, NJ. Plan on moving to 1180 next year)

ps Keep up your good work. There will always be haters and there was a time when I thought the haters of Newark outnumbered the optimists. I no longer think that's the case. Why? The city has been growing every single year since 2000. People go to the arena, they go to NJPac, they go to the art galleries, etc. No matter how many NJcritics/seth...whatever are out there, they don't speak for the majority even if they argue that they do.

I replied:

"The city has been growing every single year since 2000." I moved here in June 2000. They're all rushing to be near me. Yeah, that's the ticket.

But seriously, folks ... According to Morgan Quitno press, which uses FBI statistics, Newark was not even among the top 25 most dangerous cities in the U.S. in 2006 (and the safest city in the Nation was Brick Township, NJ). The gap between reality and reputation is astonishing, and the list of Top 25 most dangerous cities contains a number of surprises, among which is that in 2006, Minneapolis was the 23rd most dangerous city in the Nation! Who would ever have thought that? Here are some other cities on the 2006 list that people in general might be surprised at, cities that have a much better reputation than Newark and are destinations for hordes of tourists: Orlando, FL (7th); Atlanta, GA (14th); Nashville, TN (15th); Miami, FL (16th); St. Petersburg, FL (17th); Pompano Beach, FL (18th); Philadelphia, PA (21st); Tampa, FL (24th). Newark wasn't on the list at all. Ain't that a kick in the pants?!
+
The 2007 list did, alas, include Newark, at 22nd, probably due to the bump in certain violent crimes, particularly the Ivy Hill shootings (one incident, but three dead). We'll see what happens next year. Still, two of the cities that people don't fear, from the list above, are still on the 25-worst list for 2007: Orlando, FL (25th, three below us) and Atlanta, GA (17th, five above us).
+
The 2005 list did not include Newark, but did include Atlanta (3rd), Tampa (15th), and Miami (19th). You have to wonder how meaningful such lists are if they change so drastically from year to year. A single incident like the Ivy Hill shootings may bump a city up or down many places from year to year.
+
I wandered around the Rutgers area Downtown in the early evening after Thursday's gallery reception. With college kids walking to and fro, and eating in groups at the Subway sandwich shop at street level in the new dorm; trees above and autumn leaves below, it had much the feel of a college area of Boston or Philadelphia. Boston is on none of the most-dangerous lists, 2005-2007; Philly is on the national 2006 list, and on the 2005 list for Top 10 most dangerous cities over half a million population (6th). In the last three years, Newark was on only the 2007 national list and that, I repeat, might have been an aberration due largely to the Ivy Hill shootings.*

Jazz Marathon. Gaetano had alerted me to an eight-hour jazz marathon at Symphony Hall and the WBGO webpage about it. It seems that WBGO used to produce "Jazz Friday" concerts at Symphony Hall, but no longer does. Friday would be a much better time for such an event than a Thursday nite. I don't know what they were thinking.

Marathon performers include Savion Glover, T.K. Blue, Roseanna Vitro, Melvin Davis, David Daoud Williams, Antoinette Montague, Carrie Jackson, Bradford Hayes and many more. So come on down to Symphony Hall to celebrate its 83 years of greatness, and experience some of the area's most talented jazz singers and musicians in an unforgettable evening of swing.

I saw no mention of ticket prices, so sent two inquiries to BGO, one by feedback form and the other an email followup to someone whose address I found on the BGO website. No one answered. Very unprofessional. It would be unprofessional if I were just a private person inquiring for myself alone. But it was especially unprofessional in that I identified myself as having a fotoblog about Newark, which should have told them that I could help publicize the event if I got the information I requested.
+
In any case, I was Downtown Thursday anyway, so instead of going directly home from the Robeson Gallery, drove to Symphony Hall to see how much tickets cost. If it were free, a fundraiser that people would give at thru canisters or something, I might go in, not for the music, because I don't much like music (of any kind except classic Motown, which I love), but to see and hopefully fotograf the interior of Symphony Hall.

(In proofing this entry after I uploaded it, I looked closely at the foto above and wonder if I'm seeing rite: do the Ionic capitals of the columns really have scrolls only on the outside? I checked the original foto. No inner scrolls showing. That is really weird, it seems to me.)
+
I looked for a box office at the main entrance but did not see one. A man in the wide, upward-sloping entryway was taking tickets. When I said I didn't have one, he said the box office is out the front door to the left and down three doors. Again, what were they thinking?
+
I asked how much the tickets are, and he didn't know. He thought, $25. I told him I was just curious (in order to tell you) and didn't much care for jazz myself. I have WBGO as one of the push-button stations on my car radio, but don't much listen to the radio in the car (and the car is the only place I do listen to radio). For one thing, I want to be able to hear traffic noises, for safety. And there's that pesky I-don't-much-care-for-music thing. (I saw an Internet poll at, I think, iWon.com, that found that some 5% or more of people do not ordinarily listen to music. I'm not alone!) The two stations I do sometimes listen to, however, are WBGO and WQXR, the (European-)classical music station of The New York Times. I regard jazz as the classical music of the United States.
+
I went outdoors to see where the box office is. It's in a preposterous location, perhaps 60 feet from the closest point of the main entrance. Will they move it from that absurd location once the Hall's renovations are completed? Or are the renovations already complete and they intend to leave it in the wilderness?
+
In any case, Gaetano sent me email yesterday entitled "went to this with friend and it was fantastic":

I took a friend from Jersey City and now we are going to attend other Jazz events in West Orange and Newark at The Priory, which my friend knew of from years ago and is somewhat famous. There must have been 500 people in the room by 9:30, and it went to 1am.

People were dressed to the 9s or the hilt, whichever "jazzy" terminology you prefer, or there might be a better term. People were deff in their jazz attire.

I talked to a woman (African American), AnnMarie, who came from Minnesota, lived in Manhattan but had a 400 sq foot place for $2,000.00 per month, moved to Jersey City in a very, very expensive condo on the water but said lots of the young yuppie people were too loud, and moved to Newark 7 years ago to Mount Prospect Towers. She is on the 5th floor and has 2,700 sq feet. Yes, that is correct: 2,700!!! and a great view, and she loves it. [To put that in perspective, my entire three-story house with nearly full basement contains little more than 2,000 square feet. But, of course, I have a yard, trees, azaleas, flowers, and veggies, which apartment dwellers don't. Yes, in the autumn I do have to rake leaves, but as I tell the guys who offer to help for a fee, that is recreation to me. And it's very good exercise, especially for someone who sometimes, insanely, spends 17 hours at the computer. I love it.]

Too bad you missed it. It was a room filled with lots of people who love Newark and love Jazz and want to see both succeed in this city. I am going to make a donation to the Hall, which is trying to raise money to bring it back to its old glory!

I have shown here, exterior pix of the Priory, on April 28th of this year and May 7, 2006. The webpage for the Priory (a restaurant in a former Catholic church) that Gaetano showed a link for says:

The Priory features Friday night jazz and a Sunday jazz brunch, as well as gospel and other musical programs, workshops, and special events.

The main webpage for the Priory has a bit more info:

The Atrium at The Priory Restaurant is also home to several music series featuring local and national artist[s]. Friday Night Jazz offers a weekly after-work series of performances for jazz aficionados. Inspirational music is offered monthly at the Gourmet Gospel concert series. Sundays feature a popular Sunday Jazz Brunch beneath the soaring gothic arches of the former church that is a popular destination after church.

"After-work" suggests early evening, say, 5-8pm. That shouldn't conflict with a Symphony Hall event starting at, say, 8:00. Perhaps it's time for Symphony Hall and WBGO to resume "Jazz Fridays". Who knows? If it doesn't cost a fortune (for us on Social Security, more than $20 is a fortune), I might even go someday myself.
____________________

* The Essex County government is building a memorial to the three slain students in Ivy Hill Park. I think that is an extremely unwise, even foolish, mistake. Tho the pretense is that it honors their lives, the reality is that it will serve as constant reminder of a horrible crime. Are we to erect governmentally-funded monuments at every murder site? Why in a park? Why not a "Monument to the Fallen in Newark's War Against Crime", in Fairmount Cemetery? That's a beautiful place that could use lots more visitors. Why on Earth would you want to put a monument to dead kids in a park that little kids play in? DiVincenzo has done some wonderful things with the Essex County Parks, including a classy revamp of the entryway to Vailsburg Park not far from me. But the Ivy Hill slayings monument, also not far from me, is a huge mistake.

'Most of Newark Is Scum'

I received an unpleasant email yesterday in response to my comments Tuesday about answering slanders of Newark. Today's fotos respond to an accusation therein about bars that people must have on their windows in Newark nowadays. What better disproof of the implication that Newark is so crime-ridden that we have to have bars on our windows than simply to show fotos of houses without bars? (The neighborhood of each house pictured is identified in the text that appears when you hover your cursor over the foto.) Are there houses, old and new, with bars on the windows? Sure, some, more in some neighborhoods than others. But there are plenty that do not have any such thing. A decorative wrought-iron fence easily breached (or left open, as in the last picture today) is not the equivalent of bars on the windows, and, as you can see below, many parts of Newark don't have even that. This first foto, of an interestingly decorated house in the Ironbound, is a bit larger than I usually show fotos, in order that you might see detail of the windows where, in a place like most of New York City, you would expect to see bars. Here's what s/he said about Newark:

I don't think you can slander an object or thing. You slander a person. Anyway, I would tend to agree with sethpage and njcritic. The FBI crime statistics still confirm Newark as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

I lived in Newark long before you did. I worked for the city and worked in the city when I worked for the state. The Newark I knew and you will never know is gone forever. It is not buildings that make a city. It is its population. Most of Newark is scum, with some exceptions, in my humble opinion. I travel through the city on occasions. I see all the new housing, replete with bars covering the entire lower floors. Who wants to live in what amounts to be a prison? What a great resurgence that is. Take some pictures of what the real Newark looks like. I'm sure you won't because you want to propagate what you want people to believe is the real Newark. But you can't fool the Newarkers who made the city what it once was. Which is something you will never be. You are an outsider, a johnny-come-lately. You will never recapture the brilliance of the real Newark, no matter what building or arena or art center that self-serving politicians use to lure the carpet baggers into the city.

BTW, use proper english [says s/he who doesn't capitalize "english"]. Your inane idea of changing the language to suit your agenda is not what the current residents of Newark need to achieve any sort of recognition.

Friend of the Blog "DC" in NYC, however, agreed with me, in this email received earlier yesterday:

Trust me Craig,

It is mostly racial. I remember when I first came back from NC, and an article about the NJPAC first appeared. There were so many negative people who were trying to destroy the project before it got started. Many said whites wouldn’t come, and blacks wouldn’t support it. I saw the same thing happen when Society Hill was first mentioned. Yet it sold out overnight.

The problem is that certain people have gotten used to seeing Newark as a warehouse for social ills. When Newark started pulling itself together in the mid 80’s, I think certain people started to freak. They never dreamt that Newark would come back. By the time Vailsburg, Weequahic, Forest Hill, the Clinton Hills, Tuxedo Park, and Roseville are completely restored Newark, like Harlem, will be almost untouchable.

I also think that in the long run Newark will do much better then Jersey City. Why? The NJ Transit train from Manhattan is only a 15 minute zap from Penn to Penn. Unlike Jersey City, Newark is much greener.

Even with the housing market falling, Newark will still benefit in the long run.

I sent this reply to the Newark-hater, and hope DC is reading:

You are a bitter fool, and I have shown LOTS of pictures of places like Vailsburg where there are NO bars on the windows, along with some places where some houses do have bars. Your problem is almost certainly racial; you resent white people being driven out of Newark by black "scum", even tho white flite (if you want to spell stupidly, go right ahead; it fits you) was voluntary, from exaggerated fear and racist bigotry.
+
Newark may indeed never be what it once was, a predominantly white city. That does not mean it won't be BETTER than it once was, more cultured, more dynamic, more inclusive; less industrial and polluted. You are of course entitled to your bitterness, but not to slander. And yes, there is such a thing as group slander. Newark, as a city, is a collection of people, and you slander the group when you say things like "Most of Newark is scum".
+
Go ahead and live in bitterness. It drags down your life, not mine. But don't be surprised if people slandered fite back and call racists, racists.

As for my not using "proper [E]nglish", you're not likely to find English more proper than mine, anywhere. What that writer meant was "Traditional Orthography", the inane spelling "system" frozen in about 1600 that we are suffering in 2007. As for the contention that Newarkers don't need spelling reform, I must differ. The whole English-speaking world needs spelling reform. We waste years and years, thousands of hours of class and teacher time, and tens of thousands of hours out of our lifetime struggling with insane spelling. It has produced hugely higher rates of illiteracy in English-speaking countries than in, for instance, Spanish-speaking countries. You can learn the spelling of Spanish in one-hundredth the time it takes to teach English spelling, because Spanish is spelled intelligently whereas English is spelled stupidly.
+
Those of us whose ancestors are not from England have absolutely no reason to defend the inexcusably stupid spelling of English. Even people whose ancestors are from England should be willing to say, "Times change, our spelling hasn't — why is that?" and welcome reform. Old English and Middle English were written right. All those now-silent W's, GH's, and -E's were pronounced! We haven't pronounced them in centuries. Why are they still there?
+
Both reading and writing should be a joy, not torment. And reading shouldn't leave you wondering, a hundred times a day, how something is supposed to be pronounced. Conveying speech over space and time is what alphabetic writing is all about. In English, alphabetic writing, bizarrely, does not plainly show speech. We can fix that, and leave the Bad Old Days of spelling insanity behind. A place like Newark, busy leaving its own Bad Old Days behind, might be the ideal place to teach kids a better way, at least as regards starting them off to read by showing them how, ideally, writing relates to sound. If they don't stay with phonetic spelling, they can at least get a good introduction to the madness of traditional spelling. If we wrote phonetically, we could reduce the teaching of reading and spelling to one or two years, and even the slowest kid in the most disadvantaged neighborhood could sound out every word in the most sophisticated text you could throw at him (or her). S/he might not know what the words mean, but s/he would certainly know how to pronounce them.
+
Alas, there are some people who don't want the poor to be able to read, as much in our time as in William Caxton's time:

Caxton was not without his detractors. There was widespread unease amongst the Merchant Class of the time, who felt that if the printed page were to become widely available to the population, then it might filter through to the poor. The poor, it was believed, might then "become aware and enlightened of their circumstances" and, ultimately, dissatisfied and aggrieved. This, it was felt, might lead to unrest and civil disturbance.

In challenging the wisdom of his critics, Caxton announced: "If tis wrong I do, then tis a fine and noble wrong".

International Print Show, Robeson Gallery

Yesterday I showed pix of the Newark Public Library portion of the joint art exhibit, "The World in Prints". Today, I'll discuss the Rutgers-Newark portion of this major exhibition. As with the fotos yesterday, avoiding reflections required me to take some of these pix from a fairly oblique angle, so they are not square to the viewer.

The Robeson Galleries comprise a main room, which is perhaps 30 feet long by 20 feet wide, on the main floor of the Paul Robeson Campus (student) Center, and some satellite spaces elsewhere in the building. The prints exhibition is in the main gallery only.

Whereas the Library displays works from as early as 1501, Robeson shows mostly 20th and 21st Century pieces. There is one conspicuous exception, a Goya of two turbaned bullfiters, from about 1799. The Director of the Robeson Galleries, Jorge Daniel Veniciano, was very struck by this, considering that Spain went to a great deal of trouble to reconquer Iberia from the Moors, and expelled the Moriscos (Moslems who pretended to convert to Christianity) in 1609. He apparently takes the picture as journalistic proof that Moslems were accepted in the bullring. I'm not sure it isn't just a picture from the artist's imagination.

Veniciano was effusive in his praise of a new assistant curator/director (?) who joined the staff just in time to help put this exhibit together. I didn't get her exact name, but it sounded like "Ananda" something (which is what I will call her here until corrected).* I tried to find her name on the Robeson Galleries' website, but that website is inexcusably out-of-date and does not include this prints exhibition at all, much less the name of the Australian woman who assisted in producing it. Surely there are at least 700 Rutgers-Newark students who could keep the Galleries' website current, for free, just to have that function noted on the site itself and on their résumé, or for extra credit in an IT or art course. How a major university can display a website that is hopelessly and embarrassingly out-of-date is beyond my comprehension.
+
Anonda then spoke briefly, and I thought to myself that that accent would drive me mad if I had to work with her. But Veniciano and she both said something about her having a project in mind for the Krueger-Scott Mansion, so after the formal remarks I went up to her and asked if she was able to get inside the Mansion. She said no, and asked if I had an 'in'. I said no, I was hoping she did, because I'd like to get inside to take pix for my fotoblog. When I said "fotoblog", she looked quizzical and asked, "What's your name?" When I said "Craig Schoonmaker", she smiled and shook my hand, saying she had read some of my blog after she found it in an Internet search for background info on Newark. I had just the nite before counted how many people I have met who have found this blog on their own, so was able to tell her that she is the 11th.
+
We chatted a bit, and I asked her to let me know if she finds a way into the Mansion. We spoke about how little of the collections of major museums is on display at any given time. She said in many cases it's as little as 10%. I said I think I heard that only 6% of the Whitney's collection is on display at any given time, tho some pieces are swapped in and out of storage for special shows. She said it may be necessary to withdraw some things for conservation purposes because, for instance, plexiglass bends with changes in temperature, and can rub against a print, causing gradual damage to the work.
+
I then asked why one piece had a different frame (wooden) from all the rest (gold-tone metal). (John Tarrell Scott's Blues for The Middle Passage, 1988 offset lithograph, collage.) She said it was probably because it was three-dimensional, which I hadn't noticed. She took me over to it so I could see that indeed there are cutout figures mounted in advance of the background. I asked if all the elements were prints, and there were, for instance, 120 of them put together the same way. She said that if there were 120, they might all differ slitely because they were not of a piece but had to be hand-assembled, but yes, all the elements were prints. I noticed another collage, at the Library the day before, and wondered why there was a collage in a print show. I guess the same dynamics apply to that work. Here is the collage-print at the Robeson show. Unfortunately, a two-dimensional image cannot bring home the three-dimensionality of the piece.

As we were speaking (and no, her accent didn't drive me mad after all), Judith Brodsky, who was soon to leave, came up and excused herself in order to speak with Anonda [correct spelling]* before heading out. (Judith Brodsky is, according to Wikipedia, a "World renowned printmaker", but Wikipedia doesn't have an article on her. I feel a little better about my enemies having succeeded in getting Wikipedia to delete the article about me that some unknown someone had put up. It took them two tries, but they finally got it deleted after perhaps three years. In any case, Judith Brodsky taught at Rutgers' New Brunswick campus from 1978-2000, and she and her husband established the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper in 1986. Last year it was renamed the Brodsky Center (full name: "The Judith K. and David J. Brodsky Center for Print and Paper at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University"). In looking for a Brodsky Center website to link to for you, I chanced to see the name June Wayne, whose "Whoopers" piece I showed here yesterday. When I clicked on her name, I saw a picture of what looks like a woman I spoke with at the Library reception the day before, without knowing who she was.
+
In a lull, I said to Ms. Brodsky, "I like your print" (in the Robeson show). She smiled and explained it to me. It is one of five prints in a series, The Meadowlands Strike Back, an apocalyptic vision of destruction and renewal. I asked which one this is, and she said fourth, which shows everything burning. The last of the series shows a Garden of Eden emerging after the destruction by fire. But that one is not on display in this show.

A man near Ms. Brodsky introduced himself and we exchanged cards. He's an artist, Marco Muñoz, who seems very sanguine about the state of the arts in Newark, tho his own studio is in Montclair. I mentioned to him and Anonda that I don't know what we have in the way of studio space available within Newark, and added that it's a pity we couldn't have saved the Westinghouse building for such a purpose (and, I might add here, for residential lofts or apartments). Anonda said it's to be demolished as soon as within the next two months. Sad.
+
Marco said he had heard of my fotoblog, in connection with the opening of Rupert Ravens' Contemporary art gallery, but not yet seen it. So I could not count him as No. 12. (Nor do I count people I give my card to or otherwise alert to it myself.)
+
Finally, I'll show the last of the favorites Wilma Grey showed me in the catalog, flanked by two pix of my favorites from the Robeson Gallery. First, here are two monochrome prints. On top is Howard Cook's Skyscraper (1929). Below is M.C. Escher's Day and Night (1938), in which a 'checkerboard' of lite- and dark-colored stylized geese define each other's shapes, flying in opposite directions, and merge into a checkerboard of fields they are flying over. The work is in effect symmetrical left-rite, but lite-dark.

This next piece is Lorenzo Homar's calligraphic Carteles, Pinturas, Serigrafías, Xilografías (1993).

And we close this blog entry with a stylized portrait of Josephine Baker. (Richard Ely's Josephine Baker, not dated, serigraph.)

The Robeson exhibition runs thru January 24th.
____________________

* The name is "Anonda Bell". She sent me email that says the Robeson Galleries website will be updated soon. In any case, I have changed all but the first reference to "Anonda".