Building More Display Space

It occurred to me after I had posted yesterday's blog entry that each house built by Habitat for Humanity Newark has blank walls that will need something on them. Wouldn't it be great if young, physically fit Newark artists could form an Artists Crew to build houses in their spare time and offer each family, at the presentation of the finished house, an original artwork or reproduction of its choosing by a Newark artist? Call it "building an audience".
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There are even poor, and partially disabled, artists who could use a Habitat for Humanity house of their own.
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Today's fotos are of a grand old house in the North Ward on Mount Prospect Avenue that I saw a year ago Monday on a Newarkology walking tour.

Looks good, doesn't it? But it's apparently derelict, or was a year ago, as you can see from this closeup of a window whose broken glass partly covers plywood closures. It is also "tagged" by some graffiti fool.

That's sad. I hope that when the rich return to Newark, they will buy and restore these grand old homes to their original glory. They would be wonderful places to live.

Red Saw/27 Mix Event Friday

One of Newark's oddest art venues, a gallery that is open only Thursday nites from 6 to 9pm (and by appointment), is holding a reception this Friday from 6-9 also for its new multi-artist show, "Fakes". 19 artists will display in the main space, plus a 20th in the Reception Gallery (I don't know what the difference is) and a 21st, Marco Muñoz, will be displaying at 27 Mix nearby, which is also to host an after-party that nite. I got notices of this from both Red Saw direct and Marco. I've never been to 27 Mix, so maybe I'll make a point of showing up. If it's not too cold.
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Red Saw is up two long, steep flites of stairs, above the Aljira gallery at 585 Broad Street, south of Central Avenue. I'd be happier with an elevator. But at least in Newark, unlike New York, people are polite if they are stuck behind an old guy who has to climb stairs like a toddler, both feet to one step before starting the next. In New York, you practically have to hold on to the railing for fear of being knocked down.
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Today's fotos are of a corner in the Central Ward that was for years the site of an empty apartment house whose broken windows were a poke in the eye to the idea of a resurgent Newark. But look at it now.

There is, as you can see, still a vacant lot alongside. Let's see how long it is before something new is built there, on South Orange Avenue near Littleton Avenue.

Someone I used to work with worked one weekend on a house built on Littleton by Habitat for Humanity, which has a Newark chapter. Those of you who would like to contribute in some tangible way to the rebuilding of Newark but don't have money to spare might want to play Bob (Roberta?) the Builder with Habitat for Humanity Newark.

Worst Over?

We are in the coldest part of the year right now, the three weeks around the first of February. But the sun is now high enuf in the sky that it is above the frame of the southward facing windows in my hoffice all afternoon long, and I can leave the shade all the way up as I work at my computer. I take this as a metaphor for Newark's current condition. We are not yet out of our long winter, but spring is on the way.
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Speaking of frames, the acoustical jazz quartet Framework is playing tomorrow evening (Wednesday, January 30th) from 7:30 to 10:30pm at Skipper's in Downtown Newark (304 University Ave, Newark, NJ 07102; (973) 733-9300). Joseph Frame, the guitarist, says:

Skipper's is between Bank St. and Campbell St. (one block North of Market St.). We have not performed there before, but our percussionist is friendly with one of the owners, and I found this review on tripadviser.com:

"I stopped into Skipper's Plane Street Pub and not only did I have a great meal but the atmosphere was fun and really friendly. The servers were on the ball and extremely courteous. Skipper's is a nostalgic quaint little spot in the heart of downtown Newark. If you're looking for a quick bite or a place to hang out, this is the place. I loved it!"

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I don't have any pix of musicians, so I'll put here today fotos of a different kind of player, Monte Irvin, a Newark professional baseball player of the 40s and 50s, and the caption to that foto, as they appear in the seating area of a lounge of the Prudential Center. There is an Essex County park in Orange named for him, but I didn't know who he was. Now I not only know who he was but also what he looked like.

More places "to hang out", with live music, are exactly the kind of thing Newark needs at this juncture. There's 27 Mix on Halsey Street, Sugar Ray's Comedy Club at least some nites, and Irish bagpipe music at Kilkenny Ale House on Tuesdays, but I'm not sure what else we have. I'd like to put up a page on my Tourism Newark website about nitelife, and need some guidance. So if any of you out there have suggestions and recommendations, I'll run them by here to see what others have to say.

Tourism Newark Site. I thought to run a Google search for "tourism newark" a couple of days ago to see if my TourismNewark.org website has been found yet, and it has. It came up as the 9th and 10th items in the search results. Two days' entries from this blog mentioning tourism also came up, as the 6th and 7th listings, just below the City of Newark's website. Alas, the first result for "tourism newark" was for Newark (pronounced New Ark), Delaware, as was one other in the top four. The sequence of Newarks in the top 10 was Delaware, NJ, Nottinghamshire (England), Delaware, NJ 3X, Ohio, NJ 2X. Four of the five NJ results point to pages of mine. Unfortunately, the two TourismNewark.org pages that Google directs people to are not yet in good shape, so I have to get on that quick as a bunny. Yes, we used to say that in my day. Does anyone still say it?
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Moreover, there is now a list of a bunch of tourist sites at the top of the search results page, for "Local business results for tourism near Newark, NJ", which is new. Note that I did not specify which of the many Newarks of the World I was looking for in typing "tourism newark". Google knew to generate a list specific to the only important one. Unfortunately, many of those one-line listings are for New York City sights. Hm. Perhaps that's not so bad, that people see New York as near Newark, rather than the other way around.
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Emailbag. I have received a number of emails, pro and con, that I may want to discuss here in future days. Keep those cards and letters coming, boys and girls! (ResurgenceCity@aol.com)

Showing Their Pride

Gaetano saw an article in The New York Times that drew attention to the host of lited buildings that now mark out Newark from the sky and nearby highways:

FOR nearly four decades, the buildings that made up the Newark skyline seemed to huddle together after sundown — forlorn, forgotten and absolutely no match for the incomparable light show just six miles to the east.

Manhattan’s skyline will almost certainly always be more spectacular than Newark’s, worth a seat on the left side of any southbound plane into Newark Liberty Airport. But those on the other side of the plane may actually notice Newark’s skyline at night now.

In recent months, particularly since the Prudential Center opened in downtown Newark in October, the buildings here have been fitted with a glittering tiara as their stout bodies have bathed in floodlights. Newark really does sparkle.

The maker of that observation, Dave Caldwell, usually writes on sports, and brings this back to sports thus:

Now that the Devils play their home games at the 17,625-seat Prudential Center, shots of Newark’s illuminated skyline are shown during telecasts.

His timeline is off, by a lot. It's not just recent months. I noted this trend long ago, that every year there seemed to be more buildings lited at nite, to give Newark a skyline at nite more than just during the day. I wrote about that here on October 23, 2006:

I then walked up to the northern tip of Washington Park to take a picture of the Newark Public Library, which is also lited at nite. There are now a lot of entities in Newark proud to strut their architectural stuff at nite.

Outsiders have noticed this only lately, but it's been going on for a long time. In fact, it continues. I showed here January 18th four pix of one of the more recent additions, the lower stories of 15 Washington Street. The new liting atop 1180 Raymond Boulevard, so close to the brilliant liting of 744 Broad Street, has drawn the most attention.

But other buildings, high and low, are now floodlited at nite. Here, the new Berkeley College building, whose lower façades, front and back, are lited, is seen beyond the statue of Luis Muñoz Rivera in Washington Park.

Here is the Columbus statue seen silhouetted against the IDT Building, with the less-dazzlingly-lited North Reformed Church spire to the left.

And here is the gloriously renovated City Hall, with its gold dome, and the moon adding a silver glow just above the roofline.

Newark today is apparently following these words of wisdom I learned from drag queens when I was a tyke just "coming out" in New York, and consented to meet all kinds of people:

"When you've got it, flaunt it."

Covenant House

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA I present something a little different, Covenant House on Washington Street (330 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102; (973) 621-8705; www.covenanthousenj.org). Covenant House is a private social service agency established in New York City by a Trenton-born Roman Catholic priest. I lived for many years near one of Covenant House's early centers (Tenth Avenue and 41st Street) in Hell's Kitchen. Wikipedia says:

At its height, Covenant House operated in 15 cities with a US$90,000,000 budget, spending three times what the federal government did on runaways.

Puritanism and antihomosexual bigotry nearly destroyed the organization in 1989, when:

[Father Ritter] was accused by Kevin Kite, a former male prostitute and pornographic actor, of having sexual relations after meeting him in New Orleans and flying him to New York to live at Ritter's expense. Several other men came forward after Kite's allegations leading to Ritter's removal as president of Covenant House. There were also allegations of financial improprieties involving a $1 million trust fund.
No charges were filed by the district attorney or state attorney general, but an internal investigation by Kroll and Associates found evidence that he did engage in sexual activities with Kite and shelter residents. Ritter denied the allegations and resigned from both the charity and the Franciscan order in 1990.

The people Ritter was asserted to have had sex with were not prepubescent children but full-grown or nearly full-grown young men. However, this country is all f... screwed up about sex, and pretends that no teenager has ever had sex with someone older than a teen himself unless they are seduced or raped. The United States refuses to accept that teenagers are biological adults. Never mind that teen pregnancy, which had undergone a decline, is on the rise again. There's even a new movie (Juno ), nominated for an Academy Award, about it. We all know what it takes to become pregnant. At least 750,000 and perhaps as many as a million teenage girls get pregnant in this country each year. Plainly, there is a lot more sex going on than results in pregnancy, and teen boys are much more inclined to sexual activity than are girls. Still, society wants to think of teenagers as "children", even as we say, at exactly the same time, that "kids mature faster nowadays".

Alas, the possibility that teen boys might want to get laid was unthinkable to the public in 1989, and it took Covenant House 8 years to return to pre-1990 funding levels. How many runaways had to find their own way, without help, during that time because of puritanism? Now, the organization claims to have helped 65,000 people in several countries last year alone. During Covenant House's dark days, however, how many did they help?
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Newark's center is one of two in New Jersey.

Established in 1989, Covenant House New Jersey operates facilities in Newark and Atlantic City and is the state's largest provider of services to homeless and at-risk youth ages 16-21. In FY2006, Covenant House New Jersey served more than 2,000 young people through the Newark and Atlantic City programs.

On an average night, Covenant House New Jersey provides 110 homeless adolescents and 19 babies a safe and caring place to sleep. Each day, at least a dozen young people walk through the doors of the Covenant House New Jersey Crisis Centers in Newark and Atlantic City for the first time. Arriving anytime of day or night, these young people are looking for a way off the street and for someone to help and care for them.

In 2006, the executive director of Covenant House New Jersey, James White, became the overall organization's Chief Operating Officer, returning Covenant House to its roots: New Jersey.
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I took today's foto on November 11th but am only now using it because tomorrow (Monday, January 28th) Covenant House is participating in the annual count of the homeless in New York City, and is looking for volunteers to help with that unofficial census. What about Newark's homeless? Do we have any idea how many there are of those?

Hibernating

Gaetano has taken me to task for missing various days and not keeping this blog current, day-for-day. He's right, of course. Gaetano is always right. Just ask him.
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I'm in semi-hibernation. This is the coldest part of the year, the three weeks around the end of January/beginning of February, and I have the blahs. Some might call it "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (aptly abbreviated "SAD") or "winter depression". Our many gray days this past wet year haven't helped. I try to keep the house brite, but the thing about the blahs is that altho you know that physical activity will make you feel better, you are too dispirited to launch into such activity. I think coffee might help, but by the time I have thought of it lately, it is already too late to start drinking coffee!
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In any case, Gaetano alerted me to an entry in the Daily Newarker blog today by someone who seemed a little down too. It led off complaining about some Rutgers college student, who should assuredly have known better, dumping a whole load of trash right out her car window, as tho the whole world should clean up after her. I have the same problem in my neighborhood. A lot of teen and even adult Newarkers act like two-year-olds, just dropping trash when they're done with it, wherever they happen to be, as tho their mother is following them around with a broom and dustpan.
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We need to "get medieval on their ass", legalistically speaking. We need to deploy sanitation police to catch the slobs who shower trash on the world as of right, and fine them bigtime: say, $100 first offense, plus 10 hours of cleanup duty; $250 and 50 hours for any second offense; $1,000 and 1,000 hours for a third offense; and hard time in state prison for any further offense. Maybe when their friends see them in dayglow-orange jumpsuits using reachers to pick up trash and shove it into a garbage bag they have to haul around with them, they won't think it so cool to defile the streets.
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In any case, I left the following comment at that largely negative blog entry:

Was this gentleman depressed when he wrote this? Perhaps he should wait until a depressed moment has passed before he writes for this blog. Plainly he has had the good sense, and courage, to fite the good fite for many years rather than run. But the whipsawing emotions, back and forth between pros and cons, confuse the reader. Is Newark a place to stay or flee? The blanket hostility to Mayor James, even when his administration intervened on his side!, is deplorable. I'm relatively new (7 1/2 years) to Newark, and live four miles west of James Street, in leafy, semi-suburban Vailsburg. My experiences have been very different, and almost all positive. Yes, we mourn the loss of the Westinghouse Building and other parts of our cultural heritage. But it is assuredly true that "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs". We need to try to ensure that whatever takes the place of the Westinghouse Building is worthy of that spot. I would urge Zemin, and other urban pioneers working to bring Newark back who have bad days, "Be of good cheer. Reinforcements are on the way."

In any case, Gaetano wants me to fill in the holes in this blog's daily progression, and keep current from now on. I'm not promising anything, but I've got to do something with all the fotos I keep taking.
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Today's foto, fitting today's theme, is of a burned-out house down the street that I showed here December 13th. It is still standing, a true eyesore, "tagged" by graffiti-scrawlers who have written not only on it but also on the house under repair to its left.

During the James Administration, houses gutted by fire would be torn down within days, to prevent them from becoming drug houses or drains on the neighborhood's image and property values. Is the fact that this house rises high above the street on a slope, and is thus not easily bulldozed, responsible for this ruin's being permitted to drag the whole block down? Does the owner plan to rebuild, so refused permission to the city to raze it to the ground? (Peculiar word, that, "raze" for "tear down".) Or does the Booker Administration just not care about things like this?
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Whatever the reason, something has got to be done. This is a good block in a good neighborhood. There is no room in it for a burned-out shell of a house becoming a billboard for urban decline.

Good Thing I Didn't Have to Go Out

Last Friday I looked out a window of my home office and saw a truck/flatbed-trailer combo parked outside my house and the next house to the south. The flatbed was empty. I didn't think anything of it until I heard whatever had been on the flatbed returning to its spot, and took this picture.

It turns out that the piece of equipment was a Bobcat 430 "compact excavator", a combination bulldozer and what we used to call "steam shovel". In the picture above, the shovel is raised. It takes the operator two tries to dock it in the opening at the front of the flatbed.

This thing is so CUTE! Its streamlined, rounded base is only about 5 feet in diameter.
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Only as the truck got ready to roll (same driver as excavator?) did I realize that it had completely blocked my driveway, which you can see toward the back of the truck in the foto below, which also shows the shovel not yet securely docked.

Ah well. A truck-and-trailer combo that long could not park anywhere on my block without blocking somebody's driveway. If I had had to go somewhere at the time, however, I would have been p...eeved.

NPL's Black Literacy Event

I made it to my fourth Newark Public Library reception Wednesday, this one a kickoff for the Library's Black History Month gallery show on the 2d floor, about black literary societies and the struggle for literacy. The reception's central event was a panel discussion about the influence of hiphop on black literature, negative or positive: if negative, what can adults do to balance it out?; if positive, how might adults use hiphop to motivate kids to greater educational accomplishment? The illustrations for today's blog post show key visuals in the gallery show, including some textual pieces that, I hope, are large and clear enuf for you to read for yourself what the show is about.

I saw Wilma Grey, the Director of the Library, posing with some representatives of PNC Bank with a blowup check for the $10,000 that the bank contributed to the Library's Black History Month programs. (My late mother used to refer to PNC as what its abbreviation suggested to her, "punk bank". It originated as Pittsburgh National Corporation. I like Pittsburgh. It's a comeback city, like Newark.)

Wilma saw me and waved hello. After the pix had been taken, I said, "Pulling in the big bucks, I see." As Newark's resurgence continues and indeed intensifies, and the rich return to the city, to deluxe highrises or their own great houses (perhaps thru renovation of 19th Century mansions of Newark's beer barons and the like), raising funds for Newark's distinguished cultural institutions should become easier. What are the rich for, if not to be patrons of the arts?

I was a little surprised that I stayed for the entire panel discussion, despite it's offputting title, "What's Hip-Hop Got to Do With It?: A Community Discussion about the Impact of Hip-Hop upon African-American Literature". The 3-page printed handout (distributed by Boy Scouts from local troops 38 and 50) spoke of the grotesque nature of hiphop literature. (This term can be written as two words, "hip hop", or hyphened, "hip-hop", but what's the point? English hates hyphens. Sooner or later, the hyphen is going, tho the misuse of PH in "phat" might delay that development in hiPHop.) What is hiphop literature?

The stories are urban, focus on drug lords, employ profanity, wallow in materialism, utilize misogynist dialogue, glory in immoral sex, and use the N-word. (Ebony 34)

Painting by Ernie Barnes, the artist who actually painted the works of "J.J." ("Kid Dynomite"), the artist son in the classic sitcom Good Times.

You'd think the panel would include some hiphop writers to address why they do, what they do. You'd be wrong. The first panelist, Herb Boyd, a reporter for the New York Amsterdam News, said that the panel and even most of the audience looked like the doowop or even bebop generation rather than the hiphop generation.
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("Doo-wop" still has, for most writers, a hyphen. "Bebop", however, does not, tho I suspect it originally had one, as in the song "Be-Bop-A-Lula".)

What Boyd was saying, tho politely, is that the panel conspicuously lacked a hiphop writer, or writers, to balance the discussion. The community elders on the dais were uniform in being unhappy with the influence of hiphop, so much so that they didn't even articulate what it is they deplore.
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New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell, an elegant black woman, offered introductory remarks that showed that the quest for literacy was very important to pre-abolition blacks. In a speech written for her, she readily admitted, she pointed out that the first black literary society in the Nation was formed in Philadelphia in 1828, long before the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War's successful abolition of slavery; and that a black literary society was formed in Newark a scant 4 years later, 1832. In 1862, only a negligible proportion of the total black population, free and slave, could read. There were laws against teaching slaves to read. Can you believe that? How stupid were white slaveowners that they didn't want their "property" to be capable of functioning in the world of words?

Actually, I think Secretary Wells may have used the term "African-Americans", that preposterous 7-syllable euphemism for the one-syllable, perfectly dignified "blacks" — match to "whites", which white people don't object to. You don't need a euphemism for something that is not shameful (whites don't call themselves "European-Americans"), or doesn't need hype. (For instance, "maintenance engineer". What's wrong with "janitor"? My last name, in the original Dutch, means "one who cleans". My younger sister was visiting Amsterdam and passed by an employment agency, in the window of which she saw ads for "schoonmaker"s, which plainly, in context, meant "janitor". What's wrong with a janitor? I like the idea that somebody makes the world cleaner, and if that is my ancestry, I'm proud of it. I just wonder where those genes went in my case! I NEED a janitor.)

Black literacy grew by leaps and bounds after emancipation, and by 1930, 65 years after the North freed the South of its stupid evil, black literacy had reached 80%! Pretty impressive, huh? (People tend to forget that slavery adversely affected poor white Southerners too, in unfair competition in trades that slaves worked in, not in picking cotton but in, for instance, manufacturing harnesses and other implements used on the plantation.)

Now, however, there is a widespread fear that blacks are losing ground as regards literacy. Panelist and educator Gilda Rogers, author of Arrested Development: Black Achievement and Education in the Era of Hip-Hop, reported that a very high percentage of black students today are reading at only the very lowest levels, as just barely qualifies them as literate.

There appears to be a serious textual error toward the beginning of this otherwise interesting and informative narrative poster. And I think "while" in the last sentence should be "whole".

The event was poorly engineered, tho there was a soundman there. There should have been a mike for every panelist, or a substantially longer boom on the one mike that was pointed in the general direction of each panelist. The miked, off-dais rostrum from which some people spoke should have been used for comments from the floor, so that each speaker from the floor could be heard. Next time.
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I wanted to make a couple of points last nite but there was no time. Unlike some other people, who also did not get to speak, I have a blog thru which to try to reach people with those points.
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I wanted to say (1) we can overstate the lack of literacy and (2) it is not the energy of hiphop but the content that civilized people object to.

(1) Someone mentioned that kids today don't read books, for being too busy text-messaging each other. But reading and writing text messages is literacy! I wanted to say that when I was a teenager, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we communicated with our peers almost solely by voice. If we couldn't speak face-to-face, we spoke by fone. Kids today, however, often communicate by text message, IM, and email — all of which employ writing, and, upon receipt, reading. Of course, not all kids have cellphones or computers, but computers are available in most schools — and libraries — nowadays, so even kids who don't have a computer at home but who are eager for email and IM do have access to such features. Texting is a preposterously cumbersome and inefficient way to communicate, and one has to wonder why anyone would use it. To get to an S, for example, you have to press a key four times! Punctuating and capitalizing in text messages is so cumbersome that many messages are sent without any punctuation or caps at all. And such messages are replete with abbreviations in lieu of words. This may be part of what parents object to, a simplified, dumbed-down type of writing that does not prepare kids who immerse themselves in texting and IM's, for the world of work, where standard English, replete instead with full words, capitalization, punctuation, and standard grammar designed to communicate to the wide world, not a narrow circle of friends, is what people expect.

Unreadable white spots in foto above are reflections of overhead lites in the glass of the display case.

(2) At end, however, it is not the avoidance of written words but the words that are written that concern adults: the violence, contempt for women, antihomosexual bigotry, and glorification of the Culture of Poverty, with its preference for stupidity over intelligence; for illiteracy over reading; for bad grammar and deeply dialectal, exaggerated "ebonic" speech over impeccable grammar and standard English; for the superficial, illegal, and empty lifestyle of pimps and drug pushers over a life spent working in legal, stable jobs with long-term rewards and a career you can point to with pride. I think it was Ms. Rogers who said that blacks did not get as far as they have, thru mediocrity, but excellence. Now she, and many other adults who have achieved respectability — to themselves not least — fear that the next generation is throwing it all away.

One very long-haired, dreadlocked man, whose name I did not get but who is apparently involved in commercial audio recording and Internet publishing, retorted that hiphop is not the enemy of the present and the future aspirations of the younger generation, but is the present. It's established. It's here. And it's going to stay. The relatively few young people in the audience cheered!
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One young girl, from Shabazz High, I think, said she is an honor student and resents adults thinking that just because she immerses herself in rap and other aspects of the hiphop culture, she is somehow selling out her future. Panelist Ron Kavanaugh, founding editor of Moasaicbooks.com and the Mosaic Literary Journal, had spoken of the practice by people in minorities of speaking to each other in one manner and to the larger world in another: "code-shifting", he called it. The high school girl said she has read some of the things that adults insisted she read, but insisted emphatically that if kids don't want to read something (that's not required in the school curriculum), they just won't read it, no matter how much their parents think they should. The kids in the audience confirmed that emphatically. In these last two commentaries from the floor, and only there, did we get some of the energy and power that the entire discussion should have had.

The girl said that the hiphop music, lyrics, and literature/culture she hears every day don't affect her. Alas, she is woefully wrong. She's a child (tho of course no high school kid regards him/her-self as a child), so spoke as a child. There is no "Erase" button on the human memory. If it gets into your head, it stays there, for a very long time, and sometimes to the end of your days. We must always, thus, be careful what we let into our head.
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Like it or not, what gets into our mind affects us. That is the reality. We may make a conscious choice to reject a message that gets into our consciousness, but we nonetheless continue to hear it, sometimes again and again, be it welcome or unwelcome. Its presence affects our perception of what the wide world is all about. What is accepted in the larger group inescapably does have power as to our own attitudes. We may not want to accept what society or a subsociety accepts. But rejectionism is a very hard road. Especially is it hard for teenage kids. Teen years are about many difficult things, but acceptance is one of the most urgent, and pressure to conform to whatever it is that the crowd values, whether it be something you value or despise, can overwhelm common sense and years of parental guidance. It's called "peer pressure", and it is powerful.
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I spoke briefly with a fotografer who was intrusively taking pictures during the event. He said he was taking pix for the Library, and I asked what they were going to do with the fotos he had taken. He didn't know (and apparently didn't care; that was their business). I have been to the Library's website. I see very few fotos there, but I have seen Library fotografers taking many, many pix at the various Library events I have been to. Hm.

Following the hiphop discussion, the caterers opened up the sumptuous repast they had brought into Centennial Hall before the panel discussion started. I had only cheese and (terrific) crackers, but there were all kinds of wonderful things, including veggies and, believe it or not, little cucumber sandwiches on mini-pumpernickel slices. I was tempted to taste them, but I've got fake teeth in the middle of my upper jaw that are mainly cosmetic. I'm not supposed to eat anything challenging (hard) with them. And taking that partial plate out and looking like a jackolantern in public is not an option. I may be old and beyond my prime, and I may not be able to pick anybody up, but I am still vain as hell.

Mentioned by AOL

An article appeared on the AOL Internet service over this past weekend that mentions me and shows a clickable link to my Resurgence City website in the second-to-last paragraph of the article, which is the third of only three paragraphs about Newark. The only other person mentioned in regard to Newark is the Mayor, Cory Booker. I'm in good company.
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Called "The Worst Places to Live — Or Are They?", the article deals with Newark last among 13 cities and regions.
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AOL has over 20 million subscribers, but this (undated) article appeared quietly over the weekend, not hilited on the service's welcome screens, so only people who chance across it in AOL's Money & Finance area will see it.
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Still, I am now officially putting myself in the running to become the new "Mr. Newark". Charles Cummings, the late librarian and historian of the Newark Public Library, was regarded as "Mr. Newark" in his time. Stephen N. Adubato, father of public television's Steve Adubato (Jr.), is a political powerhouse in the North Ward, and one challenger for the title of today's "Mr. Newark". I found, in checking the Internet to see if there is any agreement on who the new Mr. Newark might be, that Julius Spohn of the Old Newark Group is given that appellation on a website that shows a great picture of him sitting in his house surrounded by his hundreds of old Newark fotografs and memorabilia. I hesitate to challenge my buddy Jule. I'm a little younger than he is, and I think the elder Adubato is older than either of us, so maybe we can let Adubato be Mr. Newark for now; then Jule can become Mr. Newark when Adubato shuffles off this mortal coil; and it will be my turn when both of them have moved on. But that's a little morbid, isn't it, waiting for others to die so I can assume the title?
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Adubato and Spohn are both from the North Ward; I'm from Vailsburg. Maybe we could split things up. I'll let Adubato and Spohn duke it out for "Mr. North Ward" and I'll take the rest of the city. That's fair.
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No Go. As I anticipated yesterday, I didn't get to the New Jersey Historical Society tour of its HQ at noon today. Maybe I'll make it to tomorrow's (Wednesday's) Newark Public Library reception and gallery tour of its new exhibition, "Entrusted to Our Keeping: The Legacy of African-American Literary Societies in Newark, the Nation, the World", The reception runs from 5:00 to 6:00pm, a much more reasonable time for me, in that I worked for over 30 years on evening and graveyard shifts. The reception is followed by a panel discussion that I probably won't stay for, on the literary influence of hiphop. Yes, you read that right. The discussion is: "What's Hip-Hop Got to Do With It?: A Community Discussion about the Impact of Hip-Hop upon African-American Literature". I'm not making it up.
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In any case, I show today two fotos of the lower stories of 15 Washington Street that I took during an NJHS walking tour of the architecture around Military and Washington Parks last August. The first is a daytime view of what is shown at nite in the first picture from last Friday. Jessica, the Historical Society's guide, pointed out that the pseudo-temple decoration on the façade of 15 Washington Street was designed to align with the roofline of the older Newark Public Library alongside. Now that both the Library and this part of 15 Washington are lited at nite, you can see the alignment in the 3rd nite view last Friday.

Cab Crashes Church. Gaetano found a Fox 5 news story about a taxi crashing thru the wall of a church that I featured here on May 20th of last year. Fortunately, the accident occurred on Monday afternoon, so there was no one in the sanctuary of Victory at Sunrise Baptist Church at the time. Thank ... goodness.

Overwhelmed

So many things have come to my attention of late that I literally don't know where to start. Ideally, I'd like to illustrate anything I write about with relevant fotos, but the alternative approach, to write about one thing and put unrelated fotos up as being independently of interest, may have to suffice.

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Today's fotos are of some of the facilities of a very active, multiracial community organization in my part of town, Unified Vailsburg Services Organization. It is groups like UVSO and the New Community Corporation (NCC) that held back the barbarians and saved the city long enuf for reinforcements to arrive and turn the tide. Newarkers owe them enormous gratitude.

Office building at San(d)ford Avenue and South Orange Avenue
with a UVSO billboard atop it.

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I've also struggled with whether to backfill missing dates or just try not to miss future dates going forward. I stopped a couple of days to look at old items in my ResurgenceCity@aol.com emailbox when it reached 535 items, and trimmed it down to 335 before I had to stop. Many more remain to be filed or otherwise removed. Two days later, it's up to 355, several of which relate to a single matter that, as with the five articles on the NJPAC apartment project, I would have to try to weave together into a coherent presentation, then choose illustrations to liten the resulting text. At least most of the recent items don't require any online research, which is the most time-consuming thing I do in preparing blog entries. For today, let me just mention a few short items.

The billboard is apparently quite old, because it shows a 201 area code, and Newark has had the 973 area code since November 1997. I didn't realize until I just looked it up on Wikipedia, that parts of Bergen County and both East Newark and Harrison are included in 973, along with (apparently) all of Essex and Sussex Counties and intervening parts of Morris and Passaic Counties. When I got a cellphone, however, there were no 973 numbers available, so my number starts with 201. I have mentioned that 201 is the first area code in numerical order (area codes cannot begin with 1) because AT&T was based in New Jersey, just as the U.S. has country code 1, because the telephone was invented in the U.S.

NJHS Tour. Tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon, the New Jersey Historical Society is offering a one-hour walking tour of its headquarters on Park Place. Tho I'd like to get there, it is frankly a little early in the day for me, and street parking is hard to find and garage parking expensive. It's too cold for me to take the bus to save on parking. Moreover, Society policy is not to permit fotos inside its facility. So I may pass. But if you are in the area and available to tour, seeing the NJHS HQ might be well worth doing.
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I'm annoyed with myself for not noting on my calendar, and thus missing, the NJHS guided tour of the interior of Peddie Memorial Church on January 10th. I hope they repeat that tour in warmer weather.

The UVSO logo is above the main entrance to this office building, so I guess either they own it or they have a substantial presence within it.

She's Everywhere! Newark's own Queen Latifah's 2005 comedy, Beauty Shop, was on TV this weekend, and her new film, Mad Money, debuted last week. She also hosted, for the second year in a row, the People's Choice Awards telecast on January 8th, but due to the writers' strike, that show was a ratings disaster, suffering its worst ratings ever, and by a lot. Not Latifah's fault. I saw Ted Danson on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the other nite plugging Mad Money, which he is also in. Ferguson asked how one addresses Queen Latifah when working with her, and Danson said that her friends (including, apparently, him, now) are allowed to call her "Dana". Dana Owens is her birth (and legal?) name.
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With all these movie and TV program appearances, plus many commercials, Queen Latifah has become one of the best-known personalities in the Nation, and you see her all over the place. She has never disowned her origins, and continues to visit Newark and East Orange from time to time. Good for her.
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Newark's own Shaquille O'Neal is also appearing in commercials, for Icy Hot Heat Therapy.
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Between Latifah and Shaq, Newark would be on the Nation's mind in a positive way, a LOT — if, that is, anyone knew they were from Newark.

Refined evergreen plantings outside UVSO Child Development Center.

Essex County Mentioned. Telebrands, the Fairfield-based marketer of gadgets over television, was featured very prominently on the Dr. Phil Show last Wednesday, the 16th. Fairfield, if you don't know, is the township that forms the extreme northwest corner of Essex County.

UVSO Parent & Family Resource Center

Ironbound Mentioned. Newark was apparently mentioned on New York TV yesterday, on Channel 9, WWOR's Hispanic-oriented public-affairs program, American Latino TV. The listing for the show said that one segment would deal with "the growing population of Portuguese and Brazilians in Newark, N.J." Unfortunately, I saw that listing shortly after the show had already ended. I checked the listing for future airings, but none appeared. Drat.

UVSO has turned to good use various formerly vacant buildings, but as the neighborhood revives, some of these fine houses should be returned to the housing market.
Let UVSO take space in vacant storefronts instead.

Newark Mentioned in Classic Sitcom. More surprising to me was a Newark mention I heard recently on Sanford & Son. Did you know we were mentioned there? In an episode shown on TV Land a week ago this past Saturday, Lamont ("Son") is refused by his bride-to-be at the altar, and says to his father, 'Let's move back east [to escape the embarrassment]. We can go to Newark. They've got a black mayor there." Fred ("Sanford") says, however, that the mayor has his own problems. I had seen this episode once before but didn't notice that exchange until that showing. I imagine I was multitasking the other time, working on the computer or doing something else while the TV was on in the background, and just didn't hear that passage. Multitasking is a really bad idea, in general. You can do one thing well or two or more things really badly.

UVSO Teen Center, in what I think is a former convent on the grounds
of Sacred Heart of Vailsburg R.C. Church.

By the way, there is a laundromat in my part of town, at 825 Sandford Avenue, called "Sandford & Suds". Cute, huh? Fortunately, I haven't had to go to a laundromat since I left Manhattan, because I have a washer and dryer in my basement. I can do laundry at 3 o'clock in the morning if I want. That reminds me, I'd better move clothes out of the dryer and move the last load of wash to the dryer now. Talk to you later.

Trinity Baptist

This "Church Day" at Newark USA I present a foto of Trinity Baptist Church (400 South 12th Street, Newark, NJ 07103; (973) 643-2804). What at first appears to be a unified structure is actually an original church, on the right, with a rounded front wall, and an annex, with a pointed roofline. That's why the steeple isn't centered.

I found no website for the church itself, but did find a reference to its having an administrative office of the Newark Pre-School Council Inc., so I guess it is involved in child services as well as religious services.

Big (and Tall) News

(No, that is not a reference to a store for heavyset and tall men. Newark had a Big & Tall men's store at Broad Street and Edison Place when I first arrived in Newark, but it closed years ago. Perhaps their prices were too high, because there sure are lots of large Newarkers.)
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Gaetano found four stories about today's biggest Newark story, the announcement of a formal agreement between NJPAC and a developer to build a tall luxury apartment building opposite the PAC.

The New Jersey Perfoming Arts Center and Dranoff Properties confirmed this morning that they have signed a letter of intent to develop Two Center St., a high-rise residential tower adjacent to the major regional arts venue. Carl Dranoff, the Philadelphia-based developer’s founder & CEO, told CPN this morning that he expects groundbreaking in the next 12 to 18 months, to be followed by two years of construction. Development costs will be in the $200 million to $250 million range, he estimated.

The tower would rise between 30 and 40 stories and incorporate at least 250 rental units. Twenty percent of those units will be reserved for artists, an acknowledgement of Newark ’s growing arts community. The building will also feature 30,000 square feet of street-level retail. Dranoff (pictured) speculated that the project could lure tenants from a variety of sources. Some 50,000 people work in Downtown Newark, and the development might also attract residents who feel priced out of Manhattan’s expensive residential market. ***

Dranoff has the first development rights for two nearby parcels, and future phases could include a condominium tower on the same scale as the apartment project plus a hotel. Plans are proceeding despite widespread concerns about the economy and a shaky national residential market nationwide. "These cycles are part of real estate, and if you build a quality product in a great location, you will always be successful," Dranoff said.

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In that this project has not yet been built, I have no fotos of my own to show you, but I did find an artist's rendering of an early conception in a Wired New York discussion of a New York Times article from March 16, 2006. In lieu of fotos of that highrise housing project, let me offer here some pix of another highrise building Downtown that is supposed to be converted to housing for Rutgers students, 15 Washington Street. I took these fotos this past Christmas nite, from Washington Park. I was drawn to do so by the fact that a few days before then I chanced to see that the lower stories of the building were now lited at nite, which was new. I know because I have a foto of the same building at nite on October 22, 2006 (15th foto), and the lower stories are dark.

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As I emailed Gaetano, an economic downturn doesn't necessarily spell doom for such a project. It's worth remembering (a) the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center were built during the Great Depression, which was far worse than anything we are presently expected to experience anytime soon; and (b) if financing for purchase of houses is difficult, rental apartments as a temporary stopgap should be very marketable.
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The potential tenants of a rental luxury building, on the one hand, and of single-family houses, even townhouses, on the other, are different. Young singles and couples who want to enjoy some child-free years before becoming parents will want an urban location with good amenities and something urban to do, at least during weekend days and preferably also at nite. They, and especially singles, will prefer an apartment to a house, because if they have a problem, they just call the super. If a couple, married or unmarried, hasn't been together very long and aren't certain it's going to work out, they will hesitate to buy even a condo apartment together. So there is a period of perhaps 10 years when prosperous young singles will find apartment living attractive.
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As to amenities and activities in the area, during the day there are a bunch of things within easy walking distance even now, and the developer is planning a lot of retail space, which should most definitely include a supermarket (there being none for Cogswell Realty's 1180 apartment tower, nor for Cogswell's planned Griffith Building and Hahne's Department Store conversions), plus stores that specifically target yuppies (a term still useful, whether it is now commonplace or not). Culture-vultures will love the nearby Newark Museum, Aljira, Red Saw, Newark Art Supply, and, of course, NJPAC across the street! Rupert Ravens Contemporary and Gallery Aferro are within an easy 15-minute walk. Sports buffs will like the proximity of the Prudential Center and Bears Stadium. I imagine that a neighborhood association could even charter buses to take groups to the Meadowlands for Nets, Jets, and Giants games. That's the kind of thing that can happen once you get sufficient density, the self-sustaining dynamism of enuf people concentrated together. You could have charter buses to all kinds of places, from Papermill Playhouse to Princeton games to Rutgers basketball games to Vernon Valley to Great Adventure to the Bronx Zoo, all coordinated by a neighborhood association organized by Dranoff and Cogswell.

15 Washington Street, full height, as seen past bust of Abraham Coles in Washington Park.

The New York Times story about this project provides background about the players, Dranoff and NJPAC/Goldman, respectively.

"If you build it, they will come," said Carl E. Dranoff, the company’s president, who recently converted a boarded-up RCA factory in Camden into a rental building with 340 apartments, almost all of which are spoken for, he says. "This will not be some run-of-the-mill project," he said. "It will be highly visible, and when you approach Newark, it will be a vivid icon on the skyline." ***

As vice president of Carnegie Hall in the 1980s, Mr. Goldman oversaw an ambitious restoration and expansion effort that was partly financed by a 60-story skyscraper built on a parking lot owned by the music hall. The building, Carnegie Hall Tower, still brings in $200,000 a year for the performance space.

When Mr. Goldman was charged with building the performance center in Newark in 1989, he persuaded the state to acquire 12 acres in and around the site to make sure the center could benefit from its own success.

Foam core panels that lean against a wall in Mr. Goldman’s office offer hints of that vision: sketches of a thriving promenade along the Passaic River; mockups of a boathouse for the Rutgers crew; and a fanciful pedestrian bridge, inspired by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, that would span the highway that now separates the arts center from the water.

A clickable inset map within that article shows nearby areas slated for development, with a brief description of each. You can see a picture of the Ponte Vecchio here. I rather doubt the Newark bridge will be anything like an exact copy, but the idea of an enclosed pedestrian bridge over McCarter Highway is very appealing.
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(By the way, I have admired earlier articles by the writer of this Times piece, Andrew Jacobs, so decided to send him email to say I think he's doing a bangup job. He replied that he has actually read this blog a few times. Golly.)
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I found, on my own, a fifth, AP story about the project, which includes this passage:

Goldman said the Two Center Street project would help turn Theater Square into a grand public space in the mold of the world's great outdoor plazas, not the failed urban renewal projects of the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S.

"We want to be more like Piazza Navona in Rome, Place des Vosges in Paris or Rockefeller Center in New York[.]"

Here, the statue of Christopher Columbus in Washington Park is seen
silhouetted against 15 Washington Street.

The first story Gaetano sent says:

[The] 30,000 square feet of street-level retail and cultural facilities [is to] includ[e] restaurants, cafes, shops and galleries, and parking for more than 750 cars.

They had better add at least a small supermarket to the mix, because people don't want to have to pile into a car when they come home from work in Manhattan just to pick up a few groceries. Maybe an upscale supermarket like D'Agostino would be interested in that location. Or ShopRite might like to end Pathmark's monopoly over the Newark supermarket, uh, market.
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The last of the articles Gaetano found was on the Baristanet blog. That brief item, which lifted bits of the Times article, was followed by a bunch of vile, only-barely-concealed-racist comments from snobs who want Newark to fail and who insist that nothing has changed in the city (a city they or their parents may have fled, and which white-flite they now apparently feel obliged to rationalize away). I had seen other brief items from that blog that Gaetano referred me to, with much the same tone in the comments. I didn't know what "Baristanet" meant, nor even how to pronounce it (which is a big reason I am a spelling reformer). I initially read it as báa.ris.ta.nèt, like "barrister" in an R-dropping dialect. But I saw the term "Baristaville" and then connected "barista" (pronounced bar-éesta or, in my Fanetik spelling system, bor.ées.ta), a word for a coffeebar-tender that I had heard but never seen in print. I had pictured it as being spelled "barrista", but find at Dictionary.com that it has only a single-R, as do "Baristanet" and "Baristaville". I then searched for "Baristaville", whereupon I found this entry at the Urban Dictionary:

An area in northern New Jersey comprised of the three towns of Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield. First popularized in a blog called Baristanet. Baristanet was founded in May 2004 and has become a leader in hyperlocal blogging and online citizen journalism.

Closer view of Columbus statue silhouetted against 15 Washington.

One noxious commenter at the Baristanet item advocated that Newark, Irvington, and East Orange form their own county so that suburbanites could escape all responsibility for their finances, as tho the suburbs derive no benefit from Newark. Mind you, many suburbanites work in Newark, and there wouldn't be suburbs of size in that location were it not for Newark. But "What have you done for me lately?" is the universal motto of the selfish.
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Rather than their own county, however, those three urbanized municipalities should indeed consolidate, into Greater Newark. That would bump the city's population up to 408,000, greater than its pre-Riot population of 405,000, on the way to passing our all-time high of 442,000 in 1930. Annexations are a shortcut to urban greatness that have been used in many other places, as for instance Houston and Jacksonville, the latter of which annexed its entire county. The Corzine administration is supposed to be favorably disposed to municipal consolidation. Baristaville would make a very nice addition to Greater Newark. So would Short Hills.
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I actually defended Montclair in an email recently. More on that some other time.

Devils and Rock Reviewed

(I'm behind by a couple of days again, but have put up two new entries, below. In addition to continuing to fite computer problems, I've actually been doing some long-delayed vacuuming and mopping, good exercise that, unlike pointless gym workouts, accomplishes something of value in the real world.)
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In researching yesterday's piece, I chanced across an entry at the online Urban Dictionary about the Devils, which surprised me, in that "urban" at that website does tend to mean what the political/sociological code-word "urban" generally means, "minority": black / Hispanic. Hockey, a Canadian game (the NHL is a Canadian league, based in Montreal), is generally perceived as being of interest only to non-Hispanic white people. In any case, definition #4 includes this colorful but vulgar passage (children should skip the next two indented quotes):

Worst team in the National Hockey League. The New Jersey Devils ruined pro hockey in the mid 90's when they started playing their pussy ass trap and made games as fun to watch as John Denver's Kwanzaa Spectacular.

That slitely vulgar negative remark is overbalanced, however, by this more-vulgar positive remark at definition #2:

the best team in the world won 3 championships since 1995 STFU to the other 2 [That is, the other two NHL teams in the NJ region, NY and Philly, I think he means.] u can kiss my balls assfucks!

That reminded me of a passage in the Buffalo blog discussed yesterday. When I went to that blog's main page today to look for a quote from the full blog entry for the January 8th Sabres-Devils game, I found that they have made an evaluation of The Rock, now online. It includes this passage:

A lot has been made of the gritty and rough and tumble streets of downtown Newark, and to a point that is a correct assessment. From a distance one sees shimmering skyscrapers, lit up at night, but travel the streets and it’s all a bit dreary and grimy. By contrast, the new Prudential Center shines like a bright new penny. The main streets just west [probably s/b "east" or "nearby" rather than "just west"] of the arena are full of the hustle and bustle of office and retail and government. Look closely and the stores are not Apple and Urban Outfitters, but rather creaky bodegas and Furniture Liquidators and such. Bars on windows [huh? where?] and vacant storefronts abound. If you look hard enough though, you’ll find some nice corner taverns for postgame hangouts. We stumbled on the Arena Bar, one block down Mulberry Street, a Cheers type place with plenty of plasma screens.

I heartily agree with this portion of the overview:

While [the eastern] side of the arena forms the venue’s signature, the two back sides of the building are very basic and ordinary. That lack of detail is somewhat unfortunate since the back end of the building faces the main part of the downtown core.

The two blank sides of the building are the south and west walls. Here's a picture of the southern façade, with a bit of the west side showing as well.

The bloggers' description of the Prudential Center has very good things to say about the food offerings. I generally view food as merely fuel and building blocks, but for those to whom food is one of the great joys of life, it sounds like a trip to the Rock is something to look forward to. I also learned at that website that the thing hanging from the Arena's roof is called a "video board":

The reviewer(s) also had this complimentary mention of the security staff, most of them, I think, Newarkers:

After the horrible experience we endured at Continental Airlines Arena, and the many stories of abuse and bad behavior we’ve gleaned in conversations with others, wasn’t it nice to see arena employees greeting fans with big smiles, offering to help and providing sincere welcomes.

The reviewers speculate about one major cause of relatively low attendance at Devils' games:

Upper deck seats (they call ‘em “100s”) $75 and $100, lower bowls $95 and $115 with the center ice clubs $200. Parking $25 and $20. Prepare to spend, spend, spend to attend a game here. Maybe that’s helping to keep fans away? For the record, the uppermost cheapies were packed, while the pricier seats were readily available.

This would seem part and parcel of the reorientation of everything in this country from ordinary people to the rich. Maybe we need a consumers' strike, like the writers' strike, with raucous picket lines thrown up around all of this metropolitan area's overpriced sports venues.
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The wrapup of the review says:

It is hard to find any Devils fan complaining about their new digs here in downtown Newark. Their former home, Continental Airlines Arena, was a shabby and substandard venue in a horrible location with few fan friendly amenities, surly and rude game day staff, and little intimacy as a place to watch hockey. While downtown Newark is not the sexiest location for their new venue, it is an area that is trying to find its footing for an urban comeback, and The Rock is central to that goal.

This arena is a superb place to watch hockey. It is bright, comfortable, plenty of things to see and do, good stuff to eat, friendly staff, adequate game day entertainment. Oh yeah, and their hockey team seems to be pretty good year in and year out.

While not breaking the NHL top five, we nonetheless give good marks in most categories and would be glad to pay a return visit.

(Grammatically, that last sentence should be "Though the Prudential Center does not break into our NHL top five, we nonetheless...". You, see, boys and girls, "While not breaking the NHL top five" refers to the Rock, not to the reviewers, which is the "we" that immediately follows, and should logically refer back to, that introductory language. Ain't grammar faskinatin'?)

Here's a wide view of the southern and western façades of the Prudential Center, along with its parking structure.

Below the text of the review is a group of 11 clickable fotos of the Arena. Neato keen.
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The vulgar quote I was looking for, however, from the "Ultimate Sports Road Trip" blog entry (kids, read no further in this entry of this blog) of January 8th is:

7:40[pm] - arena chant…”Rangers Suck, Flyers Swallow”…yep, a family atmosphere here @ Devils games.

I'm shocked that the refined people who comprise the fan base of NHL hockey would be so vulgar. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

St. Francis Xavier

Some weeks ago I received an email from a former Newarker who now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico (hm — from New Jersey to New Mexico: alpabetical order), who was hoping I'd take a picture of the house he used to live in, next time I'm in that neighborhood, North 10th Street. I am rarely in that neighborhood, alas, and other places have been suggested to me that I also haven't gotten to. Our weather was then unusually cold and wet, and even when it wasn't actually raining, overcast skies made taking outdoor fotos inadvisable. We had 62 inches of rain in 2007, a third more than the typical 46.25 inches. I want to show Newark in its best lite, which is not dismal gray. I did eventually get to North 10th Street, however, this past Wednesday, then walked around the neighborhood and saw this not far from where the guy from Albuquerque used to live.

St. Francis Xavier R.C. Church, School, and former Convent at North 10th Street and Bloomfield Avenue

In looking for our annual rainfall figure, by the way, I chanced across a webpage on the CNN Money website that has lots of interesting information about Newark and how it compares with Money magazine's "Best Places to Live 2007" (all of them, that year, of less than 50,000 population, so Newark simply didn't qualify for inclusion). Check out the figures for movie theaters, restaurants, bars, and museums!)

Closer view of the church itself, with a crèche still in place.

In that I'm always looking for churches to fotograf for my "Church Sunday" feature (as today), I walked closer, whereupon I saw that there was still a crèche outside! Sacred Heart didn't have one, but St. Francis Xavier did. I show, below, some other views of this well-done crèche and of the church outside which it stands, while addressing other matters.

Gaetano found a blog entry by a Buffalo-area sports reporter, Andrew Kulyk, that included this passage:

[W]hile the streets of downtown at 4:30PM are all hustle and bustle, the downtown retail here looks downright scary… plenty of wig stores, dollar shops, electronics outlets, all decaying. Plenty of vacant eyesores and fenced parking lots. It really is not a pretty sight down here, although in the midst of all this are buildings looking like they are ready to undergo residential rehab into upscale units. The arena is an architectural jewel, especially the front side facade facing Mulberry Street, with a massive high tech video board that we could actually see from our hotel room.

We nixed the $20 and $25 lots surrounding the arena and caught a space on the street three blocks down Mulberry. On the walk up here, we saw a nice little tavern called “Arena Bar” that looks decent enough for some postgame libations.

Crèche, foreground, statue, background, on the grounds
of St. Francis Xavier Church, North Newark.

That ticked me off, so I emailed Gaetano:

What a bunch of bullshit. "Scary"? Wig shops are "scary"?!?
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I went to the main page of that blog and found one more oddity. For instance, >>This game is turning into ... your typical Devil’s snoozefest. No wonder why this team can’t draw, even winning three Stanley Cups won’t draw fans with their style of play.<<

Attendance at Devils games is now averaging 15,461 per game, up from 13,242 last season, an improvement of 17%. So much for the naysayers who said the fans wouldn't come to Newark. I'm unclear from the attendance webpage, however, as to whether this tally is for only home games or away games as well — which would be not Newark attendance but attendance for other cities' home teams, wouldn't it? It wouldn't make sense to report that on a Devils attendance webpage, would it? Hm.

Gaetano found another item about hockey, "Brodeur wants Stars in Newark", that starts:

It has been 24 years since the NHL All-Star Game was played in New Jersey and Devils goalie Martin Brodeur would like to see it happen before his playing career is over.

"Oh yeah. I know they had it in New Jersey way back, but it would be nice," said Brodeur, who was voted the Eastern Conference's starting goalie for the Jan. 27 game in Atlanta. "We need the city to grow just a little more before we host it, but it's getting there. It's an awesome place. I think every new building should have a shot at it. No different for Newark.

"It would be tremendous for our ownership with all the effort that has been made. Next year it's in Montreal for their 100th season. After that I'm sure it will be considered."

Little Christmas trees flank the northern side entrance of St. Francis Xavier. The windows appear to be four hearts, an ecclesiastical "I ♥ Newark" four times over.

Perhaps Devils' owner Jeff Vanderbeek should have pushed for this year's All-Star game to be played in Newark. But perhaps he wasn't certain the Arena would be completed in time. In 2010, the Rock will no longer be a new building. But the All-Star game should still come to Newark.

There is a high-relief figure, not just a cross, atop St. Francis Xavier Church. The lite had faded by the time I took this picture. I must get there during brite sunlite to get a super-closeup. Ah, for the long (and warm) days of summer. But even now I can sense the longer days, that promise better days, ahead.