Say No to 'Macaco'

I became very indignant recently when I saw a TV commercial that announced that Essex County College will be hosting a "Mixed Martial Arts Competition" February 7th. ("Macaco" is the nickname of one of the fiters, used as a draw in the commercial.) Brutality has no place on a college campus — even a community college.
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That's not a slam. A community college is still a college, and as such shares a civilizing mission with the most exalted senior college, say, Princeton. I might like to take some fotografy and computer classes at ECC. But not if it promotes violence.

What was the administration thinking? Does the County of Essex stand to gain much-needed revenue by sharing in such proceeds as the organizers might realize?

The bouts will be broadcast 'LIVE' on 'Pay Per View' by Mobile Vision Player (MVP). Sign up by going to www.kapmma.com and link to Mobile Vision Player.

'MVP is the only direct video service of its kind in today's communication market that delivers live streaming broadcast and video content in HD, straight to consumers PC or any mobile device — regardless of carrier,' stated Vincent Sette, EVP of Business Development.

I don't care what the motive is. Glorifying brutality is contrary to the mission of any college. If this event cannot be canceled, it should at very least never be repeated. We might assure that by firing everyone responsible for bringing violence as entertainment to ECC.

There is no right time to be teaching violence on college campuses.

Note the building with the narrow windows, above. That's a criminal courthouse. I served on a grand jury there. Despite declining crime rates, Newark still suffers from violence; it does not profit from it.

Poetry and More at cWOW

City Without Walls is having a poetry event tomorrow (Saturday) at its 6 Crawford Street HQ:

Elija Brown: Celebrating my Life with Poetry, hosted by Purple Haze and featuring poets Amiri Baraka, Lamar Hill, Mahogany Brown, Soulful Jones, and Archie the Messenger, takes place at City Without Walls on Saturday, January 31 at 4-7pm. Elijah Brown is the producer of the "Let it Flow" poetry series and a guest curator of Planet Hip Hop at NJPAC. Tickets are $20 at the door.

I received an emailed reminder of this today, but the strangest thing I have ever had happen with email happened when I opened that email. It flashed onscreen, then vanished not just from the screen but also from the list of emails in my inbox. I looked in the "Old" folder. Nope. "New" again. Nope. "Recently Deleted". No. It just vanished. So I sent them a note telling them it vanished and asking if some kind of code might somehow have been intruded into the message, then went to the earlier email for which the one today was only a reminder. And that is where I got the text above and below.

I don't have any pix left from my one visit to cWOW this past summer, so I'm showing a couple of pix from a Gallery Aferro show in summer '07. Evonne Davis, director of cWOW, is also co-owner of Gallery Aferro. I rather liked these drawings of buildings, but don't know whose they are. If Evonne or Emma (the other owner of GAf) remembers, they can so advise me and I'll add that info.

On Monday, a cWOW visual-arts exhibition opens, but not in Newark. It's on Newark Avenue in Jersey City, tho, so I'll give the basic details:

FEBRUARY 2 - 26, 2009: cWOW @ THE BRENNAN GALLERY
AfricanAmericana, curated by Kenya Robinson, has its opening reception on Monday, February 2, 2009, 6-8pm at the Brennan Gallery ... located at 503 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ 07306 between Baldwin and Summit Avenues, walking distance from the Journal Square PATH Station. Free and open to the public, February 2-26, 2009, 9am-6pm Mondays through Fridays. The Brennan Gallery is a fully accessible venue. Phone: 201-459-2070 or 1-800-542-7894.

The Crawford Street location hosts its next event next week:

FEBRUARY 7 - MAY 1: METRO 26
"METRO 26," juried by Chris Coover (Christie’s and Antiques Roadshow), Kathleen Gilrain (Smack Mellon) and Priska C. Juschka (Priska C. Juschka Fine Art), has its opening reception on Saturday, February 7, 2009 from 6-8pm at City Without Walls. This exhibition is cWOW's twenty-sixth annual juried travelling exhibition featuring small works by artists from the entire metro region. ... Free and open to the public Thursdays through Saturdays 12-6pm. METRO 26 travels throughout the State of New Jersey for the subsequent twelve months.

As if that's not enuf, cWOW also has another show, which opened early this month inside Seton Hall Law School in One Newark Center, Downtown on Raymond Boulevard at McCarter Highway:

JANUARY 5 - APRIL 24: REAL OR OTHERWISE AROUND
"Real or Otherwise Around" at Seton Hall Law from January 5, 2009 – April 24, 2009, curated by Evonne M. Davis, is inspired by Pablo Picasso’s famous quotation, "everyone wants to understand art, why not try to understand the song of a bird?" and attempts to compile a collection of beautiful and challenging images. This exhibition consists of 20 large scale abstract paintings by artists Sonia Chusit, David French, Karim Marquez and Andrew Werth. ... Free and open to the public, daily 10am - 5pm.

The last foto today is of a museum with walls but without ceilings, the sculpture garden of the Newark Museum, looking past three sculptures toward the one-room schoolhouse in a corner of the grounds.

Personality with Walls. Actress Rosemarie DeWitt was on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson last nite, and cheerfully proclaimed that she is a "Jersey girl", from Cedar Knolls, outside Morristown. She plays the sister of the lunatic in the Showtime comedy-drama series United States of Tara, about "a housewife with dissociative identity disorder", the latest name for what some professionals still call "multiple personality disorder". According to Wikipedia, DeWitt's character, "Charmaine, is not so supportive, often expressing her doubt about the validity of Tara's disorder." I have doubts about that disorder, myself.

WNYC Radio on Newark Art Scene

Ubiquitous Montclair artist Marco Muñoz sent me a link to the broadcast today of a program on a New York public radio station that included a discussion of the Newark art scene's growth and challenges in this difficult economy. The text that accompanies the audio player says in part:

Hang out with artists and you’ll hear a lot of talk about being the next big thing… in Newark.

"There’s this real sense that downtown Newark is really rising up again and we’re really glad to be part of the cultural push for that."

This is one of the "Sirens" series of three chalk and pastel works on paper, from "The Westinghouse Project" show at NJIT.

That’s Edwin Ramoran, the director of exhibitions and programs at Aljira, a Newark center for contemporary art. For years artists have moved to Newark which offers the trifecta of cheaper rents, city life and proximity to Manhattan. So the arts scene is on fire, but will the economic downturn put out the flames?

Reporter Heather Haddon stopped by an art opening in downtown Newark not long ago – the show was dedicated to photography from the 70’s house music scene, and she spoke with some of the people involved in it. * * *

The present economic climate makes making it an extremely difficult thing to pull off, even if you are living in Newark.

Quite so, but in hard times, a lower cost of living sure helps. Newark might, thus, actually benefit from the Decession. Greedy landlords in New York seem oblivious to the economic downturn, since their rents never go anywhere but up. The French bookstore Librairie de France, a charter tenant of Rockefeller Center's commercial space, is closing once its current lease runs out before summer, because the landlord raised the rent from $360,000 to $1,000,000 — during the worst recession since the Great Depression, when Rockefeller Center was built. Newark has a lot of people who speak French, and an Internet operation based in Newark would be a lot less expensive than one based in Rockefeller Center. Maybe Gateway Center or something else in Downtown Newark would be a congenial new location for the Librairie de France.

Gutzon Borglum's great sculpture, Wars of America, is flanked by modern and classic skyscrapers. This foto includes three of Newark's four tallest (present) buildings, the reflective PSE&G tower (fourth tallest), 1180 Raymond Boulevard (then with scaffolding during its repurposing from offices to apartments; second tallest) and 744 Broad Street, also called the National Newark Building, the very tallest — by 5 feet.

Real-estate developers might think about how much was built, on the cheap, during the Great Depression, including not just Rock Ctr but also the Empire State Building. If you're going to build for the future, there is no better time to do it than a depression. Newark's two currently tallest structures, 744 and 1180 (as above), both opened during the Depression. And they're still standing. A developer who has a vision for the post-Decession economy that appreciates Newark's intrinsic advantages of location and transportation would do well to build now and build big.

Cablevision Hides Another Station; Undersea Locomotives

In channel-surfing, I discovered that Cablevision Newark has moved the Oxygen network from channel 180 to channel 81. I certainly don't watch Oxygen very often, but they do sometimes show a mini-marathon, ordinarily in the afternoon, of the classic sitcom Roseanne, which I usually catch on Nick at Nite (very late at nite). The problem with this move, which should not have created a problem, is that the scrolling program listings on channel 14 do not show channel 81. At all. Oxygen thus joins WNYE/WNYC (a New York City PBS station that broadcasts over-air on channel 25 and is carried by Cablevision on channel 22) and American Movie Classics on channel 97, that Cablevision simply does not trouble to show in its onscreen listings. There may be others, but these are the ones I've noticed.
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What is wrong with the management of Cablevision? Why would they offer THREE channels but not show them in onscreen listings? If they can index 234 channels, why can't they index 237?

In keeping with the theme of something broken, today's foto shows the sad state of a (plaster?) statue of a boy on a dolphin that is part of a birdbath in a yard not far from me in Vailsburg. I don't know what broke it (freezing and unfreezing water?), but I think it was relatively intact when I first noticed it, several summers ago. "In Greek mythology, Taras, the son of the Greek sea god Poseidon, was rescued from a shipwreck by a dolphin sent by his father."

Shrewsbury Dolphins Escape. Speaking of dolphins, News 12 New Jersey reported that the dolphins that were in the Shrewsbury River (Monmouth County) apparently retreated toward Sandy Hook Bay ahead of advancing ice from the less-salty waters deeper inland. Dolphins are marine mammals that breathe air thru a blowhole. They would drown under sheet ice. The Navesink, which is linked to the Shrewsbury, sometimes freezes so thick, over so wide an area, that iceboat races are held on it. I've seen them zipping around between Red Bank and Middletown. Quite a sight. Dolphin-watchers were very worried, but, as I anticipated, the dolphins moved into progressively saltier water and exited into the Bay before the outlet from the Navesink-Shrewsbury estuary iced-over. I haven't heard anything further, as to whether the dolphins remain in Sandy Hook Bay or have rounded the northern tip of Sandy Hook and returned to the open ocean. Let's say they did.
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The dolphins might pass by an unusual feature on the ocean floor several miles off the coast of Long Branch, two old locomotives about 10 feet apart, sitting uprite on the sand, and encrusted with sea life. Late tonite I saw a one-hour documentary in the History Channel series Deep Sea Detectives:

Our shipwreck hunters become railroad experts when they find two ghostly locomotives, upright and intact, just a few miles off the coast of New Jersey. How did these massive land vehicles end up 90 feet below the Atlantic in the first place? With no shipwreck nearby to explain their existence, we launch an investigation to find out how these locomotives wound up in deep water seven miles from land. Maybe the locomotives slid off a vessel during a storm? Perhaps they were jettisoned to save a ship? Our investigators are going to have to narrow down the time frame of when these trains were built to find out how they sank. To help solve the mystery, we bring in experts to analyze the evidence. But can we piece together this puzzling problem before time and/or some unscrupulous diver removes the evidence forever?

The show's host interviewed Belmar boat captain Paul Hepler, who lifted a bell and whistle from the locomotives but made them available to the New Jersey Museum of Transportation in Allaire State Park. (An online .PDF file discusses the Museum's role in the Deep Sea Detectives episode and in protecting the locomotives by "arresting the sight". I think they meant "site". Trying to draw distinctions in spelling may seem a good idea, until you see that some people mix words up. This, again, is why I'm a spelling reformer. To arrest a site apparently means to forbid people to remove objects without permission.
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Some of the experts consulted are members of the New Jersey Historical Divers Association. I don't find a website for that group, but anyone interested in their activities might try the contact info I found online: 107 Wilson Road, Neptune, NJ 07753; (732) 776-6261. (Incidentally, Neptune is the Roman version of Poseidon, and is sometimes shown as riding a chariot pulled by dolphins.) I also found a page about an exhibit put together by the Divers Association in the Marconi Hotel in something called Camp Evans in Wall Township. At one point in the "Underwater Train Wreck" episode, the host gets up into one of the towers of the Twin Lites of the Navesink. I didn't know you could do that, but the Twin Lites website appears to indicate you can. I'll have to check that out this coming summer. I've been on the grounds, and seen a plaque about Marconi broadcasting from the towers. The website clarifies what Marconi's activities entailed:

Twin Lights claims a Marconi wireless telegraphy "first" and so does Cape Cod National Seashore. Why is that?

Both have valid claims to Marconi wireless telegraphy "first." On 30th September 1899, Gugliemo Marconi erected a receiving antenna[ ] at Twin Lights and from offshore sent messages reporting on the progress of the Great W[h]ite Fleet that was honoring Admiral Dewey. Those transmissions were the first demonstrations of practical wireless telegraphy in America. On 16th October Marconi telegraphed reports of the America’s Cup races off Sandy Hook to the New York Herald. That was the first use of wireless telegraphy on a commercial basis. The first transatlantic messages were sent from England to Cape Cod on 18th January 1903.

Marconi had, however, done broadcasts in England before then. These early devices could not transmit speech but only (Morse?) code. Apparently speech could not be transmitted until the invention of the vacuum tube by Westinghouse.

Foto of Westinghouse Building in mid-demolition, with Mies van der Rohe's Pavilion Apartments beyond, by Leslie Granda Hill, from "The Westinghouse Project" at NJIT.

NWK-TV

News 12 New Jersey announced on the 22nd that Cablevision has begun broadcasting the Newark Municipal Access Channel on channel 78. I forgot about it until I was channel-surfing after midnite that nite, whereupon I chanced across it. The Associated Press article about this at NJ.com seems internally self-contradicting:

Newark has a new television studio and its own government access channel.

Cablevision customers will now be able to see live city council meetings and other government events and information on Cablevision Channel 78.

The city is unveiling the new studio and channel today. * * *

[But goes on to say that] Channel 78 began broadcasting government programming a week ago. With its creation, [a mayor's office spokeswoman] says Newark joins 240 other municipalities across the country that have their own government channels.

Except for one, below, fotos today are more of those taken at the closing reception January 17th for the "Westinghouse Project" at NJIT. Here, Matt Gosser takes foto alongside his assemblage, Artifact Collage, with Joan Sonnenfeld''s mask, "The Ghost of Westinghouse Past", hanging on it in the middle. (If I get any of the ID's wrong, I hope someone will correct me.)

Naturally, this little story brought forth nasty comments by the "haters" who have devoted their lives to lurking at NJ.com and other places where favorable things about Newark might appear, in order instantly to put up comments ripping Newark, as to ensure that no one ever gets a favorable impression of this city. As usual, the comments ignored a key phrase in the story, "studio construction was funded with $1.8 million from Cablevision", in order to suggest that suburban taxpayers will be subsidizing this new channel. When one of them realized that the article said plainly that Cablevision put up the money to start the channel (that is, I and other Cablevision Newark subscribers paid for it), he hastened to complain that tho the studio and channel were provided by Cablevision, all costs of the tapes (big whoop) and personnel would be born by the taxpayer — that would, again, be me, and other people who actually LIVE in Newark — and says, with majestic stupidity, "Stop the crap. If people want to know what their elected officials are doing, go to the dam [sic] meeting."

Collages by Rachel Ehrgood.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. We should stop what we're doing and go to Downtown Newark, spending money on gas and incurring automotive wear and tear, then try to find a parking space or pay to park in a commercial lot; or pay for roundtrip busfare and wait, for perhaps a half hour, in subfreezing temperatures, for a bus; and then hope to get a seat in the Council Chamber; all on the offchance that that week's meeting will deal with something we might be interested in. That makes much better sense than simply tuning, from the comfort of our home, to channel 78, a channel we have already paid for as part of our Cablevision subscription? I don't think so.

Fotos and Westinghouse documents in works by Colleen Gutwein.

As it happens, I heard Central Ward councilmember Charles Bell offer an irritatingly high-handed and imperious resolution to increase enforcement of supposedly extant ordinances that require homeowners to put out trash for collection in bins with covers — not just sturdy trash bags, much easier for everyone to handle?? — and clean up not only their own frontage but also 9 feet into the street, or risk PUNISHMENT by the City! So we, the victims of litterpigs, have to clean up not just the trash that slobs dump out their car windows or let fall as they walk down the sidewalk dropping snack containers like bread crumbs to find their way back, but we also have to clean the streets that similar trash-strewing slobs walk down as tho they are extra-wide sidewalks (a practice that gets a lot of Newarkers killed or injured, and causes a lot of drivers trauma), as well? And what if the wind blows trash from one side of the street to the other? Are we, private persons, supposed to bear all the costs and hardship of cleaning up trash that no one is ever punished for strewing? Punish the homeowners, not the litterers, eh? Outrageous!

Colleen Gutwein's untitled foto, Kathryn Okeson's sculpture (28-word title not reproduced here), and one of Tamas Szalczer's "Sirens" group, chalk and pastel on paper.

Newark's schools (public, religious, and private) should be inculcating respect for cleanliness and physical order in one's environment as a precondition to mental and emotional order. Sanitation police should be targeting litterpigs, not homeowners. Let them sit in unmarked Sanitation cars in heavily littered areas, and use video cameras to record the behavior of suspect individuals, then jump out with their ticket books to drop littering citations on litterers like snow until the people who create the problem of filth on public streets and sidewalks learn that they, not their victims, are the ones who must pay the price. And let physical cleanup duty be written into the law for at least a third offense, if not a second or even first offense. Let garbage-strewing morons be seen by their friends, picking up trash with reachers or hands, while wearing dayglow-orange jumpsuits. Then they might think it's not so cool to drop garbage everywhere they go. And maybe the next time they see an acquaintance drop trash on a street — especially a stretch they just cleaned — they will speak up and tell them "Quit it, m*f*!"

The access channel is, alas, badly designed, and a lot of the information on it is not readable from the distance at which people watch television, across a room. The site is fundamentally misconceived, in design terms. A wide frame on the left contains only the words "Newark Government Access", "NWK TV 78" and something in very small type on a dark-green background. I went close and saw that that box contains the word "Cablevision" and its logo, in a lite-blue box. The left frame has to be wide to fit the word "Government". But that compresses all the real information, on the right. The frame should be at the TOP. The main information window could then occupy the entire width of the screen below.

The slides shown are apparently designed for a computer monitor, not TV screen. The Internet and TV are very different media, and what works for one (which you view from a couple of feet directly ahead), does not necessarily work for the other, which you may watch from ten or more feet away. Worse, no one checked how long it takes to read the text on a given slide, even if one can read it quickly, without struggling to distinguish foreground from background or read small type. Some slides are whipped away long before you can finish reading them.

Works by (left to right) Linda Morgan, Jessica Dalrymple, and Alexandra Pacula.

Small white type on a lite blue background is NOT LEGIBLE from across the room. TV is not designed for a lot of text to be read on a single screen. Text graphics on TV must include only small amounts of text at a time, in a large, simple font with high contrast between text and background. Yellow on purplish-white is another color combination that appears regularly on NWK-TV, but should not, because it's not easily legible.

Works by Matt Gosser, left to right, Millipede and American Flag v.2008.

Channel 78 also has an informational "crawl" across the bottom, which cannot work with text on the screen above. You can't read two things at once. A crawl can work if there are pictures and sound in the main window, not more text. There is very little informational sound, just music, mainly jazz/smooth jazz during the times I have watched. The manager of this channel should put more informational sound — not fiting with background music for dominance — and informational video that also does not compete with the crawl. To the extent possible, the crawl, on the one hand, and videos or still fotos on the other, should reinforce each other.

Foto, Salvage Room, by Leslie Granda Hill.

If the cost of videos and onscreen talent is a problem, there are tons of people who would be ecstatic to volunteer to do voiceovers or offer fotos or videos for no monetary compensation. Some wouldn't even need an auditory or onscreen visual credit, tho credits are important in broadcasting. My first job (after McDonald's in Middletown), as scarcely more than a kid out of high school, was as a "production assistant" for an ABC News documentary unit in Manhattan. There were a lot of good people working in this glamor industry for much less money than a comparable job in a non-glamor industry would pay. One way TV gets away with that is by giving people fancy titles and listing them in the credits of the shows they work on. Kids in Arts High and other Newark schools and colleges have a lot to offer. Ask, and you shall receive. But give credit where credit is due.

Poem memorializing a partial collapse of part of the façade of the Westinghouse Building. I couldn't get the foto to turn out right, but in this case, what matters is the words, not the image.

A regular feature of channel 78 (repeated several times an hour) is a slideshow of the members of the "Municipal Council" — why not City Council? — with their office fone number, alongside a foto that looks essentially identical to my foto of the Passaic River skyline seen from the Jackson Street Bridge at dawn, which opens my Resurgence City website, right down to a swirl in the water left of center. Here's that picture.

If you go to channel 78 and see the councilmembers' names and pictures alongside a view of the skyline, compare that foto to my picture above and let me know if you see some indication that it is NOT my picture. I don't mind if the City of Newark is using my foto. Indeed, I'd be flattered. But I'd like to be able to claim that credit, for my 'portfolio', as might increase my reputation. As I say at my Resurgence City site, it's OK with me if people use my pix for nonprofit, educational purposes, but I'd like to be asked in advance, or at least told later.

Blart; BSSCB

(I had another setback in trying to bring this up-to-date. I had to devise a form invoice for two publishers that want to use fotos, so searched the Internet. QuickBooks advertised not just a form invoice but also a free small-business version of their accounting software, so I figured I'd install it. Tho I might eventually make use of that program, downloading it now was a bad mistake. With the Windows operating-system updates required (the descriptions of which I had to try to read thru), machine freezes, and a required reboot, this process turned into an hours-long travail. And after all that, when I called up the invoice form, I found it absolutely inappropriate for my purposes. The computer world is mad.)

Blessed Sacrament/St. Charles Borromeo R.C. Church, Clinton Hill area.

A comedy set in New Jersey was the top box-office draw both this weekend and last, Kevin James's Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Paul Blart is a guy whose dream job (New Jersey state trooper) is just out of his grasp, but who's making the best he can out of the job he has — security guard at the local mall. ... The fateful time arrives for Paul to prove just what he's made of when a group of really bad folks, disguised as Santa's Helpers, take control of the mall just before closing time on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.

I doubt any specific NJ mall is intended or mentioned. K.J. is from Long Island, and the film was made on location in Massachusetts, but NJ gets the credit. I hated his TV series, King of Queens, but he had a good standup special on Comedy Central. Perhaps when this film makes it to free TV, I'll watch.

Bl. S / SCB. This "Church Sunday" I offer some info about as well as pix of Blessed Sacrament / St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church (15 Van Ness Place at Clinton Avenue, 07108; Phone: (973) 824-6548 , Fax: (973) 624-6030; http://blessedsacramentstcharles.com/index.html; Masses: Sunday 8:00, 10:00).

Originally just Blessed Sacrament, this church was renamed when St. Charles Borromeo, on Peshine Avenue at Custer Avenue in the Weequahic section, was merged into it. (I have shown pix of that church here, but the good ones were wiped out when AOL destroyed subscribers' online storage spaces.) The BSSCB website says that SCB was formed by the same priest who formed Blessed Sacrament, so the merger of the two in 1999 was not wholly arbitrary.
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The website was apparently under construction at one point but has not been finished. Please, some tech-savvy parisioner, help them out. Here's some info from a sign on the Clinton Avenue side.

I'm unclear now, from the website, what is meant by a "worship site" on Custer Avenue, one of two, with the Van Ness Place location, on the "Our Locations" page. Is it in something other than the old church? I'm also unclear as to what the institution mentioned in the following sign is. There's a large building alongside the church that appears to be a school. Or is it a rectory/church hall?

Now for some architectural details. First, a cross flanked by stylized porpoises. I don't know the significance.

There is one niche filled by a statue. Who is the subject of the statue? St. Charles Borromeo himself?

Nope. A black friend of mine from NYC in the early Seventies went on a religious retreat and changed his name to Mark DePorres. Close, but no Craig (anagram of "cigar"). He moved to San Francisco and I saw him once there, but wonder what he's up to now, if indeed he's still alive. He was a few years older than I.

The last foto today shows a niche that to date has no statue. I don't think the planter now there is what the architects had in mind. Perhaps someday a personage sufficiently worthy will inspire the church to place a statue of him or her there. Should that happen in my lifetime, I'll take another foto. And if blogging is still being done then, you can see it here.

Busting Out

(I'm still backfilling missing days (now Sunday-Tuesday). I had topics galore — how could one run out of things to talk about as regards Newark and its almost-equally-magnificent region? I even had raw pix, but not fixed. What I did not, however, have was time in which to create text, fix pix, and pair the two in a presentation. And then I had computer problems. It really is just one thing after another. You have no idea how much crap I have to persevere past.)

Today's fotos are more from the January 17th closing reception of "The Westinghouse Project" art show at NJIT. This first is from the outside looking in. There are four possible entrances into the building. Three were locked, and there were no signs on the fourth as to how to get in. Very irritating.

My driveway was finally sufficiently free of snow today for me to get the car out for the first time in many days, so I hit three supermarkets in an only partially successful quest for necessities before the next snows fall (Tuesday!). Ordinarily, the South Orange Pathmark has not just food for my birdfeeder — the only one of the three supermarkets that does — but also big bags of Purina's Kit 'n Kaboodle dry food, which my cats like best of the inexpensive brands and flavors I've tried. Not today. I got birdseed and some fresh produce, including carrots for the squirrels, that I will put out in the yard to try to make up for this year's nonexistent acorn crop. But only the more expensive dry cat foods were still on the shelf. And why do supermarkets assign big bags of dry food so little vertical space that only 2 of each type can be on offer at any given time, which are NOT replenished even remotely frequently enuf? If you put only TWO of an item out on a shelf, shouldn't you check often to see if they need to be replaced? Better: Raise the friggin' shelf so at least four can be displayed at a time — at very least. These 18-pound bags are so large that they can be offered only one-deep (none behind the first). Raise the shelf above, so four or more can be offered one atop another, goldurn it! Anyways, I had to head for the East Orange ShopRite.

View from outside, of the band (whose name I did not see) and the front of the exhibition.

By the way, last Saturday at NJIT I confirmed with a woman artist who lives in Orange that street signs in Orange, as in East Orange and South Orange, have black lettering on white background. Does West Orange too? That really confuses the issue of what town you're in when driving, because the system of different-color street signs for each town you come to, breaks down. (Joe from Belleville told me you can find what town you're in by looking for a metal tag on each telephone pole around eye level, but I've never checked that, and it's not exactly convenient, at nite, especially in winter (and even more especially when your driver's side door won't unlatch), to stop the car, get a flashlite, and look for a metal tag on a telephone pole just to find out where the heck you are.)

View from near the back of the second floor. The picture is fuzzy, and I'm not sure why.

The E.O. SR at least had its superlative store-brand cola in 3L bottles (99¢), which it often runs out of — or should I say, "out of which it often runs"? (due to poor inventory control, it would seem). But it too had run out of big bags of several varieties of dry cat food. So I had to proceed to a third supermarket, the Bergen Street Pathmark. Would you believe that there was no durned Kit 'n Kaboodle there either?! What is going on? I guess I wasn't the only one who had been snowed-in who was now replenishing staples. I did find one 15-pound bag of the less-expensive dry food for the outdoor cats (and possums), which my cats will eat only if nothing else is at hand. I bought that, for the poor, freezing outdoor kitties, but had to buy a "sale"-priced bag of Friskies Ocean Fish flavor at $12.49 for 18 pounds — as against $9.99 of Kit 'n Kaboodle at ShopRite and $10.49 (I believe) at Pathmark. I was not happy. Fortunately, when I checked out I found that I had passed the limit to get a Pathmark Pet Club savings coupon of $9 off my next purchase of pet items, which eased the pain of paying a couple of bucks more this time. Pathmark has these great "clubs", for pets and kids (same thing?), whereby if you buy $100 or some such, you get a discount coupon toward your next purchase.

This group, seen past part of Matt Gosser's Tesla Tower, looks up, but at what, I do not know.

In any case, what with these trips to 3 supermarkets, I got my exercise for the day, walking between car and store in three big parking lots, and pushing a heavily laden cart within these 3 great big stores, then unloading the car and distributing things among floors of my 3-story house. (I could put some things in my basement too if I came across a great sale.)

One of 3 chalk and pastel works on paper by Tamas Szalczer, video beyond.

When I lived in Manhattan (for a scant 35 years), the largest "super"market around, an A&P Food Emporium in the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex (43rd and Tenth), was relatively minuscule as against our capacious NJ markets. A&P bought Pathmark since I escaped Manhattan, so we now have the best of both worlds, A&P brands (mainly "America's Choice" — what ever happened to Jane Parker, which had great little chocolate-chip cookies years ago?) in an unpretentious Pathmark setting. But Newark STILL has no ShopRite. Wassup wit at?

Video by Matt Gosser showing various stages of the demolition, in its context in large back room of the New Jersey School of Architecture Gallery at NJIT.

ShopRite is a coop of stores with different owners rather than a single corporation all of whose stores are under a unitary management. Presumably, then, if a group of investors wanted to open a ShopRite in Newark, they wouldn't have to wait for ShopRite to act of its own instance but could apply for membership in the coop and open a Newark store at their own initiative. To date, however, it would seem that either no one has come forward to do that, or the coordinating body of the coop has not accepted any applicant from Newark. That should change. Perhaps Newark entrepreneurs need to demolish some stated or unstated opposition within the ShopRite organization.

Jo Bros. in White House

Today's fotos are from the closing last Saturday of the "Westinghouse Project" art show at the New Jersey School of Architecture Gallery at NJIT. This first picture shows William Oliwa disassembling his functioning Telephony I.D. Protection Device. I posted here January 18th a video interview with him conducted as he worked. But Blip.tv selected as the still shot at the opening a view of wires from the device rather than of the artist, so I'm making up for that now.

I mentioned here January 18th and again on the 19th that some people with New Jersey connections were very prominent in events relating to the Inauguration of Barack Obama. I left one event out. (Naturally, Inauguration celebrations included people from all states, and major celebs from a great many states — tho I don't know that every state has major celebs. NJ was, however, more prominent than usual, even if only New Jerseyans know that, because not everyone knows that Bruce Springsteen, Queen Latifah, and the others are from the Garden State. They may not even know that "Garden State" is not a sarcastic slam for a state they'd more likely associate with what has been called the "moonscape" along the Turnpike.)

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Here's Oliwa's device, on the right. The metal sculpture on the left is Memories of the Island by Natalie Giugni, described in the Gallery List thus:

In Memories of the Island, Giugni welds and weaves steel mesh collected from the Westinghouse site forming it into a tattered bouquet of tropical flowers. This work acts as homage to all immigrant workers who have left their beautiful homelands behind in search of work in demanding and sometimes callous urban hubs.

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You may have heard that the Jonas Brothers were part of the "Kids' Inaugural", which is described in Wikipedia thus:

On the evening of January 19, 2009, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden hosted the "Kids' Inaugural: We Are the Future" event at the Verizon Center [in DC]. Miley Cyrus and [the] Jonas Brothers honored military families in concert. The show was broadcast live on the Disney Channel and on Radio Disney. Other celebrity participants included Bow Wow, Corbin Bleu, Queen Latifah, Billy Ray Cyrus, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jamie Foxx.

Of that group, we can say this much with certitude: Latifah, Shaq (both born in Newark), Miley Cyrus, and her father Billy Ray have all been to Newark. The Jonas Brothers are from Wyckoff, in Bergen County. I imagine they have been to and/or thru Newark at some point, but they chose to perform at the Izod Center rather than PruCenter for their first tour.

"Westinghouse AM" by D C Smith, the first work inside the door.

On Inauguration Day itself, when Michelle Obama (who graduated from Princeton University, rah-cheer [rural Southern dialect for "rite here" if you didn't 'hear' that] in New Jersey) and her hubby were out on the town at nite, their dauters, Malia and Sasha, stayed home with friends, watched videos, then participated in a scavenger hunt — at the end of which they found the Jo Bros. behind a door in the White House!

New Jersey artist (born in Cincinnati) D C Smith, poses by his work. The birds are made from Westinghouse papers, as are the 'tailings' of bird poop at various points on the fan enclosure that serves as their perch. Over time, I hope to make this blog a historical album of fotos of artists working, or at least exhibiting, in Newark.

I'm not clear on whether the place where the Jo Bros. hid was in a public area of the White House or in the family quarters. Probably a public area, but not necessarily. These New Jersey boys were the ONLY celebs to be invited into the White House for the delite of the Obama kids. So there, the rest of you 49 states. New Jersey's not so funny now, is it?

The artist shows the radio inside his work. Westinghouse not only made radios but also operated broadcast stations from very early on, including WJZ, which began broadcasting in 1921 from a studio atop the Westinghouse Building in Newark. "The call letters stood for their original home state, New Jer(Z) sey." It became the flagship station of NBC's Blue Network, which later became the American Broadcasting Company. When Westinghouse later bought a Baltimore TV station, it gave the WJZ call letters to that station, because the NJ operation had moved to NYC and become WABC. But it all started in Newark.

Oscars, Golden Globes, People's Choice

Oscars. Nominations for this year's Academy Awards were announced today. Four nominations in major categories involve New Jersey.

Actor in a Leading Role

Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon: Langella was born in Bayonne and graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood.
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler: filmed in various NJ locations, notably Asbury Park.

Actress in a Leading Role

Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married : Hathaway was born in Brooklyn but raised in Millburn.
Meryl Streep in Doubt : Streep was born in Summit and graduated from Bernards High in Bernardsville.

We'll find out on February 22nd if any of them wins.

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Today's topic, and pix, are not necessarily specific to Newark but relate to the state lucky enuf to contain Newark within its narrow bounds. Newark needs to cultivate warmth between the city and the state, because we have been victimized in the past by anti-Newark prejudice in the wider community. People in other parts of the state tried to block the Newark Arena (now Prudential Center) out of animus to Newark. That kind of thing must never happen again. I wasn't born in Newark, but I was born in New Jersey. When I was young, Newark was a place for class trips, to see the Library, the bust of JFK in Military Park, and other things in the great city of the 'Great State of New Jersey' (as it was, and still is, called in the major political parties' national conventions). That warm tie was broken in the Sixties. We need to restore it. I love the places of my youth, Palisades Park (Bergen County), Leonardo (Middletown Township), Little Siliver, and River Plaza (Middletown Township again) in Monmouth County, and, thanks to the compact size of this jewel of a state, I can be there in little more than an hour from my house by car. Red Bank, Long Branch, Asbury Park, Ocean 'Grave' (Grove, actually, a church settlement much of which was closed-down on Sundays), Deal, Sea Bright (where as a child I was almost dashed against the rocks of a jetty until my mommy pulled me away), Oceanport (where my father took me to see horseracing for the first time; I lost $3.50 out of $27 bet), Haskell's farm with its pond and horseback riding — and many more places in this fabulous little state — made my childhood the All-American youth that builds character and citizenship. Asbury Park in particular fell into terrible times, but has come back, and has been shown in a film, The Wrestler, that has gained much praise. So let me first show some pix of Asbury as it used to be. (These are apparently representations of old postcards. I do not know who, if anyone, owns the copyright today. If the owner objects to my using these images here, s/he need merely notify me and I will withdraw them.

The first 3 pix today were sent to me by Morton Popok, who found this blog, as do many other people, in looking for something else. He writes:

I picked these pictures off the internet in many areas I was searching. My grandfather Morris started bottling soda and seltzer with my father Joseph in 1906. Started delivering with horse and wagon. I then continued in the business and then created a real estate company 1975 to present.

At 14 I worked at Palace Amusements (Ferris wheel — then at the Casino (merry-go-round) for summer work. At the time you needed working papers.

Asbury Park was at its peak — Steinbach Department Store, Teppers Department Store, on Cookman Avenue.

Walter Reade had his theatres (1948) — Savoy, St. James, Mayfair, Lyric, Convention Hall, Ocean near bowling alley. He parked his 1948 Lincoln Continental outside of the Mayfair — everybody knew Mr Reade was there.

I have been active in the redevelopment of Asbury Park [in its] new growth period.

Hope you find this of interest — Morton H. Popok — Born 1936

Swan Boat, early 20th century.

I do indeed, and hope my readers will as well. I ran into some people at the closing of the NJIT show "The Westinghouse Project" from the Cape May area and realize that I actually like South Jersey! I told her I'd been to Cape May and taken the ferry to Lewes (pronounced Lúe.wis), Delaware). She had to drive back all the way to Cape May from NJIT that nite, but she made a point of coming to Newark to see something a friend of hers had on display. This is the kind of warmth Newark needs to feel for the entire state, and the entire state needs to feel for Newark. There was a time, tho some people may find it hard to believe, that New Jerseyans were proud of Newark, their own alternative to Manhattan, with the excitement of a great city — niteclubs, jewelry stores, flash and dazzle — this side of the Hudson. I don't think it's naive to hope that New Jerseyans can reconnect with Newark, and see the best of themselves in the greatest city of their state. When Newark falls, New Jersey falls. When Newark rises, New Jersey rises.

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Golden Globes. Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep were also nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe (in a Drama) but lost out to British actress Kate Winslet. The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, so we shouldn't be surprised that foreign films and talent tend to be favored. Even the Oscars, however, are often awarded to Brits, probably because Brits in the Academy vote for their own, while Americans divide. Americans have their best chance when there is more than one Brit in a category.
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Frank Langella and Mickey Rourke were also nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe; Rourke won.

Best Picture — Musical or Comedy included a nomination for Mamma Mia!, another Streep film, for which she was also nominated for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. Again, she lost to a Brit, in this case Sally Hawkins.
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Marisa Tomei was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Wrestler but was, you guessed it, shut out by a Brit, the same Kate Winslet.
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Tom Cruise, who attended Glen Ridge High, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (for Tropic Thunder ), in a field that included a living Brit and a dead Australian (Heath Ledger). No one but Ledger had a chance.
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Both Doubt (Meryl Streep's film) and Frost/Nixon (Frank Langella's) were nominated for Best Screenplay but lost to — dare I point it out? — a Brit, Simon Beaufoy, for Slumdog Millionaire.
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Bruce Springsteen won Best Song, for The Wrestler , which was filmed in part in Asbury Park, where he first gained fame at the Stone Pony. I passed by there during the rehearsal of some band just before he was to play there in early 2005, and could hear them playing from outside. Was it his? I don't know. It was good, tho.
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People's Choice. When I went to research the People's Choice nominees and winners, I found on the Peoples' Choice home page this notice: "Queen Latifah wants you on her next album". Nominations for a song to be included in her next album have closed, but it says, "Come back on February 2nd to vote for your favorite song. The winner will be featured on Queen Latifah's upcoming album!"

I mentioned here January 6th that Newark's own Queen Latifah hosted the 35th Annual People's Choice Awards, which aired January 7th. New Jerseyans were in play for various awards. Anne Hathaway was up for Favorite Female Action Star but lost to Angelina Jolie. In the category Favorite Leading Lady, TWO Essex County stars, Hathaway and Latifah, lost to the only other person in the category, Kate Hudson. Meryl Streep won for Favorite Song from a Soundtrack, for "Mamma Mia!" from the movie of the same name. The movie, however, lost in the category Favorite Comedy Movie to something I never heard of called 27 Dresses . And it lost Favorite Cast to The Dark Knight . To end on an up note, Gary Unmarried, which stars Verona's Jay Mohr, won for Favorite New TV Comedy.

Obama Quotes Paine's Crisis — Begun in Newark

I did not recognize the quote Obama included in his Inaugural Address yesterday:

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"'Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].'"

I thought the river might be the Delaware, and the reference would thus be to the impending attack upon Trenton that heartened the Thirteen United States as they (yes, "United States" was then plural, because it was originally a wartime alliance of separate colonies seeking their 13 separate independences) faced down the mighty British Empire. Obama did, after all, make reference to that in his Christmas message. Plainly "the father of our nation" meant Washington — some black militants may be indignant about that reference, given Washington's mixed history as regards slavery. But were they Washington's own words that he ordered be read to the army? No.

Painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutze (Foto from Wikipedia).

The words are from Thomas Paine's first entry in The Crisis series, which he started to write in Newark in November 1776, as the Continental Army retreated across northern New Jersey and onto the far shore of the Delaware, on its way to a rendezvous with destiny at Trenton. A footnote in a biography of Thomas Paine (note, more than incidentally, that the particular copy of this book that Google Books digitized has a checkmark alongside the line that mentions Newark!) says that in answer to people who called the retreat across New Jersey "pusillanimous", Paine "declares that posterity will call the retreat 'glorious — and the names of Washington and Fabius will run paralell [sic] to eternity.'"
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In perhaps an odd twist of fate, few Americans know who Fabius was. Known as "the Delayer", Fabius Maximus was the Roman general who dealt with the emergency produced when Hannibal invaded Italy. Rather than confront the Carthaginian's superior forces, Fabius waged a long, long campaign of scorched earth and limited military engagements until Hannibal had to return to Carthage. The Roman Republic might have perished had Fabius gone all-out against Hannibal, which would have meant that the Roman Empire would never have happened, which in turn would have meant that the Western world would never have happened. In that we are latter-day Romans (the U.S. Capitol, in front of which Barack Obama was inaugurated, is a magnificent Roman building; Newark's City Hall is a pretty grand Roman building too), and in that Washington's pursuit of the same general tactics as Fabius, less the scorched-earth part, led to the eventual defeat of the British, Paine's point is well taken.

This historical plaque on Trinity & St. Philip's Cathedral (which was only Trinity Church when Washington passed by) refers to the retreat as "masterly". That doesn't sound so silly now, does it? (I remembered this old foto as being a better picture. I suppose I should take a better one someday.)

You most likely know the opening words of The Crisis No. 1.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover. * * *

We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior to theirs.
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* The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed; but, if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil; and there is no punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

New Jersey's entry in the State Quarters series by the U.S. Mint incorporates Washington's Crossing of the Delaware (foto courtesy of Wikipedia). I think it's the finest design of all the State Quarters.

"The Jerseys" was, even then, an obsolete reference to West Jersey and East Jersey, two separate colonies into which New Jersey was divided for only 28 years, from 1674 to 1702. The capital of East Jersey was not at Newark, nor even Elizabeth, as you might expect, but Perth Amboy (called in The Crisis only "Amboy"; and Paine calls New Brunswick only "Brunswick").

Trinity & St. Philip's [Episcopal] Cathedral, with the Firemen's Insurance Building beyond (at nite, tho I suspect you understood that).

Note how Paine tries to present winter as an opportunity rather than trial. Paine also does his own 'no Red States or Blue States' turn, in first expressing his contempt for Tories (loyalists to England resident in large numbers in the Middle States, including NJ), then trying to win them over to the cause:

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us, let us reason the matter together[.] * * *

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

Group of Revolutionary War-era graves, Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Note the 'English' ivy overgrowing the two tombstones on the left.

Paine then hopes that Tories will come around, but warns that if not, Americans should "expel them from the continent", expropriating their property for use in the war for independence. He reaches out to them, as Obama reaches out to the Red States, but isn't really too hopeful that they can be won around:

Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice. * * *

Mutual fear is the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact.

Elegant tombstone commemorating 6 members of the Alling family. "Alling" may be familiar to you from the street near Newark Penn Station. It was also the name of a furniture manufacturer of some distinction, in Newark. Indeed, the Isaac Alling on the tombstone above may have been the father of the furniture maker. There's an article about Alling in the Encyclopedia of New Jersey, a book I looked thru in the bookstore within Penn Station several years ago. I wonder if Barnes & Noble stores around here stock that. I have a couple of aging B&N gift cards I haven't used. I was thinking of buying calendars and an almanac with them, but the Encyclopedia of New Jersey is probably a much better use.

I suspect Obama has read this entire, 4,000-word first entry in The Crisis series. I just did. The Crisis No. 1 was published in Philadelphia, but started in Newark, probably in Military Park (one source I found says "Trinity churchyard", which is much the same thing, in that Trinity (& St. Philip's) is surrounded by Military Park today. Whether any of the most memorable wording was written in Newark, no one knows. But those first words, "These are the times that try men's souls" could have been written here in 1967 rather than 1776.
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We have fought our own war, for Newark rather than the larger Nation, and suffered our own defections (Paine lamented the loss of half the Continental Army's troops, when their enlistments expired, during the retreat across NJ). But we are now out the other side of the years of peril. Some rearguard actions remain, and we've got to fite them. But the worst is over. Newark and the Nation have both come out of the bad old days, and it is supremely fitting that Obama quoted from a work begun in Newark as he ascended to the pinnacle of world power.

Newarkology walking-tour participant notices concrete frame for one of the crumbling Revolutionary War-era tombstones in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Most present-day New Jerseyans may be puzzled by Paine's reference to "the Jerseys" (explained above). But they will know of Fort Lee, and the Hackensack (River and town), which he also mentions.

The Revolutionary War-era graves are behind the red brick vault in this picture, down a hill from the grave of Franklin Murphy. Murphy, a Newark mayor and one-term Governor of New Jersey, was what might today be considered an oxymoron, a progressive Republican.

Consider this passage in the context of subsequent history:

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment!

Might that explain the enthusiasm with which the tale of Molly Pitcher was received? You probably know the story. During the Battle of Monmouth, the wife of an artilleryman took over his cannon when he fell wounded. To this day, the premier hotel in Red Bank (Monmouth County) is the Molly Pitcher (whose landmark cupola can be seen in the background of three of my fotos of Red Bank October 17th). Curiously, there is another Red Bank in New Jersey, originally the name of a large farm, near which a fortress, Fort Mercer, was built that, with its pair on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, was intended to starve the British out of newly-captured Philadelphia. The Hessians, under the command of the same colonel who had suffered a defeat at Trenton due to Washington's Crossing, attacked Fort Mercer — and lost! Wikipedia says that before the battle began, "He declared to his men: Either the fort will be called Fort Donop [his name], or I shall have fallen.'' He didn't live to see his second humiliation. New Jerseyans defeated the Hessians, and Von Donop died in the main house of the Red Bank farm. Wikipedia shows a very handsome, very grand monument of that victory. Never mind that the British, intent on maintaining control over the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, fortified itself for a second, successful campaign against the two forts guarding the Delaware. But they lost the war, didn't they? And we got a great painting and some handsome monuments out of the New Jersey portions of the struggle. I have been to the Monmouth battlefield. There's essentially nothing there, which may be why Governor Corzine CLOSED IT to save money in this tough economic time. The Wikipedia article[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monmouth_Battlefield] shows "The Craig House". No relation.

Painting Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, who also painted Washington Crossing the Delaware (foto courtesy of Wikipedia). This is his second most famous painting, also concerning a New Jersey event.

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I found an interesting and surprising website about Washington's crossing of the Delaware by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). Consider these words from a subpage called "What's Wrong with This Picture?":

One of the favorite comments of folks as they view Mr. Leutze's painting is that they would not be standing in the boat like General Washington was in the painting. I think most folks would agree that standing in the type of row boat that is seen in the picture would not be very safe, especially on a fast flowing river. This is certainly where Emmanuel used the most artistic license in his painting. The Durham boats which were gathered for the tasks are replicated and on view today at the Park. Anyone who looks at them knows that the boat in the painting is not exactly what was used to transport the troops. The Durham boats, boats designed for iron ore and transporting cargo, had no seats. All the troops would have been standing in some way. [Emphasis supplied.] When standing within a Durham boat, the sides come well above the waist of someone of average height. General Washington would have been standing safely within the sides of the boat. Rowers would be standing within the boat with the troops, while men operating setting poles would walk/stand on the wide planks on the sides of the boats. A man to operate a steering sweep would also stand on the end of the boat which was a wider platform that formed into a point. Horses and cannons were probably taken across the River on ferry boats and other watercrafts and not the Durham boats. The cannons were the last items to cross the River. * * *

[T]he rower by Washington's knee [on the far side of the boat], who is a person of color, is said to be a man named Prince Whipple. Though Prince Whipple was an African who served in the Revolution, there is no documentation to state that Prince Whipple was present at the crossing. There were many people of color present at the crossing as the Marbleheader unit from Massachusetts was a well integrated group of seafaring men. They took the lead role in rowing General Washington and his troops across the River.

This foto from the PHMC shows one of the annual reenactments of the Crossing. Note that the men are indeed standing.

Live and learn.