A Flutter of Flags

I took a great many pictures Downtown in yesterday morning's brilliant sun, and show some that involve flags. This first shows the absence of a flag on City Hall after 10am. Why isn't a flag being displayed?

This next foto shows two flags flying from the Liberty Pole at the south end of Military Park, with the Military Park Building beyond. The large flag, you will recognize. It is damaged, perhaps from the storm Irene. It should probably be taken down and burned respectfully, to be replaced by one that is intact. The smaller is the undistinguished Newark City flag. We need a better one. And perhaps that better flag can fly from City Hall, if not from a single flagpole, centered on the building's façade, then on one of two flanking flagpoles, perhaps at opposite ends of the roof, the other to fly the New Jersey State flag.

This next foto shows a whole bunch of flags that fly outside Prudential's World Headquarters. Both the tower on the right and the matching low building on the left are part of the Prudential HQ. I have mentioned, with some indignation, that Prudential has at least two much taller buildings in other cities than in its headquarters city. That seems very odd to me, esp. since its HQ is not nearly large enuf for its Newark operations, which are scattered among several buildings.

I don't know if the flags represent places where Prudential has major operations. The first two flags in the fotos above and below are the U.S. and NJ flags, in pride of place to their own right. There is no Newark flag, but, considering how undistinguished that flag is, that's no great loss.

This next foto shows two U.S. flags, atop Newark's presently tallest buildings, 744 Broad Street, which occupies the bulk of this picture, and 1180 Raymond Boulevard, just barely peeking over the shoulder of 744. The flag atop 744 itself is partially obstructed by 744 itself, because I was so close in. But when I moved farther out, I lost the flag atop 1180. The life of a fotografer, he is sometimes difficult.

Note the odd lite spots on the façade of 744. I realized that they are reflections from the windows of a building across Broad Street, perhaps PruHQ.
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The last foto today is of three flags so closely aligned visually that as they move with the wind they appear to peel away from each other like pages in a book. The two in front are the U.S. and NJ flags. The third is some corporate flag I didn't see clearly. The reflective building beyond is the Legal Center.

I love flags, so will revisit this theme from time to time. If you also like flags, you might glory in the vexillological website, Flags of the World ("FOTW"). "Vexillology" is the study of flags (from Latin vexillum). FOTW has a page about Newark's present flag which discusses its elements. Unfortunately, the image there is distorted, and you can scarcely make out "NEWARK, NEW JERSEY / INCORPORATED 1836" on the scroll under the coat of arms. My 13th foto of October 10, 2010, shows it much more clearly. The version I show flying from the Liberty Pole, above, is different. It has two block-lettered lines below the scroll repeating the info within the scroll. I don't know which is official. But in any case they should both be replaced by something better. Even the same basic design with a picture of our massive City Hall in place of the coat of arms and scroll, with finer lettering for the city's name below, would be better. We don't need the date of incorporation on the flag. That trivia is pointless clutter. It also misleads people into thinking Newark was settled in 1836, whereas it was actually founded in 1666!

End-of-Summer Layoffs

I was Downtown early today and saw Newark Downtown District ("NDD") workers cleaning the streets and setting up tables for Lunch at Championship Plaza (second foto below). (My mother told me many years ago that manual street sweepers used to be called "white wings", presumably because of their uniform. NDD uniforms are much more colorful than that.) As I was about to get into my car, one of those employees was spiffing up right nearby, so I asked if I could take a picture of him at work for my blog, and handed him my card. He (Pete Sanders) agreed. I should have asked him to make sure the NDD logo on the rolling trash receptacle faced the camera, but didn't notice that it didn't until too late.

Then we chatted a bit. Pete said that a lot of the people working for NDD would be laid off soon, as a number of regular summer events end. The Championship Plaza event goes "til October", and the Music & Market event at PSE&G Plaza goes to October 27th, but the outdoor concert series at NJPAC, "Sounds of the City", ends this Thursday. I don't know when the lunchtime concert and farmers market at Washington Park on Wednesdays ends. But once these major, recurring events end, a lot of the people needed to make Downtown nice and clean, and to set up for these events, will no longer be needed, so will be laid off.
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That's sad, and I hope at least some of them will be returning to college rather than ending up among the Nation's all too many unemployed. Fortunately, there are programs to assist people of reduced means that these newly unemployed may be able to avail themselves of.

I had ventured Downtown at the appalling hour of 7:30 in the morning to apply for food stamps (which I think actually work via a debit card nowadays). Codgers like me haven't had a Cost Of Living Increase from Social Security in more than two years, even tho the cost of everything has gone up. My property taxes, for instance, went up 16%, and my homeowners insurance went up by a whopping 188% in three years! I had inquired a couple of years ago about the income limit for what is now called "SNAP" (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program"), but, at the time, I was something like $75 over the income limit. So I forgot about it. Then, a few days ago, I was talking to a friend who is on disability, and he said that standards change from time to time, so I should ask again. The next time I went to the Bergen Street Pathmark, a day or so later, I stopped into the New Community Corporation office (to the right of the Pathmark entrance and left of Dunkin' Donuts) and asked about the income limit. Sure enuf, it has gone up (to $1,670/month for a single-person household) far above my Social Security payment and every other little source of income, so I asked how to apply.
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There is an event coming up at that office, to provide information and sign people up.

Essex County Food Stamp Sign Up
Will be at
NCC Family Resource Center

Friday, October 7th , 2011
9:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Required documents to sign up for food stamps

* Identification
* Birth Certificate
* Social Security Card
* Proof of address, utility bill & rent receipts or lease
* If you live with someone you will need a letter from that person stating that you reside in their home and that they do not provide you with food
* Those with CDS¹ charges must provide verification of having completed a drug treatment program
* Proof of income
* Bank statement

To Register
Please call or come in to schedule an appointment ...
131-185 Bergen Street (In the Pathmark Shopping Center)
973-565-9500

____________________

¹ "Controlled and Dangerous Substances".

I couldn't wait that long, so asked if there's another way to apply. I was told that there is a City social-services office at 18 Rector Street (behind NJPAC, in a wing of the former Firemen's Insurance Company Building, the tall, white office building in the foto below). But, the nice lady cautioned, you have to get there early, because they process only a limited number of people per day. I asked how early and was told the office opens at 7:30 in the morning, and it's wise to get there as close to that time as possible. Great. There are times I'm just barely getting to sleep at 7:30am, due to decades of working evening and graveyard shifts. But I did arrive before 7:45 and, after about 45 minutes was given an appointment to come back — almost a full month later, September 29th, also at 7:30am. Jeez.

I have at hand all the documents noted above except my birth certificate. It's around here somewhere, but if I can't remember where, maybe I can get a new copy. The old one got mangled over time.
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I don't know how much, in dollar terms, food stamps will come to, but every little bit helps, at least until Social Security finally does its duty and gives us a realistic Cost Of Living Adjustment. People on Unemployment, or whose Unemployment benefits are expiring before they can find work in this lousy economy, have entirely different problems. The free market is a monster.

Storm 'Damage'

Present Newark residents will of course know how trivial the damage from hurricane/"tropical" storm Irene was, but for the information of people of the Newark diaspora who now live far away, let me just mention how inconsequential the storm was to most people in Newark. I don't think it was even classed as a hurricane by the time it got to this area, because this entire month has been extremely subnormally cold for August, so the waters of the Atlantic were much cooler than they would usually be, robbing Irene of the energy it would have needed to maintain its hurricane status. And of course, Newark is not in the tropics — alas — so whatever Irene was, it was assuredly no longer a tropical storm.
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Mind you, the Passaic River basin received so much rain that the river is flooding low-lying areas in places like Paterson. The Great Falls of the Passaic, in Paterson, are likely to be spectacular in the next several days. But by the time the Passaic reaches Newark, it is a broad estuary (an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean), so flooding is not a problem.

I took the fotos above and below early this evening to show the two largest fallen branches in my yard, which is in the westernmost (and therefore most-inland) area of Newark. There were also a lot of fallen deadwood twigs, leaves, and live twigs with leaves. And that's about it.

I have very large trees, perhaps 70' tall, on two sides of my house, so had to be concerned about high winds. But no tree toppled, nor did any limb of size fall onto either my house or car. Joe from Belleville experienced the same trivial effects on his trees.

The only sign that a hurricane-like storm had hit was this shopping-cart-return shelter in the parking lot of the East Orange ShopRite, which had only recently been put in place, parallel to the lines that mark the parking spaces. I wonder how long it will take ShopRite to put it back into place. It may not be rigid enuf to be pushed or pulled intact. Perhaps one of its two long sides will have to be pushed while the other is pulled at the same time and rate of speed, to put it back in alignment. Or perhaps it will have to be disassembled, realigned, and reassembled. That's no big deal, however, which is what 'hurricane' or "tropical" storm Irene turned out to be in Newark.

'Beautilitarian' Wrought Iron

I was struck by this intricately patterned ironwork of a fire escape on a building near the eastern end of West Side Park on 18th Avenue.

It obeys a principle I long ago formulated for my own esthetic, relative to architecture: if a thing has to be seen, it should be worth seeing. Even a fire escape need not be strictly utilitarian and graceless. Some curlicues and spiral uprites add charm to this modest apartment house, and a fire escape becomes visual balconies. (I might have gotten a sharper picture if I had taken the time to use my tripod.)

Play on Wordz in Vailsburg

There is a laundromat just inside Newark as you drive north on Sandford Avenue from Irvington, that has a clever name — including a spelling reform.

Actually, there are two spelling reforms in this sign. The name of the avenue is actually "Sandford" at that point, with a medial-D, not just a final-D. And of course the Z is what we should use for the Z-sound, everywhere, but usually don't. It's as tho Z is the stepchild of the English alphabet, all too often having to yield to S.
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The classic sitcom to which that business's name alludes, Sanford and Son (1972-77), is now showing on Antenna TV, channel 11-4, over the air via digibox. It used to be on at, I think, 8:00 and 8:30pm, Monday thru Friday, but Antenna TV changes its lineup fairly often, so Sanford and Son is currently running at 1:00 and 1:30am Monday thru Friday and 6:00 and 6:30pm on the weekend. It's not one of my favorites, but I'll watch if I'm desperate enuf for entertainment.

NJPAC Police Station Mural

I have in the past shown wide views of the bemuraled police station opposite the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on the corner of Park Place and Center Street. (I wonder how many other police stations in the United States — or world — are wrapped in murals. Not many, I warrant. But Newark, the cultural capital of New Jersey, has one.) The fotos immediately above and below are from my Resurgence City website, [http://www.ResurgenceCity.org] 3/4 of the way down the home page. The first shows the northern façade, on Center Street. The second shows the western façade, on Park Place.

The street names are not as you might imagine. This next foto shows that Park Place does not end at a T with Center Street. Rather, for reasons that escape me, the left/westward-pointing portion of what seems to any reasonable observer to be a continuous, curved road, is not a westward extension of Center Street but a northwestward extension of Park Place.

This is confirmed by this screenshot of that portion of the City's Downtown Business District map. What genius came up with THAT idea?

In any event, I decided I wanted to see the details of this wraparound mural, so when I was in the neighborhood on August 11th, waiting for the start of one of NJPAC's "Sounds of the City" concerts, I took a series of overlapping closeup fotos of the entire mural's extent. The foto above is of the most northeastern portion of the mural. Subsequent fotos show the scene going first westward, then southward. Notice, as you view each of these fotos, how the windows in the middle of the field, top to bottom, affect the view. In some, clouds are reflected. In others, fluorescent lites glow.

The time was about 5:15pm and the sun was behind the station, so the first several fotos, of the northern façade, are in the shade. Those of the western façade show the mural as seen in full sun.

I think the mural overall is quite wonderful, but relatively monotone, coming off like sepia fotos that were originally brilliantly contrasting b&w fotos. If anything, the portions seen in shade ended up being the more striking, once I ran them thru my graffics program, which intensified the colors of all of them. I tried to reduce the brilliance of the colors as picked up by my graffics program, but it didn't work. I am of two minds about this in general, because it happens very often with my graffics program. Sometimes I can reduce the intensity of colors by increasing briteness but not contrast, or even reducing contrast at the same britness. Other times, however, that doesn't work. So some of the panels of this mural will have very dramatic, deep colors that are not really accurate as to how they appear to the human eye.

But human eyes bring 3D depth to a scene, which 2D fotografy cannot do. In portraying the world, I think it is legitimate to allow a fotograf to intensify the colors a little beyond reality, to compensate for the absence of depth. My mother used to criticize Technicolor for being unrealistically intense. You have that sense, in watching a Technicolor movie, but if you try to zero in a particular part of a scene, it doesn't seem very exaggerated. The world reall is prett colorful. We just don't generally appreciate it, because we are concerned with meaning and negotiating our way thru the obstacles in our path, nor in appreciating the splendiferous richness of colors around us.

Still, there remains a sepia quality to much of the mural, and it occurred to me that perhaps that was a way of blurring the race of the people portrayed. Many are neither black nor white, but only sepia. Or is the meaning larger than that, that the world at large is not black-and-white, but sepia, all people merging with all others? Am I placing that meaning on this mural? Or did the artist/s work from that premise? It's a pretty good premise, as racial premises go.

I saw no artist's signature, so don't know whom to credit for this wonderful work. If you see a signature, or independently know the artist, let me know, so I can add a credit here.

This is the central piece, the artistic keystone, of the entire mural, at the corner of the building. The two sides of the building are not equal in length, but the keystone panel creates its own center.

I didn't realize, when looking up at the murals across the second and third floors, that there were a couple of areas on the ground floor that also had murals. Fortuitously, I had already taken a foto of the painting at the corner, part of which appears in this foto of an ice treat vendor.

This foto shows that the painting is of Abbott and Costello as the Greek comedy and tragedy masks, Costello (of Paterson) as tragedy, and Abbott (of Asbury Park) as comedy.

I guess the next time I'm in that neighborhood during the day, I'll have to take pix of the ground-level paintings I missed, and either add them to this post or put them into a separate post on this blog.

Now, as to excessive overlaps in my series of fotos above. Alas, I forgot to take my big, floppy, straw hat with wide brim to shade the monitor of my camera, so I could not see plainly where the last picture ended to determine where to align the next, so there is more of an overlap than I'd have liked. Rather than try to eliminate largely-repetitive images, I have decided to show all the fotos I took, in that I long ago discovered that different people see different details than I do.

The last four fotos today are of the west wall of the police station.

Note that they are briter, for the panels' being in direct sunlite. This very last panel is partly obscured by shade from a nearby tree, so is a little hard to make out.

Richardson Lofts Update

I mentioned here August 12th that the Richardson Lofts project near PruCenter looks abandoned. Here's a foto of it in its augmented form, with two stories added, as of October of last year. (Note the two areas of black, wrought-iron-enclosed balconies on the Green Street (near) side. I don't know if there are balconies on the far side, because I didn't notice these when I was near, but only in reviewing my fotos today!)

On the 16th, I received this informative email:

... I was one of the investors in the Richardson Building in Newark. The project was run by NewWork and ran over budget. The project was sold to RPM Development out of Monclair NJ. They will finish the project in the next twelve months.

I replied:

Thanks for the info. I'll mention it. I hope you came out of the deal alrite.

To which he replied:

I'm still standing. It was a nightmare. Glad it's behind me. Thanks

Am I the only one to think the contrasting look of the added two stories/storeys is odd? (Story/storey is one of 826 English words with two or more spellings I have to date compiled. Again, see why I'm a spelling reformer?) These added floors look unfinished to me, as tho the bricklayers have still to come to work and make the top two floors look like the original six. But it's more than just the color and materials of the upper stories that differs. The window layout is entirely different. Why? I know that architects, being 'creative' people, tend to see things differently from us ordinary folk, so they might have thought that a more dynamic or energetic design. My best friend for several years in Manhattan was an architect from Bernardsville (New Providence?), so I saw thru him something of how differently architects can see things. (He was the only person I have encountered in my entire life who was plainly my intellectual superior in just about everything. But he was severely troubled, worked his way away from his friends, gave away his cats, then committed suicide without confiding in his friends or asking for help, so maybe he wasn't so smart after all.)

Newark-boosters have to hope that investors active in developing housing here don't lose their shirt, but do well, so others will bring in money from outside (like those billions and billions that NYC has attracted from all over the world) and do great things for this great city. In any case, let's hope everything works out great for everyone involved in the Richardson Lofts project, which is in a great location, only 2½ blocks from the Prudential Center and 6½ blocks (less than a 10-minute walk) from Newark Penn Station. I imagine the apartments on upper floors (even perhaps from the 3d or 4th floor, if not even the 2d, there being nothing very tall around that building) have wonderful views of Downtown Newark and both Downtown and Midtown Manhattan. And how do you beat the location, esp. if you're a sports and big-name-concert fan?

In August 2009, this is what the Richardson Lofts project looked like. There is a banner, most of it blown up from the façade onto the roof, that indicates that at that point people could have inquired into rentals that were supposed to start in spring 2010. (The website for that original project is still online, giving comparable rents for Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. I imagine, but do not know, that Hoboken would be a little more expensive than J.C.) There were even "affordable" housing units set aside.
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Then somebody decided to add two floors, and the whole project got pushed back. Perhaps they'd have done better to stick with the original six floors, and after their success with the Richardson Building, turned to other projects in the same great area, such as transforming the enormous Central Graphic Arts Building into apartments — that is, if the Newark Museum didn't decide to remove from Washington Street to the Central Graphic Arts Building, which is vastly larger, as well as a unified architectural entity of distinction. That would make enormous sense, in giving the Museum room to show much, if not even the bulk of its permanent collection in a single structure, whose renovation and repurposing would have to cost much less than the $200 million that NuMu is thinking of spending to stitch together its current ragtag collection of minor buildings. CGAB is, in any case, only one block from PruCenter and 2½ to 3 blocks from Penn Station (depending on whether your apartment is at the eastern or western end of the CGAB).
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Now, if only I could win a couple hundred million dollars from the Powerball or MegaMillions lottery, I could become the preeminent (or "pre-eminent" — another of those 826 words with variant spellings) Newark real-estate typhoon. (Yes, that is a tiny joke, playing upon the inclination of hostile people to view me as a blowhard. Not that any sensible person would so regard me, of course.)

SHV Flashing

No, that title is not a reference to indecent exposure on this "Church Sunday" at Newark USA, but to strips of metal recently installed to repair the roof of the great big Catholic church in my neighborhood, Sacred Heart of Vailsburg. Curiously, SHV was closed on July 1st of last year, but repairs have been made this year. Huh? I understand that some statues and stained-glass windows have been removed from SHV, to be distributed to other churches. But, curiously, the outdoor high relief over the main portal has been lited on a number of occasions in the past couple of months, and brand-new copper flashing has been installed at the juncture of both towers with the expansive copper roof.

This is a foto from September 2009. I don't know that my much newer camera would do any better a job with this relief, tho I would like to set up my tripod if I see this striking artwork lited again. I guess I have to read how to use the self-timer to avoid jarring the camera in taking a nitetime picture — if my camera even has a self-timer. "When all else fails, read the instructions."

In the following foto, you can see late-afternoon sunlite reflected from the horizontal strips of flashing, which have their rich copper color. Over time, they will presumably take on the green patina of the roof. I don't know why the Archdiocese is repairing and looting this great church at the same time.

Another odd thing is that the round Vailsburg neighborhood sign seen at the bottom of today's foto is inside Vailsburg by almost five blocks. Why not at Dover Street?
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(My autofocus camera would not focus titely on the church towers. I don't know why. I took two fotos, and neither came out really sharp.)

Verizon Strike Ends

I showed here, on August 10th, some fotos and a video of strikers outside the Newark offices of Verizon, plus two fotos of Verizon publicity trucks outside the "Sounds of the City" concert in the vendors' area outside NJPAC. In reviewing other fotos, I found that there were actually three Verizon vehicles in the vendors' area. This is the third, directed to a Spanish-speaking audience.

Strikers return to work on Monday, and it is unclear whether they have achieved anything or if the 'ongoing negotiations' are a cover for the corporation's having completely crushed the union. I hope that is not the case, but things have gone seriously wrong with this country as regards the relative power of corporations and workers. We are practically back at the Bad Old Days when unions were powerless and workers were treated almost as slaves. Union membership hasn't been so low since 1932, so the Radical Right really has taken us backwards 80 years. The victories for workers' rights that we thought were secure are not secure at all, and free trade is being used to put all the world's workers into a race to the bottom, competing against each other as to who will work for less money and worse conditions. Corporations may be too big to fail — to get their way — and too big for even Government to assail, since the very word "antitrust" is sounding increasingly quaint, in that Government stops no merger nor acquisition anymore.
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Democrats are feckless and useless, and sell us out at every opportunity. They seem never to have seen a surrender they didn't like. And the Republican Party has been taken over by neo-Confederate traitors. One of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination has in fact actively suggested that Texas should seriously consider seceding from the Union! If we cannot undo the current disastrous trend, I know that I am not the only person to think we are headed to widespread, targeted violence that will make the recent riots in Britain look like an aimless summer picnic by contrast.

Pulaski Savings & Loan

I mentioned Monday that I got an email inquiry about the above-entitled "thrift" institution, and now have permission to post the specifics of that inquiry, in case anyone reading has info to offer.

Hi. I did a google search of pulaski savings & loan and your blog came up. Your blog does not seem to have a search function (unless I missed it) so I could not find the exact post.

Can you tell me where it is? My grandfather ran the Irvington Branch (not sure of years or if there were other branches) and I was hoping to find out more of the history of the bank.

I have no idea how he even got to do so, coming here from Poland, and probably those who might know more of the history are long gone (but maybe not).

Thank you--

Cathryn

I replied:

There is a Search box at the top left of the blog, and if you type in "Pulaski" (it does best with one word, not a phrase), the blog server does do a search. Unfortunately, it doesn't go back thru the entire term of my blog [over seven years (started 5/11/04); I find that longevity a little hard to believe, myself]. I don't know why. So it did not find the one mention I made of Pulaski Savings, on March 22, 2007: http://newarkusa.blogspot.com/2007/03/italian-scottish-irish-north-jersey.html. You may have seen that already thru Google. I fixed the foto and links there today, and updated the text to report that Kearny Savings has closed that location, so the building is now vacant.
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I'm afraid I have no further information on Pulaski Savings than to say that even after my family moved to Monmouth County, my father continued to place mortgages with Pulaski. That S&L had more than one branch, so I don't know if the 860 18th Street branch (at Isabella Avenue) was the only one in Irvington. I can take a foto of that one as it now stands, vacant, if you'd like, next time I pass it, which I usually do when I head to Downtown Newark, because my house in Vailsburg (Newark) is near 18th Avenue, and I drive 18th Avenue thru a corner of Irvington to get Downtown.

Cathryn responded:

Hi. Thank you so much for this background information. I'd love to see a photo of the building. Thank you. Your blog is really the only online mention of Pulaski. Amazing something could just fade into oblivion. I'd love to find out more. Probably somewhere in print 'data' (micro fish? [Sic, an easy error for "fiche"; see why I'm a spelling reformer?] (I forget even how to work all that at the library) is the information on that building and the history.

From your description it sounds great. I do think it was probably the 18th Avenue branch that my grandfather ran. I'm sure I have somewhere in materials of my aunt (his oldest daughter) more about it.

My father grew up in Newark on I believe South 21st Street. I had an old mailing label for his address but I'd have to dig around a bit. I was thinking I'd like to drive by at some point.

My grandfather also ran Mazur's Tavern on Grove Street in Irvington which is now the Rainbow Room. I lived my first three years in Irvington.

Thanks so much for a little of the background. I hope to piece more together. Glad I found your blog!

Many thanks.

Cathryn.
(Brooklyn, NY)

I then replied:

There is a dip in the pavement of 18th Avenue right at that corner that makes me slow down. Next nice day I'm by, I'll take a picture, at least from the car window, and send it to you.
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I once had a savings account there that my father opened for me. The passbook — remember passbook savings? — had a picture of that branch on it. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere, but would be very hard pressed to put my hands on it.
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It's amazing what is available on the Internet. What is NOT on the Internet is also amazing. If you'd like, I could put your request for information into my blog and see if anybody is still around to provide more info.

Ivy (English ivy, I imagine, an extremely hardy and, in this part of the world, invasive plant) grows onto the Pulaski building from its eastern neighbor.

Cathryn further responded:

Thanks. I was able to find it on Google Earth. I saw the Kearney [sic; common error] Savings sign. I have a few relatives who weren't my grandfather's children but their wives I can ask who may know more of the history. I hope they remember if they ever knew. Funny the things you take for granted and then later realize there was more to the 'story' and didn't ask! (My cousin feels the same way and she's older than I am.)

Yes, I remember passbook savings! That would be interesting to see the original passbook but of course I understand re: actually finding it.

If you are able to put a request for info on your blog, that would be great. Seeing a photo of the old building (original sign) — maybe the Irvington Library (not that hopeful about that but maybe?)? It would take me awhile to get there as I don't have a car but maybe someday. It's fun to try to piece this together and I appreciate your help. Thank goodness for your blog or there'd be no mention anywhere!

Thanks --

Cathryn

The Pulaski S&L building seems to me a typical Fifties building, clean, simple lines, in a minimalist style — except that the premier feature of the building, a simplified and blunted tower, is clad in fieldstone, a luxury material, that, as used, is not the slitest ostentatious, in being blended in color with the brick that constitutes the overall façade. That restrained and dignified use of a luxury material shows sophistication and class. The 'tower' was the location of the bank's name, in refined, sans-serif lettering in gray metal. Over the years, the presumably smooth line of the metal under-edge along the entire 18th Avenue side of the building seems to have moved a bit, like tectonic plates slipping past each other, midscreen in this foto.

So, there you have it boys and girls — and oldsters who may recall Pulaski S&L and have info to offer. Pls send any info you may have to me on my @aol.com address, "ResurgenceCity".
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I'm somewhat interested in the genealogy of my family. My father's side is very well documented thru the Schoonmaker Family Association, part of the Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz, NY. I am the 11th generation on this continent, and there are two generations beyond me (my brothers' children and grandchildren). I don't even know how many grandnieces and -nephews I have, but it is well over 12. I owe my cousin Pat(ricia) in Oregon, from my mother's side, a Wynne family history that I had printed out, with blanks, and my mother had filled in. But I put it someplace safe(!) a few years ago, and forgot where that safe place is!
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Cathryn regrets not having asked for family stories when the people who might have told them could have told her. Even those who hear old family stories when they are children too often pay little attention — even to the point of becoming annoyed at hearing them over and over again — and more or less deliberately forget that old, irrelevant 'stuff'. It is only later in life when they wonder what will be remembered of THEM that they think of all the things they never knew about their lost family.

It turns out that altho the Pulaski/Kearny bank building has been abandoned by commercial enterprises, it is not vacant, as I had believed. If you check the third foto above, you may notice a sign in a window left of center. The foto above shows that sign up close.

I have a bare outline of my father's line, those 10 generations before me in America — and we don't have records for our ancestors in Europe before 1653. Most black Americans have absolutely no records of where they came from, so have to settle for "African-American" rather than "Senegalese-American"or "Cameroonian-American". Does it matter? Not to some people it doesn't. The first Schoonmaker in the New World was born in Hamburg, Germany, but came to Nieuw Amsterdam (later NYCity) and then went up the Hudson River to the back country of Niuew Nederland (later NYState). Was he Dutch? Was he German? Was he half of each? We don't know. Surnames weren't always used in Ye Olden Days, and people were known as "John's son" (Johnson) or "Steven's son" (you guessed it, Stevenson). Or they took the father's occupation ("Smith" for blacksmith) or some characteristic ("Long" for someone tall) after their first name.

The blunt tower of the old Pulaski Savings & Loan building now serves as a blunt steeple for the First Bethel Baptist Church. Minimalist architecture lends itself easily to different uses.

Even kings went by their first name (Pepin, or Pippin — the Short!; he got a characteristic after his name), sometimes with a sequential number (Louis XIV, the fourteenth king of France to bear the name "Louis"; how tedious and unoriginal, eh?). Pepin wasn't known as Pepin Carolingian, and Louis XIV doesn't seem to have had a last name at all, his full name being (according to Wikipedia) "Louis-Dieudonné de France" (Louis, Gift of God, of France). He was a Bourbon, but was not called Louis Bourbon.

I tried to show what is inside the building, but reflective glare kept most of the interior out of plain sight. Optics. My immediately previous Olympus digital camera, the Stylus 810, had a setting for "Behind Glass". I did not know, when I took the next few fotos, if my new camera, a VG-140, has such a setting. Still don't, because not all the features are available by quick access from the main mechanism. I need to read the dratted manual. I hate that. In this foto, there appears to be a tall, thin cross, as tho there is another church in the reflection.

There are very few individuals in the several paperback books of genealogy put out by the Schoonmaker Family Association of whom anything at all but birth, death, marriage/s, and children is mentioned. And most of us today don't bother to write down old family stories — which may be completely true, exaggerated for effect, or wholly false. So, they will be lost forever.
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Some people so thoroly accept "the circle of life" that they see each individual as inconsequential, and are thus content to pass away unremembered, leaving only their genes, in progeny. And each of us who does not know their ancestors is free from the trap of the past. No prior expectation, nor occupation of previous generations, holds us in thrall. In most of the world, what your father or mother was, is what you will be. In genetic terms, that may still hold. Howie Long, for instance, is tall. Some people named Grosso are fat. Rarely, however, is a Smith a blacksmith, or its modern equivalent, say, an ironworker, or maker of wrought-iron fences or even metal statues.

This wider view of what is reflected shows that the skinny cross was actually just part of a support structure for a Remax real-estate sign. I think that if I decide to work for a real-estate agency, I'd prefer to work for Prudential Real Estate, which I would hope would be eager to fill Newark with great people — and simultaneously give those people access to the bargain that Newark real estate presently is. There is no guarantee that Newark will remain a real-estate bargain-basement. There is so much going for this city that it HAS to get "discovered" at some point.

Genealogy is, for the great preponderance of individuals in modern Western societies, merely a matter of interest, not destiny. Still, why NOT know something about your ancestors? They did live. They had feelings, hopes, aspirations. Sometimes they achieved things that surprised others, such as becoming the manager of a bank, founder of a corporation, or war hero. Sometimes their tales are recorded. More often, they are not. What will anyone know about YOU 100 years from now? Do you care? Or are you content to vanish without your-story being hi-story?
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Cathryn clarified her own attitude:

one note for what it's worth - I'm sure people have many reasons why they are curious about their family and yes I'm sure many people don't pay as much attention as would be appropriate when they are younger to the back stories of their own families. My interest has nothing to do with how people will remember ME but is about giving thought to who I am and what I have done - and will do - in relation to what my relatives did. Having better perspective of why this is important with a bit more time and age. (Yes, it's unfortunate those who would know in my own family are not here to fill in the missing information - and also tell me about it which I'm sure they'd appreciate the interest.)

I don't know what happened with this foto. The camera sees beyond the glass, to two bulletin boards on which fotos of the church's congregants are displayed. That's fine. But why are there two hump-shaped areas above the detail view? There was no Bactrian camel passing by, and the lines of the building are all straight.

I can appreciate the quest for info about ancestors that might throw more lite upon oneself. My father, for instance, was very fond of fotografy. He even had a Rolleiflex film camera (top-of-the-line German manufacturer of cameras that had an image as seen thru the lens rather than a mere viewfinder). Now and then he'd annoy the family composing a foto and asking us to pose just-so, but he was not an art fotografer nor documentarian. He also worked in real estate, and I went to real-estate school several years ago, tho I haven't gone into the profession actively. Just when I got my salesperson's license, the housing bubble burst. I can still refer people to a broker I am associated with, who can help them sell or buy (and I'd get a little bit of the commission paid by the seller). I've been involved in no sales yet, but I'm keeping my license active just in case the housing market rebounds. Had I not been gay and needed to get out of the suburbs to Manhattan, where I could expect to find other gay men, I might have been well advised to go into my father's business. But that was not for me then and there, in the exurbs. Many family businesses fail because the kids don't want to carry them on. We had a terrific, world-class but economically affordable Italian restaurant in Red Bank (Monmouth County), called Sal's Tavern. It was astonishing. But after two or more generations of family manning the business, interest in younger family members just ran out, and the restaurant folded. It apparently did not even pass along its wonderful recipes for house specialties, such as "baked macaroni", which was something like ziti in a magnificent sauce, with meatball, sausage, or one of each. I feel about Sal's as some preservationists feel about World Heritage Sites. (By the way, on Antenna TV tonite, George Burns said that he played Red Bank, New Jersey once, and an incident there was pivotal to the superstition that ruled the remainder of the episode. Gracie Allen then said that she and George met in Union Hill, NJ, which turns out to have been a former municipality in Hudson County that was later superseded by Union City. So one of the greatest of American comedy teams resulted from a meeting in North Jersey. Another of the greatest of American comedy teams, of course, was Lou Costello of Paterson and Bud Abbott of Asbury Park. And who can forget Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (of Steubenville, OH and Newark, NJ, respectively), who met in Atlantic City. There's nothing funny about "Jersey", but there's plenty funny about NEW Jersey.)
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New Yorkers appalled at the fact that even in the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s, rents continue to rise in all parts of NYC, and esp. Manhattan, should think very seriously of moving to Newark now, when there are amazing bargains to be had, that will likely NOT be available when (or is it only "if"?) the Great Recession yields to a return of prosperity. You can pay 8.5% (8.25%?) more every two years for a tiny space in New York City, in a building where the landlord makes no repairs and threatens you with eviction if you complain. Or you can buy your own, spacious house in Newark, with a yard and room for flowers and veggies, and a (fixed-)mortgage payment that is not just LESS than what you're paying in rent (for which you get no tax advantage) but is also pretty much set in stone for 30 years, brings enormous tax advantages, and gives you "equity" over time against which you can borrow. Your mortgage payment may rise over time, but trivially, not by 8.5% every two years.

Pulaski Savings & Loan, Kearny Federal Savings Bank, First Bethel Baptist Church — "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in action. One bank's branch building was reused for another bank's branch. Then Kearny closed down that branch, reducing in size. Then Bethel recycled a bank into a church. Neato keen.

Cathryn and I may be more concerned about knowing where we came from than about any hope of "undying fame" — remember the song, and movie, and TV show, Fame — about NYC's School of Peforming Arts, the Nation's second such high school, after Newark's School of the Arts — "I'm gonna live forever")? Perhaps this is the secularist replacement for the eternal life promised by Jesus Christ and other religious figures, as explains the otherwise insane fixation and fascination of a large part of the population of the United States on celebrities, and the desire for celebrity — fame devoid of content — on the part of so many people today. We don't really believe in personal immortality, the literal permanence of the soul and consciousness. And who in his or her right mind would want eternal life? Think about that: not just hundreds more years than our current, expected lifespan, or thousands, but BILLIONS and TRILLIONS and QUADRILLIONS of years of existence. Who would really want that?

Room to Grow

Newark is one of the most densely populated cities in the Nation.

The population density was 11,400/mile² (4,400/km²), or 21,000/mile² (8,100 km²) once airport, railroad, and seaport lands are excluded, Newark has the eighth highest density in the nation of any city with over 250,000 residents.

Fortunately, we have a great many vacant lots and empty buildings that would be better demolished than renovated, that are mixed in with occupied houses and going concerns. There is also a huge part of the city east of the densely populated Ironbound neighborhood that is practically unoccupied by either residences or businesses. Abandoned single-family houses, or the vacant lots where once they stood, have in many hundreds (thousands?) of cases been replaced by two- and three-family houses of a type pejoratively but unfairly called, around here, "Bayonne boxes", but "triple deckers" elsewhere. (Bayonne and Newark adjoin, across the waters of Newark Bay. Bayonne would make a fine addition to a Greater Newark, esp. given some wonderful buildings in Bayonne, such as St. Henry's R.C. Church, which I showed here on May 3, 2009, and St. Vincent de Paul R.C. Church. Either one of those fine churches might serve as a cathedral in a less populous area, but Bayonne is part of the Archdiocese of Newark, and our (arch)bishop sits at the magnificent Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in near north Newark.

Reduced-size Official Map of Newark, showing that there aren't even streets in much of eastern Newark north of the (maritime) Port and Airport.

I was appalled to see from that post that I bought a kitchen island in early May 2009 that I have still  not put together. I'm preposterously busy, it's true, but this is still more preposterous. I helped put together a boxed entertainment center for my late father, with a friend of his, so know that I can perfectly well follow instructions and do this. But I have just pushed it back and pushed it back (sounds like a football cheer from my high-school days at Middletown Township High School (Class of '62; that would be 19-62, tho I might look like a member of the class of 18-62. We are having our 50th-year reunion next year): "Push 'em back, push 'em back, way back!"). That kitchen island, which I sure could use, remains in its frayed box after all this time. (My cats have used the box as a scratching post.) Things like that subvert a person's self-esteem, so I must just push myself to put that island together and make use of it in the ways I felt I needed, before I put a note on a To Do list to buy one. This reminds me of a woman I worked with many years ago in Downtown Manhattan, who ordered a stereo system from Macy's. They delivered the wrong item, a much more expensive system than she paid for. She didn't tell them to pick up the wrong one and deliver the right one, but was so embarrassed and guilt-ridden that she NEVER took it out of the box. That's not my reason for leaving my kitchen island in its box. I just haven't taken the time to clear a space in another room, lay out all the parts, read the instructions, and put the dratted thing together. I put together an over-toilet storage cabinet I bought at Walmart once, and a piece of the metal hardware broke!, which prevented me from completing the assembly. One piece of hardware broke. Who ever heard of a piece of metal hardware breaking? There were no extras of that needed piece, and I didn't know where to find that odd piece, which I had never in life seen before. So I put the project aside, and my cats knocked it around until they ruined it. You might be amazed how much destruction cats can cause. But they have, to date, only ripped part of my kitchen-island's box. They haven't damaged anything within the box. It is my fault that I haven't put the island together. Now that I've made this public confession, perhaps I will have shamed myself into finally addressing this matter. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul. Maybe it's also good as motivation.

Above, is one variation on the Bayonne-box theme, a three story house in my part of town, Vailsburg, much of whose first story is occupied by a two-car garage. Mind you, as you can see from the windows on the side, the back of the first story appears to be living quarters. Some of these triple-deckers are occupied entirely by one family. Others, by two or three households. I think most of these structures, in Newark, do not have a basement, which I think is unreasonable. Perhaps Newark's building code should ban new houses without basements for, e.g., furnaces, circuit-breaker boxes and utility meters (which should, ideally, be outside, not inside), water-supply control, a laundry room, and storage of bulk items that do not fit into closets.

This foto shows three mailboxes for the 'Bayonne box' shown above, as suggests that someone does live in the back portion of the first floor.

Many of these buildings are very handsome. I show some others, better-looking than the one above, in my post of July 25, 2008.
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In any case, what might we put in Newark's own "Empty Quarter"? I have repeatedly proposed an enclosed Carnival (West Indies)/Mardi Gras/Carnaval (Brazil) and Samba Center under a geodesic dome or vault, for people from the Caribbean and Brazil who don't want to or cannot afford to fly to Trinidad or Rio de Janeiro at Mardi Gras time. I said here November 7, 2004:

We could also build an all-weather samba center east of U.S. Routes 1&9 to draw Brazilians from all over North America, and even South America [for instance, tourists who want to visit NYC but would like to see a North American take on Carnaval while there], to an indoor Carnaval parade modeled on Rio's samba stadium. Such a project would attach vibrant music, glamor, and dancing to Newark's image abroad, and draw in tens of thousands of non-Brazilian tourists as well.
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Newark presently has the space to think big, but if we keep building these little low-rise housing projects all over the place, we're going to crowd ourselves out of any grand design. The time to think big is now.

Paris had a lot of crowded urban dwellings and businesses dating back hundreds of years, that kept it from creating grand public spaces. In the early 1700's, Paris cleared away farms, residential hovels, and small businesses in order to create things like the Champs-Elysees and Place de la Concorde, which could not otherwise have come to exist. In the U.S., we tend to think that everything big should be built on heretofore-vacant land, and that it is illegitimate to clear privately held land for grand public or private developments. Fortunately, Newark has so much space that is, at present, empty east of the Ironbound that we don't have to seize occupied private property to build great things within city limits. Who knows? Maybe 100 years from now, the ceremonial center of the city might be on Newark Bay, a watercourse lined with marinas and highrise housing, with a socioeconomically healthy mix of luxury housing, small business, lowrise housing, and private homes.

Here is half a block of recent, lowrise housing on the east side of 19th Street just off South Orange Avenue. Some of it is single-family. Some, two- or three-family.

On December 18, 2004, I pitched the idea of Newark competing with Washington, DC for the former Montreal Expos Major League Baseball team, and proposed a (roofed) baseball stadium that could also serve as samba stadium and convention center.

Today's flexible architecture would permit us to create one enormous facility to seat as many as 100,000 people — or whatever it takes to be the Tristate region's or Nation's largest stadium. It's time for New Jersey to think big. From April thru October (including, of course, the World Series from time to time), it would serve primarily as a baseball stadium. In hockey/basketball season, it would serve primarily as a hockey and/or basketball arena. During football season, maybe the Jets or Giants would like to have their home games in the area's largest stadium too.
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When not in use for its primary function, it would serve as a convention and exhibition center, indoor samba/carnival center during Mardi Gras (our large Portuguese-speaking and Caribbean communities could host a huge, indoor celebration for the Brazilian and Caribbean diaspora throughout the U.S. and Canada) [compare the festival on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, which attracts people from all parts of North America]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day_Carnival], venue for the largest rock concerts year-round, and even an annual Newark Newart exhibition of the best in contemporary arts — (see this blog's entry of October 3, 2004); plus any other use imaginative New Jerseyans can come up with for such a facility.
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With modern technology, we can reconfigure a flexible structure for many different sports, and lower sloped floors to level to convert seating areas to meeting and exhibit space. The only limit is our imagination.

This group of low-rise houses, under construction in this foto, was built on 19th Street after the opposite, east side of the same block, proved desirable.

I addressed the same and related issues on May 2, 2006.

The entire region of Newark east of Route 1-9 and the Turnpike is desolate and relatively undeveloped, certainly in terms of housing. It needn't be. Waterfronts have appeal to lots of people, and Newark's various waterfronts, river and bay, are grossly underutilized.
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Tho some industrial operations are working well enuf, at the Port and elsewhere in the area, much of that part of town has the feel of Rust Belt abandonment, and, absent new industries to replace lost businesses, new uses should be found, such as housing, marinas, and more venturesome projects, like an enormous convention center or indoor samba stadium for Newark's vibrant and growing Portuguese, Brazilian, Latino, and Haitian communities to use for a northern Carnaval / Mardi Gras festival.
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Self-contained housing developments with marinas would be ideal for this area, linked by lite rail or shuttle bus to Newark Penn Station. Such housing would give people a certain remove from (perceived) urban problems within, however, easy reach of both Downtown Newark and New York City. Indeed, some commuter buses to Midtown Manhattan, like the 107 or 108, could be routed thru that area once a substantial population is established.

On February 17, 2010, I addressed the same project in yet other terms:

I'd like to see a geodesic-domed, indoor Carnaval stadium, like Rio's outdoor stadium, built in the abandoned, former industrial area of eastern Newark, near the large Portuguese-Brazilian community of the Ironbound. Newark has the largest Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) community outside a Lusophone country (there are seven, but I'm not telling). And there are lots of people from the Tristate Newark Metropolitan Area (alrite, NYC is generally regarded as the center of the Tristate Area) who now live in a place where Mardi Gras or Carnival is celebrated in the middle of winter. (Summer in Rio.) They can't all afford to fly to warmer climes. Let's build a samba/carnival stadium and bring two hundred thousand cold-weather Carnival tourists to a northern, Newark mardi gras. Built large enuf, it could also be used for world-class soccer championships, even Formula 1 auto races. It might, indeed, prove large enuf that even Bruce Springsteen might deign to perform in Newark.

I occasionally amaze myself with what I have put up in this blog in the course of the last 7 years. In looking for some pictures of "Bayonne boxes", I reminded myself of dozens and dozens of topics I took fotos for but have still not addressed. To do everything I want to do would take ten of me. Clones wouldn't do, since they would be separate people, much younger than I. I would need some kind of "Borg" unity of mind. (I actually hateStar Trek: The Next Generation. Klingons and everyone else in the galaxy speaks perfect American English, but the captain of the Enterprise, a FRENCHman, speaks with a BRITISH accent! How stupid, ridiculous, preposterous is THAT?)
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In any case, Newark has two waterfronts, a riverfront that is profoundly underutilized for all purposes, and a bayfront that is industrial and almost entirely unused except for containerships. That is absurd. We should have highrise housing and marinas all along our bayshore, at least in those areas where there is a clear, line-of-sight view of Manhattan, and, secondarily, where there is a clear view of the skyscrapers of Jersey City. Telefone poles and low bridges might block some of the view of people who live on low floors. But people who have large apartments high up, with northern as well as eastern exposures, could see Downtown Newark out one set of windows and Jersey City and Manhattan out another set of windows. What a terrific location the Newark bayshore has! So why, if the three rules for value in real estate are "Location, location, location", isn't the entire Newark Bay shoreline of Newark lined with luxury housing and marinas?
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What else might a largely post-industrial Newark put in its own, wet Rub' al Khali? There have, in recent years, been two major, televised golf tournaments in New Jersey, one at Baltusrol (2005 PGA championship), just over the Essex County line in Springfield Township, Union County, and the other the Barclays tournament at the "Plainfield Country Club" in Edison (Middlesex County), not in Plainfield, Union County). Why couldn't someone create the world's most wonderful golf course in far-eastern Newark, within sight of Manhattan, past gorgeous greens and trees — tees to trees to vistas of Manhattan, with the skyscrapers of Jersey City seen along the way?
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Big-box stores, factories and assembly plants, a marina specializing in estuarine life (given Newark Bay's combination of Atlantic (salt) and Passaic (fresh) waters — all kinds of other big projects that require a lot of horizontal space could find an entirely fitting home in the now-empty areas of Newark east of the Ironbound. As I said on December 18, 2004, "The only limit is our imagination." Considering that Seth Boyden and Thomas Edison made major breakthrus in New Jersey, and Albert Einstein chose to live here thru the end of his life, I don't think it unreasonable to ask New Jerseyans to come up with brilliant ideas as to how to develop Newark's empty eastern quarter (or eighth, or whatever proportion it is of Newark's overall extent).
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(I originally intended this post to be a mere, brief fill-in between major posts. But, as often happens with this blog, when I delved deeper, I came up with other points I wanted to make. As I found language and argumentation I used in older posts, I felt that I should reproduce them now, given that few people who read this blog now will have seen the various older posts.)