The 5 Wards of Newark http://thefivewards.com Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:39:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.3 http://thefivewards.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cropped-H-1-32x32.jpg The 5 Wards of Newark http://thefivewards.com 32 32 South Ward: Omar http://thefivewards.com/2017/01/05/south-ward-portraits-umar-murray/ http://thefivewards.com/2017/01/05/south-ward-portraits-umar-murray/#respond Thu, 05 Jan 2017 05:50:00 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49090
Image by Akintola Hanif

South Ward: Omar

In 2011, I started off selling $1 bottles of oil for women and men and I came up with this gimmick, something concerning hygiene, something universal. I thought of the slogan “smell good, look good” and started putting that in people’s ear.  It worked.  The first day,  I sold 700 bottles.

The South Ward has been my  home base since 2015. It’s residential, it’s a community. People have more time to stop. The people have welcomed me with open arms because they respect my business tactics. It’s not all about getting a dollar, it’s about reaching out, bringing solutions instead of more problems.

The crime here only takes place where there are a few bad apples. By God’s mercy, I haven’t witnessed anything. But people tell me this or that happened on the block, and the person who died may be somebody that purchased something from me, or their family and friends, and that affects me. There was a young fellow who passed, he always used to buy scarves from me. He would never walk past without buying a scarf. He would give some to his moms. Last summer, he got murdered. His moms told me he was buried in one of the scarves.

Crime definitely affects the businessman. People don’t want to come out anymore. One guy asked me, do you ever get scared? I told him, being amongst your people you can tell when things are about to occur, you can see an accident waiting to happen. That doesn’t mean the fear isn’t there, it’s just knowing your people. I understand my people and what they go through daily—from the young mothers, to the fathers, the drug addicts, the gang violence and prostitution, to the businessman who’s striving just to keep his lights on.  If you hire the people that you’re amongst, your job will be easier. Don’t go five cities away to hire people that have no idea of the history of Newark, that have no idea who they’re dealing with.

With Newark the question is, who’s going to have the guts to come here with their investors and really rub shoulders with the city? I want them to grab the youth. Start at 15 and give them training so they can feel like somebody instead of feeling like they’re stuck. I would like for these businesses to come in and spread the wealth. Don’t come in and just take over.

Omar Murray, Owner, Mr. Smell Good, Look Good, Lyons Avenue

as told to Deja Jones

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South Ward: Isaiah http://thefivewards.com/2017/01/02/south-ward-isiah/ http://thefivewards.com/2017/01/02/south-ward-isiah/#respond Mon, 02 Jan 2017 11:50:00 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49314
Photo by Akintola Hanif

South Ward: Isaiah

When I was growing up my dad lived on Foster Street at the mouth of Weequahic Park. It was a block that always had a lot of working class families, a building for seniors and other units with a big mix of people. The park was the place where everyone gathered but you didn’t see these stark differences between them anymore. There was all sorts of people that would use it coming from all different places, all different types —  the baseball types, families that would congregate, Pop Warner football teams.

In middle school I joined the Junior Rangers program. We learned to identify trees and shrubbery. We learned about the species of birds that visited the park. The first time I saw a cardinal was in the park. In East Orange where I lived,  we had a football team called the Cardinals and I always wondered why a football team was named that since we we don’t see those around here. When we saw it, I remember thinking, “That’s a pretty odd-looking bird.’’

I learned about pollution when I was a Junior Ranger, how the planes from the airport affected bird migration patterns. Let’s not get started on the lake, which can’t be used for any recreation because of the amount of pollutants.  You can fish but you can’t eat those fish, you’re supposed to throw them back. When you think about an 80-acre lake, if it was somewhere else — the amount of regulations against pollution that are imposed in California versus the laws in Newark — if  you were managing that lake in any other city, things wouldn’t be this way.

As a kid, you see the park as a place where they are fun and games but as you get older, you see that folks can have career paths because of it. They can go into business, or engineering or fitness.  My proximity to the park as a child  allowed me to realize that almost all those careers can not only be launched at a park but sustained. Central Park is one of the best examples—there are museums and restaurants, people who work there are as rangers or have other jobs there.  You can essentially help support a community by running a successful independent park.

One thing  thing I would like to see grow is an interest in making connections, turning it into a technology park with public wi-fi  so people can gather in these spaces, can entertain themselves and do business, connect with people where they are. But just sitting in the park, looking at the playground, at all the different people using it, it’s a joy.

Isaiah Little, President, Weequahic Park Association

as told to Carrie Stetler

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South Ward: Antoinette http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/30/south-ward-portraits-antoinette/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/30/south-ward-portraits-antoinette/#respond Fri, 30 Dec 2016 06:08:16 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49098
Photo by Akintola Hanif

South Ward: Antoinette

I went to Weequahic High School from 1966 to 1970. When I came here, it was 80 percent Jewish. When I left, there was maybe one or two white kids. That was how fast things changed.

I think the school system was totally unprepared for us. We basically just had to figure out how to fit in.  I don’t want to say we were invaders, but we didn’t belong and there wasn’t an open-armed willingness to let us in. There were excellent teachers who taught us and loved us the same way they loved the other students, and there were some who were absolutely racist– some overtly, some covertly. I remember being seated near the back of the class and never being called on when my hand was up, but only when my hand was down, which obviously meant that I didn’t know the answers. And then getting C’s and D’s on tests when that had never happened before. I remember beginning to think that maybe I was a bad student and everyone had lied to me in elementary school and maybe I wasn’t smart. The saving grace was that wasn’t pervasive in the school culture, it was just a few classes.

Something happened during that time that a lot of people don’t talk about – the real estate industry. They swarmed in and did a scare tactic on a lot of the Jewish people here. Some got scared because of the political climate,  and also the drugs. So these houses were sold for a lot more to black families than they actually were worth. I’m not saying that leaving was the right or wrong thing to do, but it did have a big impact on the school and the community. Things would definitely be different if it were integrated.

After the riots, Newark became one of the main heroin drops in the country and you started to hear more about the epidemic and how it reached the lower and middle classes. It was horrible. When I was coming up, a lot of guys I went to high school with got caught up in it and are dead. There were outdoor shooting galleries, where people you could see it lined up on the streets. It doesn’t take a lot to put the dots together: There was a whole generation of addicts created at that time and an opportunity for the young guys to get involved in the drug trade.

I came back to buy a house here because I felt comfortable, and this was the neighborhood I wanted to invest in.  There are people who have lived here since the 1960’s, since Black people were able to start buying house in this neighborhood, so the sense of community still exists. My block is mainly homeowners. People take pride because we own the property. We keep our lawns and houses nice. Every spring you see people landscaping, that sense of stability is still here. On the other hand this is also basically a poverty-stricken community. If you walk up a few blocks you’ll see that there is a lot of gang and drug activity that goes on here. Sometimes it’s very visible.

Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson, Weequahic, Newark Board of Education, Chair

as told to Deja Jones

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South Ward: James http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/26/south-ward-james/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/26/south-ward-james/#respond Mon, 26 Dec 2016 17:39:50 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49252
Image by Akintola Hanif

South Ward: James

I came to this country from Ghana in 1978 when I was 20.  I was a nuclear medicine technician but I always wanted to open up a business for my people.  This was a vacant building  when I found it in 2004.  I built everything here myself—the sheetrock, I fixed the roof, everything.

The big reason people come here is because our food is fresh. We are not canned or packaged. Everything is fresh-cooked and I smoke my own fish. It’s not just Ghanaians who like it here, also Nigerians and Togolese. They come here for the food but it allows them to socialize. They come to find jobs and help each other get their footing when they first come to this country. A lot of them are not well-educated. This empowers them.

The strengths of the Ghanaian community here are that everyone is your family and the commitment they have. When Ghanaians say they’re going to do something, they do it. We  dream big. In this country, there’s not much you can’t do if you work hard.  People say Americans are the devil, but they are the most caring people. This is a beautiful country, a great country.

But I’d like to do more to help the community back in Africa. I’d like to bring more African products here to help the economy there. People send money home but that way you can help create jobs and help laborers. So the Ghanaian Way is both, helping Africans here and helping them back in Africa.

James  Ken Kwofie, owner Ghanaian Way Restaurant and Grocery

as told to Carrie Stetler

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South Ward: Aliyah http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/21/south-ward-portraits-aliyah/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/21/south-ward-portraits-aliyah/#respond Wed, 21 Dec 2016 04:17:56 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49227
Image by Akintola Hanif

South Ward: Aliyah

Growing up, everyone knew me and I didn’t have problems with people or my peers, period, because I was respected already. In school it was ok because I wasn’t the only gay girl. I played basketball from my elementary years and it used to be me and a ton of boys at the basketball yard.

It was fun growing up back then— that’s when things were safer. We used to run around playing manhunt till one in the morning. There weren’t any police asking why we were outside, no one was getting robbed, none of that that crazy stuff. We used to ride bikes. Kids don’t ride bikes like that anymore.

I went to Malcolm X Shabazz High School and played basketball there. By my junior year I knew I had to get myself together and stay away from certain people. I live in the South Ward, so I’m already somewhere that’s affiliated with smoking, partying—all that stuff’s around me. I see a lot of stuff, like people getting shot, and I try to stay away from it.

People are always saying “Newark is bad, Newark is bad.” But at community college, having me on the team was an asset. My high school coach told me that the way I play, and the attitude I bring to the game — it’s hard. “She’s aggressive, she’s not scared,” and that’s how I feel like I am, being from Newark.

Newark can either make you or break you. You let the people around you or your city control you and you’ll become like them. There’s a lot of successful people out of Newark, but that becomes your story, “You’re from Newark.” But you get respect ’cause it’s not easy out here. So that’s a compliment.

Aliyah Muhammad, Osbourne Terrace & Eckhert Avenue
As told to Atoosa Moinzadeh

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South Ward http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/20/the-south-ward/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/20/the-south-ward/#respond Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:11:35 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49107

South Ward

Words by Carrie Stetler | Images by Tamara Fleming

The South Ward is home to the Newark airport, the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and the legacy of two literary giants: Philip Roth and Amiri Baraka, who both lived in the Weequahic section.

But the ward’s lesser-known people and places reveal more about its character. CB Dream House Boutique on Bergen Street, a lavender storefront behind a white picket fence, sells dayglo custom-made faux-fur shoes, boots and slippers. On Ghanaian Way, a small stretch of Victoria Street renamed in honor of the South Ward’s African community, goats, chicken and sheep are raised at a small halal livestock market.

Dozens of small storefront churches are also scattered throughout the South Ward, like the Original Glorious Church, located in the midst of a vacant lot on Clinton Place and Triumph Church of the New Age, with its small flat aluminum-sided steeple on Bergen Street.

There is also more poverty and violence here. Eighty percent of the city’s homicides occur in the South and West Wards, according to city officials. The median income level is about $20,000, compared to $34,000 in Newark overall, according to South Ward Councilman John Sharpe James.

But for James, who grew up there, the ward isn’t defined by those statistics. “The perception that people are walking around shooting each other all the time, that everyone is a criminal just isn’t true,’’ says James, the son of former Mayor Sharp James. “Nearly all of the gun violence is committed by a small percentage of people with lengthy criminal records. People who are going about their regular day-to-day business are not getting shot or having crimes committed against them.’’

The fate of the South Ward is a familiar story that unfolded throughout Newark. Jobs left town as a result of a deindustrialization that began in the 1950s and 1960s. An exodus of white middle-class residents, including the South Ward’s Jewish population, abandoned their residential neighborhoods for the suburbs, fueled by federal incentives for home ownership that excluded Black people. Panic in the aftermath of the 1967 uprisings jolted many more to leave.

In the South Ward,  which still has many large single-family homes, set on lots with big lawns and greenery, property values and home ownership plummeted. Among the neighborhoods that suffered were Clinton Hill and the Weequahic section, Newark’s most well-known community, first made famous by Pulitzer prize-winning author Philip Roth. In renowned novels like “Goodbye, Columbus” and “Portnoy’s Complaint,’’ Roth immortalized the Weequahic of his youth in the 1940s and 1950s, the city’s locus of Jewish family life.

Author and activist Amiri Baraka, a driving force behind the rise of Black political power in Newark and a visionary advocate of Black art and culture, lived in Weequahic from the late 1960s until his death in 2014. His son, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, was raised there. He has warm memories of Weequahic in the 1970s and 1980s, a place filled with excitement and empowerment despite the era’s economic upheaval.

“There were issues but there was also a sense of family and community in our neighborhood,” he remembers. “I went to public school, where I met a variety of people. I went to rallies and marches and protests. All of the stuff that’s important to me and gave me a love for my city began there.’’

Newark artist Jerry Gant, who lived on Bergen Street in the 1970s, recalls the many small businesses and federally funded recreational programs in the South Ward of his youth.  “You could go to the corner and it would be a mom and pop store. I remember when they would have block parties during the summer. The city would issue police barricades and we would play in the street, Double Dutch and dancing. There were all these community engagement types of activities that are totally foreign to the millennium.”

In recent years, many of Newark’s African immigrants have settled in the South Ward. “We like the vibe here. We love the hospitality in Newark. It’s a mostly Black town and you want to be in a community where you’re comfortable, we started families, opened businesses.  We realized that America, and Newark, is the place for us.’’ says Dosso Kassimou, chairman of the Newark African Commission.

Long-time South Ward residents feel the same sense of belonging. Clinton Hill homeowner Donyea Hoffman has lived in the same historic home, built in 1924, for 25  years. With eight bedrooms and four baths, it’s typical of the neighborhood, and wouldn’t be out of place in Jersey’s wealthiest suburbs.  “It’s something you could find in Short Hills,” she says.

Hoffman is frustrated by the past decade’s rise in foreclosures — the fallout from sub-prime loans — along with drug dealing and other crimes near her neighborhood, which she attributes, in part, to unemployment and lack of opportunity. Hoffman and other Clinton Hill residents are advocating for programs that will make the community safer and more stable.

“I love the people here. There are people who are in their mid-sixties, who remember how much it meant to buy a home here. You learn so much from them. There are so many assets,’’ Hoffman says.

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Between the Lines http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/18/between-the-lines/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/18/between-the-lines/#respond Sun, 18 Dec 2016 08:03:30 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=48862

Between the Lines

By Carrie Stetler and Akintola Hanif

The stigma of Newark breeds its own vicious cycle. Racist stereotypes and negative media coverage instill fear. Outsiders stay away or limit themselves to the downtown comfort zones deemed safe for visitors and commuters.

Because they avoid the city, or see such a small part of it, they have little reason to question Newark’s public image as a place where out-of-towners get shot if they venture a few blocks in the wrong direction—despite the fact that crimes against visitors are rare.  

Portrayals of Newark as the ultimate suburban nightmare are so pervasive they were deployed in an ad campaign by South Jersey Republicans in November.  “If you don’t want  Burlington County to turn into THIS part of North Jersey….vote for the people who make our county a special place to live,’’ urged local GOPs. A map with a red push pin through Newark illustrated the message.

In response, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and the NJ Black Mayors Alliance for Social Justice issued a statement. “The not so subtle message is that Newark and its suburbs are all that white voters fear in a community: Black, Latino, Poor, Dangerous, and Blighted.’’

Somewhere in between the hype pegging Newark as the next Brooklyn and news briefs on the latest killing, complete with updated body counts  (“This is the 67th homicide in the city this year”), are the communities that comprise Newark’s five wards.

The lines between them are artificial—bureaucratic designations that govern voting districts and trash collection. But they are also an essential part of what it means to be from Newark. “It’s about people having an allegiance to their communities and where they were born and raised,” says Baraka. “There is a long history of attachment.’’

His father, Amiri Baraka, renowned author, activist, and devout Newarker, put it this way in his 1984 autobiography: “….Despite our various lives somehow there was a collective passion, a collective life, generated by our presence together on those streets, in that playground, and in that school….they needed to be talked about. Why? Because they had something to do with it – the shaping, the answering – of the question, How did you get to be you?”

The dehumanizing clichés surrounding Newark do something more insidious than drive people away. They help ensure that visitors view the city through a narrow, distorted lens. The reality of Newark, in all of its dimensions and complexity, and the soul and identity of Newark residents, are endlessly obscured.

Newark is 26 square miles, smaller than many cities, but it is incredibly diverse. There are golf courses,  mosques, mansions, lofts, immigrants from Peru, Sri Lanka, Africa and the Ukraine. It’s also home to a thriving art scene, several college campuses, and an ever-growing business district, as well as city and community cultural institutions.

The people of Newark know that there is beauty and dignity amid struggle—and that not everyone is struggling. Even in communities where violence is pervasive, oftentimes around the corner are neighborhoods that are calm and stable. Newark is filled with light, depth, talent and resilience. But there aren’t many platforms for residents to tell their own stories and see themselves and their communities reflected in all their diversity.

HYCIDE | The 5 Wards is that place.

   

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Long Division http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/18/longdivision/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/18/longdivision/#respond Sun, 18 Dec 2016 00:59:41 +0000 http://artoholiks.net/5wards/?p=48354
1874 view of Newark, looking west

Long Division

By Carrie Stetler

Newark’s ward system was created in 1836, after the city became one of the most important industrial centers in the nation.  A population explosion transformed Newark, suddenly filled with immigrant laborers, and the creation of wards was viewed as a way to run it more effectively and impose law and order.

“Do you wish to have an efficient watch  protect your wives and daughters from insults in the streets?” a newspaper editorial of the era asked rhetorically. “Do you wish to have disturbers of the peace, riotous houses, and all other offending against good order brought to speedy justice?”

Officials divided the city into East, West, North and South.

As the population redistributed itself and political factions grabbed for territory, the wards were subdivided, and subdivided again. By 1871, there were 15, although two years later they were reduced to nine. In 1906, they ballooned again to 16.

In 1954, Newark returned to the original ward system in an attempt to combat corruption and patronage. “Political candidates had a lot of ethnic loyalties and would  dole out jobs and contracts to people who were loyal to them,’’ said John Johnson Jr., a Newark historian and assistant professor of history at St. Peter’s University in Jersey City.  “There was a lot of corruption in Jersey in general, and a push for charter change and a mayor and council form of government rather than commissioner system.”

Ward politicans reflected the predominant ethnicities within their borders: the North Ward was largely Italian, the South Ward had a large Jewish population and the East and West Wards were mostly Irish and Slavic.  But in 1954, a fifth ward was created, the Central Ward, home to many of the city’s Black residents. “It created a Black voting block and so people were able to vote for someone who represented their interests,’’ said Johnson Jr., who grew up in the South Ward.

The designation resulted in the first Black ward leader, Councilman Irvine Turner, namesake of Irvine Turner Boulevard, which runs from the Central through the South Wards.

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Decisive Moment http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/16/decisive-moment-2/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/12/16/decisive-moment-2/#respond Fri, 16 Dec 2016 12:54:14 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49142

Decisive Moment

Words and Images by Manuel Acevedo

The Newark where I was born and raised was a city on the verge. After the uprisings in 1967 and the Puerto Rican Riots (or rebellions) in 1974, the city seemed to hover on the imminent edge of disaster, danger, change, and triumph. Through street photography, I gained trust in my ability to capture it all. In order for me to make a photograph, however, I had to determine the “decisive moment” (to quote Henry Cartier-Bresson), defined as that sliver of time significant to an event just before or after the next happening. For me, the decisive moment continues to represent the precise organization of form and the framing of a picture that breathes life into my images.

My first photo essay was the Wards of Newark 1982-1987, a portrait series that captured the city during a time of industrial and residential abandonment. In 1981, I was an amateur photographer—a naïve 17-year-old living in the Vailsburg section of the West Ward on Brookdale Avenue, off South Orange Avenue. My parents, Manuel Sr. and Edith, raised five children. We moved to a five family three-story home shortly after my father’s stint as a numbers runner—in Spanish, un bolitero. We were one of very few Boricua (Puerto Rican) families on the block, which was a cultural mosaic representing the African diaspora, Irish, Italian and Ukrainian descendants. My sense of both demography and geography was limited to Newark, and through frequent travel to visit family in Aguada, P.R., until I was thirteen-years-old.

I was accepted to Newark’s Arts High for my junior year—the same year I was recruited into the Newark chapter of the Guardian Angels , a growing organization of unarmed citizens originally created to combat crime and violence in the New York City subway system. In addition to photographing the Angels, I began to make images in my home and neighborhood; children playing in the streets, my family in the kitchen.

On December 31, 1981 I received a call at home from Chris Taylor, NJ chapter leader and spokesman of the Guardian Angels about Frank Melvin—the first Guardian Angel to be killed by a police officer. He was fatally shot while on patrol at the scene of a burglary on a tavern rooftop near Newark’s Dayton Street projects. I photographed a protest organized by Curtis Sliwa (the Angels’ founder) and Chris and held at Newark’s City Hall. The Guardian Angels were holding up signs demanding a special investigation. It was rumored that the officer who fired the fatal shot and the fallen Angel were close acquaintances. At that time I captured a few memorable images, including one photograph of mirrored sunglasses worn by a fellow member. I framed the composition tightly. It depicted the Angels in formation, marching in front of the hall. Soon after, I borrowed a super-wide angle lens from my art teacher, Mr. K. I wanted to harness the power of a photograph, juxtaposing the human figure against a mild or wild urban background.

To some degree, I took advantage of my participation in the Guardian Angels for greater access to Newark streets and less familiar areas in New York. I had an intuitive sense of injustice and the run down, blighted conditions in my home city, but the continued decline of resources and decaying conditions I witnessed in both Newark and New York City shed light on our shared experience.

The neighborhoods I frequented included well-kept small homes juxtaposed by large condemned properties existing side-by-side. The empty lots turned into overgrown fields with obvious footpaths created over time by residents navigating the abandoned terrain. Many derelict lots expanded throughout South Orange Avenue in both the Central and West Ward.

When I began shooting the Wards of Newark, it was called Newark People. I wasn’t attempting to be a journalist, but I created a photo journal of a special time and place that represented my daily life, routines, and shared conversations. I was diligent in my practice of walking the streets and shooting for days, weeks and months at a time. I spent countless hours with a camera strapped in my hand, driven by an ironic sense of urgency, given that there were only subtle changes in living conditions throughout the wards of Newark over the course of five years.

On Broad and Market Street, faces turned willfully towards my camera with interest and curiosity. People engaged with me, looking close-up and straight into the lens, revealing their complexities, challenges and secrets. The personalities ranged from vendors on the sidewalks, activists, politicians, artists, graffiti writers, jewelry hustlers in alleys, homeless in the parks, tired parents, sleeping babies, and teenagers cutting school, sampling what the streets had to offer.

By nature of time and place, I was a witness and contributor to the graffiti movement, as well. My identity as a street photographer and artist evolved very organically at a time when we were constructing hip-hop (but had no name for it) as an expression of the street. I was rarely without my bag of tools—camera, film, black book and pens—and moved seamlessly from one to the other. My street name was Prins NAM, which stands for No Apparent Motive. I was down with the NRG crew, which was started in the North Ward by Jstarr. He lived a short walk from Elliot Street School in a strong Caribbean neighborhood that was deceptively calm during the day and rowdy at night.

During one of my visits to Jstarr’s apartment, I had an opportunity to make his portrait. His bedroom/painting/music studio was inscribed with cryptic glyphs, symbols, and images that were reminiscent of ancient writings found on the hidden walls of sacred spaces. The overlapping of codes and ciphers were mesmerizing.

My focus shifted in the late 1980’s, early 90’s from portraiture to landscape—with a territorial imperative to reveal its neglected spaces, discarded parts and vacancies in the era of demolition. I began to visualize my Altered Sites project through drawing and photography, combining the two mediums and the latent possibilities of derelict spaces in Newark’s West, Central and North Wards. I drew on top of the photograph to transform the bleakness or under utilized landscapes into visionary architectural proposals such as sites for the discovery of children’s play or adaptations of Russian artist, Tatlin’s tower as bird structures.

These symbols of modernity and spirituality were never built however, and my vision wasn’t as real as the closing of Pabst Brewery in 1986, the willful neglect of the Bricks public housing, abandoned cemeteries, the demolition of beautiful churches and synagogues or the last homes standing on Prince Street that I recorded on film.

Thirty years later, I am bearing witness to Newark, once again, on the verge of transformation with the potential to alter the psychology of the city. The resurfaced landscape feels like my next cue to revisit the Altered Sites project. It’s time to propose projects that engage the local communities and the city at large, as residents await changes that reflect the city’s history with greater transparency and provide real opportunity for the people of Newark.

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Coming Soon http://thefivewards.com/2016/07/21/coming-soon/ http://thefivewards.com/2016/07/21/coming-soon/#respond Thu, 21 Jul 2016 05:15:02 +0000 http://thefivewards.com/?p=49213
Image by Stefan Brown

Coming Soon

HYCIDE | The 5 Wards posts ward-by-ward stories incrementally. If you can’t find content for a particular ward, stay tuned and come back later.

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