City Without Walls: New Ark
Tony Zaza
In 2004 it will
be 338 years old. It is the largest city in New Jersey. Only Paris has a wider
main street. Newark was the last effort of the Puritans to establish a theocracy,
to create a “Kingdom of God on Earth”. The Mayflower people had wanted
to settle in the Delaware region, not what was to become New England. Bad weather
caused them to detour to Plymouth. Forty years later, the surviving generation
carried out the old plan and settled in Newark in the marshy borders of “ye
Pesayak” River where years before English adventurers had written about
the “…infinite quantities of bustards, swans, geese and fowl, stores
of turkies; delicate fresh sea-fish and shell-fish, and whales; elks, deere,
and the woods bestrewed many months with chestnuts, walnuts, and barren grounds
have four kinds of grapes and many mulberries with ash, elms and the tallest
and greatest pines and pitch trees. There are cedars, and cypresse and sassafras,
with wilde fruits, pears, wilde berries, pine apples and the dainty parsemenas
(persimmons).”
It is interesting to note that all of the land of what is now New Jersey (called
Scheyichbi by the Lenni Lenape) was purchased from the Indians, none of it was
“taken”. To the settlers of the early city (1666), the church was
the most precious thing they had. It became a meetinghouse as well as a refuge
when the threat of Indian attack was thought to be imminent. Today, Newark is
characterized by an extraordinary number of surviving colonial churches.
Aaron Burr’s father, a pastor of the First Church managed the College of
New Jersey, which later moved and became Princeton University. And in Newark,
not Boston or New York, in 1774 at the Court House on Broad Street, one of the
very first cries of liberty was made by patriots of Essex County. Had General
Charles Lee joined Washington as planned in Newark with his army, the ensuing
but never occurring battle may have been a turning point in the War for Independence.
Minutemen fought the first urban guerilla warfare against the British in the
streets of Newark.
From its earliest beginnings, Newark established a community of tradesmen and
craftsmen, both light and heavy manufacturing flourished during its first century.
The marshes and quagmires were drained. In 1804, Carriage trade brought with
it the manufacture of wheels and axles, numerous stables. Nearly every house
had a row of beehives at the rear and in the summer there were great masses
of roses. Apples were cultivated and the harvest so plentiful that Newark becomes
known for its cider. Moses Combs was the ‘first manufacturer’ opening
a shoe factory in 1790. In a few years , nearly a third of all the people of
Newark worked in shoemaking. Brown stone used for the homes of New York came
from Newark quarries. Flour mills and saw mills sprung up. Patent leather was
invented here by Seth Boyden who by 1826 discovered how to make malleable iron,
and curiously, a few years later perfected the strawberry as a luscious edible
fruit. By 1830, hat making flourished, then jewelry, saddlery and tanneries,
and the brewing of beer. By the 1850’s 300 vessels passed in and out of
Newark Bay in one day. By 1908 there were over 4000 factories in Newark.
Over the centuries, new people brought new ideas: Talleyrand and Aaron Burr
lived in Newark; Lafayette, Henry Clay, Louis Kossuth, Abraham Lincoln, General
Grant slept there. Newark was a party town. The “Passaick” River was
crystal clear. The city had the best drinking water and the finest Victorian
homes. Slavery was denounced as early as 1796. Street lighting was enabled in
1846 by the Newark Gas Light Company. Thomas Edison and Edward Weston made most
of their discoveries in their Newark labs. And it was the Reverend Hannibal
Goodwin hard at work in his parsonage located near what is not the Broad Street
Railroad station, who invented the first flexible film that made the movie industry
possible.
Poised to rise out of despair and underdevelopment brought upon the city in
the aftermath of the riots of 1968, Newark , a city without walls , has the
natural resources artists need, air, light, space. And the artists are coming.
Painter Victoria Hanks, who just moved into a new 1500 square foot loft studio
space on Crawford Street in the heart of the old city bordered by Lincoln Park,
Washington Street and Broad, thinks that artists can help transform the city
and bring it back to its lost glory. “Its always the artists who have the
pioneer spirit that can foster new growth and renewal…it can happen here
just like in New York’s Soho district.”
Now, 35 years later after the riots, there are signs of healing, indications
of new growth, hopes for a rebirth. Adjacent to the new artists’ community
at the Crawford Street Lofts that are situated on the grounds where 200 years
ago iron wagon wheels were cast , a new exhibition space will begin the work
of reviving the arts community. City Without Walls, relocates and rises with
renewed vigor and a commitment to encourage artists and to develop a vibrant
new community.
Other arts institutions are working to establish a real community. In addition
to City Without Walls, The Newark Museum, The Paul Robeson Gallery at Newark
Rutgers, Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Studioworks, Iandor Gallery,
The Fringe, GlassRoutes Center, have modest agendas for 2004. And the Newark
Arts Council is fostering connections between community arts organizations especially
through their annual “Newark Artists Group Show and Open Doors”.
City Without Walls, in continuous operation for over 25 years, is a not-for-profit
art gallery pursuing a twofold mission to offer career development opportunities
to new and emerging artists while providing the public a chance to understand
and enjoy challenging contemporary art. Their ArtReach education program pairs
promising high school art students with working-artist mentors and offers other
students valuable experience through gallery internships. The gallery also maintain
the largest and most active artist slide registry of any gallery in the state
as well as an artist information bank with current materials covering insurance,
housing, taxes, legal help, hazardous materials, competitions, employment and
other career topics. City Without Walls offers free photographing of artworks
for member artists, and arranges large-scale art commissions for public and
private spaces.
Twenty years ago, artist Victor L. Davson and Carl E. Hazlewood envisioned Aljira,
a Center for Contemporary Art as a place, which would embody the essence of
its etymological roots. By selecting the name Aljira, the Australian Aboriginal
word for dreamtime, the founders defined the heart of Aljira’s mission,
a mission that embraces the concepts of timelessness and open possibilities—ideas
inherent in the creative process. Aljira continues to be open to possibilities
and plays an integral role in the professional life of many artists. Its work
began on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator, no air conditioning,
and no direct access to the street. In its new location on 591 Broad Street,
Aljira has positioned itself to open wide the doors of opportunity and take
its campaign for contemporary art onto the main street.
