Man Made Lake

Union City, NJ

    It's been a year since Kayt and I moved to New York, and since then we've been keeping a list of distinctly third world experiences we've had in this seemingly "developed" metropolis. Reoccurring themes include: suffocating bureaucracy, extremely selective law enforcement, a complete disregard for lane markings, pavement in laughable disrepair, unregulated buses run by the mob, haggling with unlicensed taxi drivers, illegal overcrowding of bars and music venues, massive pedestrian traffic, risky yet tasty food, intense entrepreneurialism, and a quickly diminishing middle class.

    Union City fits the bill quite nicely. This tiny square-mile city across the river from Manhattan is the epicenter of the Tri-State's Cuban population. On Bergenline Avenue, the main drag, crowded sidewalks come to a halt thanks to shops illegally spilling out onto the street. Every fourth or fifth vehicle is a dollar van - no exaggeration. And, of course, authentic food abounds.

FYI, in the last photo, 1-800-YO-LO-QUIERO translates to 1-800-I-WANT-IT.

Ironbound Tiles

     In Newark's lusophone quarter, homeowners adorn their facades with tiles.  Their Lisboan counterparts have decorated exteriors with azulejos, considered a serious art form, for more than 500 years.  But don't expect such attention to detail in Ironbound, where showers come to mind.  This is Jersey.

 

     Merriam-Webster defines "gaudy" as ostentatiously or tastelessly ornamented and marked by extravagance or sometimes tasteless showiness.

(Ref: Zoe's Lisboa Tiles)

Ironbound, Newark

    Ironbound is the Tri-State region's premier Portuguese speaking neighborhood.  Older generations of Portuguese immigrants live alongside newer recruits from Brazil and Cape Verde.  This gave me another chance to dabble is acai, the Brazilian fruit drink I've been longing for for well over a year now.  They still manage to fuck it up with apple juice and milk and strawberries, but it was much more legit than at the buns-of-steel lifestyle outlets in Manhattan.

    Ironbound, it seems to me, is the only neighborhood that Newark is pushing as a destination.  Perhaps it's the only area that hasn't descended into complete chaos. 

Brick City 101

    Founded by Puritans in 1666, Newark has taken on many nicknames over the last half century.  In an attempt to maintain corporate offices fleeing for the suburbs, a 1950s era mayor dubbed the town "New Newark."  Once the Gateway Center redevelopment was finished, Newark was briefly called the "Gateway City."  To hype the revitalizations in the 90s, the press occasionally used the short-lived moniker "Renaissance City."  But outside of Newark City Hall and the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the rest of us know Newark as "Brick City" for it's vast swaths of subsidized housing.

    Five miles west of Manhattan, this city of 280,000 experienced post-war deterioration in accordance with most cities of the time: neighborhoods decimated by interstates and urban renewal, industry and population running for suburbia and overseas, a crippling loss of tax base, horrible public housing, and race riots.  But few cities can compete with the magnitude of Newark’s decay.  During the 70s and 80s, Newark’s crime rate often faired even worse than that of East St. Louis and Detroit.  A 1975 article in Harper's Magazine ranked the fifty largest American cities against 24 "quality of life" type categories.  Newark ranked among the five worst cities in 19 of the categories and dead last in 9.  According to the author of the article, "Newark stands without serious challenge as the worst city of all."

        Of course there is more to Newark than it's poverty.  When the port left Manhattan in the 60s it moved across the Hudson to Newark and adjacent Elizabeth, NJ.  Today it's the 15th busiest port in the world.  It's connected to New York by the PATH subway system and NJ Transit commuter trains.  The Tri-State's largest Portuguese speaking community is in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood (more on that later).  And a lot of the Sopranos TV series, while often left as unspecified northern New Jersey, took place and was filmed in Newark.

        But will Newark pull out of its slump?  Maybe, but not anytime soon.  There's still plenty of dense New Jersey (the "6th borough") to gentrify before Manhattan's wealth reaches Essex County.  Also of note is the huge port and industrial facilities, as well as the shit ton of public housing, that are generally avoided by people who can.