Author Archives: Zemin

Newark: Architecture of Fear

Tuesday, 11 December 2007 – 12:36 am

The space man, in the 1952 movie _The Day the Earth Stood Still_, lands on the Washington Mall and announces to the earthlings, “I only fear that fear has replaced reason.” Thanks god that the alien did not come to Newark, where reason often fails to prevail. When Arthur Stern of Cogswell first [...]

Posted in Arts, Culture & Media, Biz & Development | Comments (4)

Goodbye, Baxter Terrace

Monday, 3 December 2007 – 1:58 pm

_I love you darling’_
_Baby, you know I do_
_But I’ve got to see this Book of Love_
_Find out why it’s true_

Every day in 1955, Charles Patrick, 17, and a group of teenagers came together to sing in the Baxter Terrace’s recreation hall. By 1958, they had sung their heart out and their song, “Who Wrote [...]

Posted in Biz & Development, Downtown (Central Ward), Government | Comments (3)

Breaking the Box: Newark’s City Planning Forum

Friday, 30 November 2007 – 9:26 am

“Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, is the commercial, industrial, and cultural center of an urban area containing more than a million people. About half of these people live in Newark, while many of those residing elsewhere, work in Newark, shop there, attend its theatres, and are part of the complex economic and [...]

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Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets

Thursday, 29 November 2007 – 1:32 am

Nobody naively believes that Newark’s renaissance would be as easy as real estate dealers’ trumpeting, which has been going on in the city for over two decades with limited results. Meanwhile, everybody has been talking about the city’s unique assets, such as transportation advantages and higher education institutional presence (i.e., “ed and med”) for [...]

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Bayonne Box: Symbol of Newark’s Ill Planning

Sunday, 25 November 2007 – 10:59 pm

The three-family, triple-decker, aluminum-sided, front garage-dominated housing type, known as the “Bayonne Box,” has become the default housing type for new construction in Newark. Even the 2004 Land Use Element of City Master Plan urged to “provide more land which allows two-, three-, and four-family detached housing, which has become the housing choice for [...]

Posted in Biz & Development, Government | Comments (0)

The Westinghouse Building: Will a Sad Story Turn into “an Incredible Light”?

Thursday, 15 November 2007 – 1:27 pm

Frequent commenter Zemin Zhang lives in downtown Newark. He’s been long fighting the battle of taking down the Westinghouse building which blights the Broad Street Station area. Mayor Cory Booker suggested on last week’s Newark Today show on WBGO that this dilapidated warehouse will be torn down during his administration — a ray [...]

Posted in Biz & Development, Community, Downtown (Central Ward) | Comments (4)