by Ken Walker
New York Times: Newark is Almost Hot
May 6, 2007
As I said before, the new Newark is an idea whose time has come. Here’s the New York Times: Not Hot Just Yet, but Newark Is Starting to Percolate.
“When they realize this is 20 minutes from Midtown and they see all the energy and all the hip people living here, they want to make the move, too,” he said last Sunday as he mixed cocktails in his kitchen for a crowd of friends, most of them recent transplants like himself. “It’s not quite there yet, but Newark is about to get hot.”
After four decades of economic stagnation and bad publicity, New Jersey’s largest city — stuck in the public imagination as a place of stolen cars, ailing public schools and a busy international airport — is sprouting stylish new restaurants, art galleries and bars that dispense $10 cocktails.
A new indie music festival is expected to draw thousands to the heart of downtown next month, and city officials say that applications for 22 condominium projects have poured in since January, twice the number for all of 2006, with Shaquille O’Neal, Queen Latifah and Tiki Barber among those kicking around development proposals.
Though its struggle against blight and crime is hardly past, some residents say Newark is enjoying the kind of psychic rebirth that has helped transform scores of other downtrodden cities into nesting grounds for the young, the creative, and, with time, the well-heeled. Adjectives like bohemian and funky are increasingly tossed around, and even some skeptics are starting to believe in the moniker Newark adopted two decades ago: Renaissance City.
Given the spat over the Newark Teacher’s Union FUD campaign and the long, relentless headlines about violent crime in recent weeks, this is the kind of good press that Newark needs. The Times article notes that a lot of the folks interested in Newark are largely affluent whites, ready to capitalize on Newark’s quick commute to Manhattan and low prices.
While I’m keenly aware that development of jobs programs for ex-cons, hammering down violent crime, and an overhaul of our schools are really the keys to sustainable growth, I am hopeful that this new attention to Newark by well-heeled “outsiders” can mean some serious trickle-down economic potential for the city’s current residents. Quick: someone come up with the phrase that means the opposite of “white flight.”
So The New York Times says that Newark is an up and coming city. I remember that the newspaper did a very similar article in 2000. They published photos of very urbane-looking restaurants, rattled off condo projects that were coming online and pointed out the easy commute (it always tickles me to see all those advanced-degree holding New Yorkers go absolutely wide-eyed with SHOCK at the Newark’s proximity to Manhattan, er, Mecca).
Well, it was bound to happen sometime. First they start using our airport, then the NYT writes obsessively about Mayor Booker, and after that, property sales gain traction. As long as all this newfound attention somehow brings positive changes to the schools.
So true. I got a chance to speak to NY Times reporter Damien Cave back when he was covering the mayoral election last year. He told me that you can go as far back as 1990 and find similar pieces forecasting Newark’s Renaissance every couple of years.
I think there’s some key differences now that weren’t there then that will actually catalyze the change. Not the least of these is the amount of buzz Newark has had lately with out-of-towners. Between Booker’s media-savvy and national attention as an up-and-coming black politician, to the exposure that the Newark Museum and NJPAC (and soon the Prudential Center), people are actually thinking of Newark as something OTHER than the “car-theft capital of the world.” I’ve even spoken with some folks who are considering spending time with their families or friends in the city — a perception that’s changed quite a bit in the last ten years that I’ve been in Newark.