I disagree with Rahaman Muhammad’s implication below that a Booker opponent in the Central Ward means blood in the water for his 2010 mayoral campaign. The issues are still the issues, and while the murder rate is drops 40% year over year, the mayor will sail into another term in office.
I also wonder how much this accusation of Mayor Booker “not listening to Newarkers” actually means “not kowtowing to political establishment in Newark” — many of whom were working for an ineffective James administration before 2006. Between the mayor’s open office hours and his public relations open door policy, the accusation just doesn’t wash with me.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker has yet to decide if he will throw his support behind a candidate to fill the seat vacated by ousted Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone, but many in the city see the upcoming race as a midterm referendum on his administration.
“The Central Ward race will be the test of the record he has to run on and it’s clearly a test for 2010,” said Rahaman Muhammad, president of SEIU Local 617, the most politically active union in the city. “If he wins he looks strong. But if he doesn’t, the political machines will smell blood.”
“Ringling Bros. coming to Newark arena”:http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/ringling_bros_coming_to_newark.html
First, “bulls running loose”:http://dailynewarker.com/blog/2006/11/newark-residents-had-enough-bull/ in the city, now the Ledger has pictures of elephants storming Prudential Center.
Well, not quite. Minnie the Elephant is a part of the Ringling Bros Circus, posing with Mayor Booker and Bello the daredevil clown. The circus will be returning to the city at the Prudential Center with shows starting up in October.
“This is so meaningful to me,” Booker told the children, recalling his annual birthday circus trips with four friends when he was a boy. “We had to travel to New York to do it, and now I’m so excited that we’re bringing this great family entertainment home to Newark, N.J.”
The circus will perform seven shows at the Prudential Center, from Oct. 16 to 19, according to the show’s producer, Feld Entertainment. Feld has also booked the arena for two more of its family shows: Disney Playhouse Live from Sept. 5 to 7 and Disney on Ice in December.
“Booker changes the perception of Newark”:http://www.prweekus.com/Booker-changes-the-perception-of-Newark/article/113400/
The communications team at City Hall has really been exceptional about reaching out to bloggers, as well as big media. When I call up, the team knows who I am and makes time available for me.
Kudos for this profile in PRWeek about how this critical function in the Mayor’s administration is capitalizing on the nation’s fresh attention to its third-oldest city.
The arrival of the 39-year-old Booker as mayor provided an opportunity for change, according to his office’s communications director, Desiree Peterkin Bell. Since Booker took office two years ago, he has worked to build out its communications machinery so that when a problem arises, like the building evacuation, the mayor’s office is able to quickly brief state and federal officials, as well organize the press to cover the story with little notice.
“Under this administration, we’ve basically redefined how government interacts with people,” Bell says. “We want people to know that Newark is a great place to live, work, and visit… and invest. I’ve committed to the mayor that, if we’re going to get our message out, we’re going to engage as many outlets as possible.”
“City of Newark Hosts End of Summer Festival”:http://ci.newark.nj.us/press/press_releases/end_of_summer_festival_at_boylan_recreation_center.php
It’ll be a busy weekend in Newark! In addition to the Brazilian Independence Festival at Riverbank Park, the city will be hosting an End of Summer Festival at the Boylan Recreation Center with music, karaoke, double-dutch exhibitions, face painting and fashion show. The festival will take place this Saturday at noon.
The festival will offer Hip-Hop dance performances by local youth; performances from winning contestants from the 2008 Newark Idol competition, amateur boxing matches, free blood pressure screenings from the Healthfirst NJ unit; summer basketball league championship games; double-dutch exhibitions; Golf and Tennis clinics; karaoke performances; face painting; steel drummers and stilt walkers.
“This year’s End of Summer Festival will bring a joyous close to our Super Summer programs, which have once again brought entertainment, education, empowerment, and unity to our neighborhoods and residents,” Mayor Booker said. “Newark has much to celebrate and I urge all residents to join us at the festival.”
“American Express Member Hopes to Send $1.5 Million in Award Money to Newark Parks”:http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/TXEJZF
Texas native Vanessa Pogue has read about Newark in the papers and has been inspired about the positive changes happening in the city. So much so, in fact, that she’s entered a public arts project into consideration for a cash prize from American Express.
The Think About It project is a community oriented public arts project focused on the City of Newark. The goal of the project is to inspire and create community involvement with visual stimulation in the form of murals and other forms of public art. The project will draw upon, and often include the written word (poems, statements, references to classic literature). My application seeks funding for the inaugural piece of this project…a mural in one of the City parks scheduled for renovation.
Projects are chosen on the basis of votes and buzz — and you don’t have to be a card member to participate. While the voting deadline has passed, there’s still opportunity to talk it up in the message boards and generate interest.
“Talk up the project at the discussion board”:http://community.membersproject.com/. For your trouble, Newark gets a shot at winning some improvements to our city parks.
Alone and Together: Tintype Portrait Studio at Gallery Aferro
October 3 + 4th, 1-7 PM
Photographer Keliy Anderson-Staley is inviting the public to have their portrait taken at Gallery Aferro on October 3 and 4th from 1-7 PM. Sitters can come solo or with a loved one. The sittings are free. A print of the image is $10.
The downtown Newark area was once home to many portrait studios where people could come to have a high-quality portrait made. By photographing contemporary America, especially in diverse New Jersey, Keliy is compiling a beautifully made record of what we all really look like, using a classic process.
Keliy hopes to meet and photograph as many people as possible while she is in Newark. All are welcome!
This portrait series is made with the wet plate collodion process, the leading mode of photography in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Tintypes are positive images exposed onto metal. This historic process has a different relationship to time than digital or film photography. The chemistry is hand-mixed and poured onto the plate in front of the sitter. As soon as the exposure is made in the wooden view camera, the plate must be taken to a portable dark box to be developed and fixed. The wet plate collodion image captures a pose held over several seconds or even minutes. This prolonged gaze creates a tension between the sitter and the camera. While a snapshot captures a moment about a 1/1000 of a second long, the tintype process allows for a portrait of a person or a couple to unfold over time; the image produced can then slow down our looking. A viewer sees the hard lines of bone structure, wrinkles and blemishes, but also sees bright, focused eyes staring back intently. This process allows the photographer and the viewer to stare, but it is not entirely voyeuristic, as the sitter stares back. The act of taking someone’s portrait can once again be an event.
Several of the 06-07 Aferro Studio residents have commented that the chance for informal networking with peers afforded by residency in the building was one of the best aspects of their experience. Also mentioned by residents consistently as a unique and valuable aspect of the program was temporary ownership of a platform to interact with the public.
Residents will be awarded a 1200-2000 sq ft studio for 6 months, with 24 hr access, access to visiting curators and other gallery directors, a solo exhibition in our project space, and inclusion in an end-of-program catalog highlighting their work over the length of the residency. The current Aferro building can accommodate up to 5 artists at a time. Artists will be selected on the basis of quality of work, commitment to their field, and ability to interact positively with the community at large. The program will aim for a mix of Newark and non-Newark residents.
Image from artist Kevin Darmanie’s solo exhibition in the project room.
The Studios
Studios range in size from 1200 to 2000 square feet. The studios are strictly work only spaces. The studios are raw spaces with minimal amenities. Artists who are accepted into the program must be prepared to actively use their studio. 6-month slots are available beginning Feb 23, 2009.
Please contact us with any questions about your application, our space or what you might want to do with your time at Aferro.
Here’s an uplifting story about new affordable housing coming to the city. With so much recent attention placed on the development of luxury apartments and condos from big-time developers and celebrities, a lot of people were downright scared that ordinary people, including ones that need a boost to get out of whatever scary situation they are facing, would be left behind. I think we should have more developments like these. Although Newark makes for a tempting and relatively easy commute away from New York City, it is going to take a little while for New Yorkers so completely saturate the far reaches of the boroughs (or Hoboken and Jersey City), that they’ll automatically think: ‘OK, let’s look at Newark.’ Don’t get me wrong, I think we got a great deal, and have reduced my New Yorker friends to smiling politely and placidly every time I talk about our place, but I think that for a while, we’ll need to make affordable housing a major part of the residential real estate mix before we become a sizzling market.
Here is the part of the story that ran in USAToday:
Jon Bon Jovi’s Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation is providing $1 million toward construction of a 51-unit building that will cater to homeless people with special needs, like AIDS patients.
The $15 million building, called Genesis Apartments, will rise where there is now a vacant lot. Joining Bon Jovi at Tuesday’s ground breaking were Gov. Jon Corzine, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, fashion designer Kenneth Cole and his wife, Maria Cuomo Cole, who runs HELP USA, a national nonprofit that is helping to build the units.
“Today I believe we’re starting something,” Bon Jovi said. “Together, I believe we can make a difference, one street, one neighborhood, one city, one soul at a time.”
Bon Jovi, who’s foundation has built affordable housing in Philadelphia, New Orleans and other cities, said he teamed up with Cole to design and market a line of jackets in 2006 to raise awareness to combat homelessness. Profits from that line provided the money for the Newark project, he said.
Life in Newark can be serious business, owing in no small part to the challenges of child rearing. Finding the right schools, keeping up with parent/teacher meetings, ferreting out just the right extra-curricular activity for your child — you all get the drill. This stuff changes your life forever, and if it weren’t for helpful advice from friends in the form of books, emails, conversations or whatever, some of us would be more dependent on the bottle — of a different variety, of course — than our little bundles.
Here is a new discussion forum for Forest Hill parents, designed to be another source of advice and helpful information to moms and dads in Forest Hill. This is great, because I’m the type of person who is generally friendly and great to know. However, put me under just the right circumstances, and I might take hostages to get what I want. And I wouldn’t want to set that kind of example for the new Baby on the way, would I? Of course not. So, this group will do nicely for me and anyone else who needs to ask a lot of questions, or who is a fountain of information and loves to share.
“The next Barack Obama?”:http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/08/28/booker/index.html?source=refresh
Speaking of memes, if Barack Obama wins the presidential race, headlines like this can only help Mayor Booker’s prospects.
Anyone seeking stealth inspiration and a bit of political passion, not to mention a dose of intellect that makes Barack Obama sound like Dan Quayle would have been very lucky, as Salon was, to stumble upon an appearance here by Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J.
Booker was speaking at an event held by Vote Hope, a PAC founded to help elect Barack Obama president that’s now broadening to create an infrastructure that will help propel more minority candidates to elected office. Booker, a charismatic 39-year-old, was introduced by Vote Hope founder Steve Phillips as “the next Barack Obama,” even as he was running — literally — into the banquet hall.
“CITY OF NEWARK ISSUES HEALTH ALERT TO WARN RESIDENTS ABOUT WEST NILE VIRUS”:http://dailynewarker.com/blog/2008/09/city-of-newark-issues-health-alert-to-warn-residents-about-west-nile-virus/
Parents, take note: the city has issued a health alert about West Nile found in Newark and Irvington mosquitos. Preventative measures are listed in the press release after the jump.
The West Nile Virus is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito that has picked up the virus by feeding on an infected bird. The virus is not transmitted from birds to humans or from person to person. Symptoms of mild West Nile infection include fever, headache, and body aches, often with skin and swollen lymph glands. More severe infection is marked by headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, and paralysis.
“Newark Art Party”:http://newarkartparty.blogspot.com
There’s a new Newark blog in town! This in from a fellow Newarker:
Newark Art Party is a new calendar/blog for the promotion of Newark arts events. Feel free to submit information on Newark art receptions, music performances, dance parties or anything of interest to the arts community. If you have a mailing list, please put newarkartparty@gmail.com on it. Events outside Newark featuring Newarkers are also welcome.
“Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting”:http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/01/0057225&from=rss
Slashdot, a popular technology blog, picks up the “future of crime fighting” meme kicked off by “TechCrunch’s interview with Mayor Booker”:http://dailynewarker.com/blog/2008/08/newark-and-the-future-of-crime-fighting/. The discussion is, unsurprisingly, negative against the cameras due to potential civil-rights violations with regard to privacy.
Booker is quick to point out that the city worked with the ACLU to define a framework around how police can use the cameras (i.e. the NPD can only observe streets, not inside of buildings), in which all have found satisfactory.
“Newark Mayor Cory Booker is “betting that cutting-edge technology will reduce crime”:http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080822_240216.htm and spark an economic renaissance. From a newly opened Surveillance Operations Center, cops armed with joystick controllers “monitor live video feeds from more than 100 donated cameras”:http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/2523084.php?imageGalleryXRefId=610772 scattered across the crime-ridden city. The moves are drawing kudos from businesses like Amazon subsidiary Audible.com, which has moved its HQ to downtown Newark, where space is 50% cheaper than in Manhattan. But are citizens giving up too much privacy?”
We scour the web for Newark stories on a daily basis to give you one-stop shopping for Newark news. Check out these updates from the New York Times, the Star Ledger, WBGO public radio, Google News, Twitter, Flickr and blogs in and around the area.
City officials in Elizabeth are so far refusing to cooperate with a new county’s task force, insisting that the city can handle crime fighting on its own.
Two men have been arrested in connection with a series of drive-by shootings that left two people dead and at least one wounded, the police said on Saturday.
Two people were killed and four were wounded in a rash of drive-by shootings in Newark on Friday afternoon that lasted just under an hour, the police said.
Newark's heat complaint hotline ready to go The Star-Ledger - NJ.com, NJ - 2 hours ago by Chanta L. Jackson/The Star-Ledger With the threat of snow this week, Newark's heat complaint hotline is up and running. Landlords are required to provide ...
