Newark, New Jersey (pop. 311,549), is the largest city in New Jersey and one of the nation’s leading centers of transportation. Newark lies on Newark Bay at the mouth of the Passaic River, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of New York City. Newark is in the New York (New York)-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area.
In 1666, 30 Puritan families from the Connecticut Colony settled in what is now eastern New Jersey. Developers of the area had offered them religious freedom and inexpensive farmland. The settlers founded a village on the Passaic because the site included a harbor and level, unforested land. They named the village Newark—probably for Newark-on-Trent, the English town where their pastor had entered the ministry. The name may also have originated in the phrase new ark, a reference to the Ark of the Covenant mentioned in the Bible (see Ark of the Covenant).
The city.
Newark, the county seat of Essex County, covers about 26 square miles (67 square kilometers). Downtown Newark has the city’s tallest building, the 34-story National Newark Building. Nearby is the First Presbyterian Church, Newark’s oldest house of worship, completed in 1791. The Gateway Center, a group of office buildings and a hotel, rises in the eastern part of the downtown area.
African Americans make up about half of Newark’s population. The city also has many people of Italian, Portuguese, or Puerto Rican descent. Large religious groups in Newark include Baptists and Roman Catholics.
Economy.
The production of drugs and chemicals ranks as the leading industrial activity in the city. Newark also manufactures electric equipment, processed food, metal products, and nonelectrical machinery.
Newark Liberty International Airport, a major passenger and cargo center, lies at the south end of town. Port Newark, a leading New Jersey port, handles the ships of more than 100 ship companies. It is one of the largest ports in the United States for container ships, which carry cargo in large, separate containers. Passenger and freight railroads and numerous trucking firms serve the city.
Newark ranks as one of the nation’s largest insurance centers. The city is the home of Prudential Insurance Company of America, one of the country’s largest life insurance firms. The city also serves as New Jersey’s leading center of finance and trade. Newark has one daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger.
Education and cultural life.
The Newark School District is one of the oldest public school systems in New Jersey. The city’s Barringer High School, established in 1838, was the first high school in the state. The city also has a number of parochial and private schools. Institutions of higher learning include the Seton Hall University School of Law; the New Jersey Institute of Technology; the Newark campus of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the New Jersey State Opera perform in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The Newark Museum of Art features art collections, science exhibits, and a planetarium. The New Jersey Historical Society has a library and a museum of historic items.
Newark’s largest park is Branch Brook Park. It covers 360 acres (145 hectares) and includes thousands of cherry trees.
Government.
Newark has a mayor-council form of government. The voters elect a mayor and nine council members to serve four-year terms. Property taxes are the city’s leading source of revenue.
History.
The Delaware (Lenape) people lived in what is now the Newark area before European settlers first arrived in 1666. During the late 1700’s, a number of tanners settled in Newark. The area had many hemlock trees, which furnished the bark used in making leather. By the early 1800’s, about a third of the labor force worked in shoemaking and other leather industries.
The work of Seth Boyden, a Newark inventor, helped the city grow industrially during the early 1800’s. Boyden developed such products as patent leather and an improved kind of cast iron. Advances in transportation also contributed to Newark’s industrial growth. For example, the Morris Canal, completed in 1831, linked Newark with coal-mining areas in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. By 1834, a railroad connected Newark and the Hudson River, which separates New Jersey and New York City. Newark had a population of 19,732 when it was incorporated in 1836.
From 1840 to 1860, many German and Irish immigrants settled in Newark to fill the growing number of industrial jobs. By 1860, the city had 71,941 people. A wave of immigration that began in the late 1880’s brought thousands of people from eastern and southern Europe to Newark. In 1910, the city had 347,469 people.
Port Newark opened in 1915, during World War I (1914-1918). Newark’s chemical industry, which began in the 1870’s, expanded greatly during the war and the 1920’s. In 1930, the population reached a peak of 442,337.
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, more than 600 Newark factories closed and many neighborhoods became shabby. During World War II (1939-1945), jobs in defense plants drew thousands of African Americans from the South to Newark. They crowded into the city’s run-down areas. Beginning in the 1950’s, many middle-income families moved from Newark to the suburbs. By 1960, the city’s population had fallen to 405,220.
By the mid-1960’s, Newark had a large proportion of poor people. The city lacked money to provide adequate services. Almost half the voters were African Americans, but they had little political power. As a result, racial tensions mounted. In July 1967, five days of rioting shook the African American sections of Newark, causing 26 deaths and more than $10 million in property damage. Black citizens had charged that widespread dishonesty existed in the city government. A series of investigations following the riots led to the conviction of Mayor Hugh Addonizio and other politicians for sharing illegal refunds on city contracts.
In 1970, the voters elected Newark’s first African American mayor, Kenneth A. Gibson. Gibson had been city engineer. He won reelection three times and served as mayor until 1986.
In 1971, a dispute over working conditions developed between white Newark teachers and the city’s board of education. As a result of appointments made by Gibson, the board had a majority of Black and Puerto Rican members. The dispute led to an 11-week strike by the teachers, the longest in the history of a major U.S. city. This strike increased racial tension in Newark. The school board has since become an elective body.
During the late 1900’s, Newark leaders worked to increase the city’s job opportunities and improve its housing. The federal and state governments contributed large amounts of money to help with such problems. Much new construction took place in Newark. A series of urban renewal projects begun in the 1960’s resulted in the construction of some factories and office buildings. Newark (now Newark Liberty International) Airport continued a major expansion program started in 1963. Several new university campuses and seaport expansion projects were completed in the 1970’s. Construction of new office buildings continued into the early 2000’s.
See also Booker, Cory.
