Complete Interview Transcripts

Clement A. Price
Professor of History, Rutgers University-Newark

Professor Clement A. Price, Ph.D., is a member of the Department of History at Rutgers University in Newark. He has taught urban history, public history, African-American history and the history of New Jersey for over three decades at Rutgers. In addition to his teaching, service and research at Rutgers, Price has played leadership roles with many organizations in New Jersey, including the New Jersey Historical Commission, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Fund for New Jersey, the Newark Public Schools, the Newark Black Film Festival, and the Governor’s Commission on Ellis Island. Price is widely known as the preeminent scholar of Newark’s social history, and he is a longtime resident of the city. He is the founder and director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience, which conducts research and presents innovative public programs on a wide range of topics of concern to New Jersey’s citizens.

Q. Is there any historical precedent to the current move to “green” or beautify Newark neighborhoods?
Price: There’s a larger vision, and then there’s a local vision. The larger vision takes us to around the middle of the nineteenth century, when it became clear to mainly civic leaders and some political leaders, that the industrialization of that century was beginning to take its toll, on city spaces, on city folk. It was called the “City Beautiful” movement, and it included parks, gardens, the planting of trees, … in other words, aesthetically uplifting the way the city appeared. Newark and Greater Newark did not get into the City Beautiful movement until almost too late. By 1890 Newark was declared by the U.S. census taker, as America’s – not just New Jersey’s – but America’s “unhealthiest city.”

It’s clear to anyone who’s taking Newark seriously in the late nineteenth century that the city really needs to arrest the onslaught of industrialization. Newark had huge swaths of just awful housing, especially for the poor, especially for the first and second-generation immigrants, always for the blacks. And what you find around that time is a concerted public private partnership to create the huge park that would be named Branch Brook Park.

So it’s around the 1890’s that city and county fathers, civic leaders, political leaders, created what would become the Essex County Park Commission. And the first park created by that commission is Branch Brook Park. The Commission begins its work in 1895 and Branch Brook Park is the first major objective of its work.

Q. What happened with the City Beautiful movement?
Price: The future of the City Beautiful movement in Newark intersected with two things. Newark indeed is a declining city, after the 1930’s. After much of what had been created during its golden era -- that’s that period roughly between 1890 and the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930’s – this golden era kind of plateau-ed. A museum had been built. A public library had been built. Broad Street had become New Jersey’s great commercial thoroughfare. But with the 1930’s we find a city that is losing its industrial base, and we also find something that may have been more important: the continued influx of southern blacks, who begin to challenge the numerical strength, the civic space, the political ambition of what had become a white ethnic city. So you have a city that is losing what had made it, industries and commercial entities, intersecting with race, and increasingly troubled race relations. And we Americans now know that what really has nearly toppled our great old cities – Newark, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. (where I’m from) – is the inability to cope with demographic shift that is related to race.

Q. What happens inside the city as the City Beautiful movement fades?
Price: As the city peaks around the 1920’s as a wholesome livable city, and begins this long decline through the most of the rest of the twentieth century, city services decline. The school system declines. The upkeep of the park declines. The streets become seemingly more dangerous. They certainly become dirtier. I would say that what the twentieth century has to teach us is that when a city is declining -- and by decline I mean losing its population, losing its most productive families, losing its businesses, its industries – the first thing it needs to do when such a transformation is unfolding, a city really should strengthen its public spaces, such as its parks and streets, and schools, and libraries. In Newark, there is an unmistakable decline in all of those public sectors.

We see the transformation of a city that discovered the importance of green space in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We see that what’s beginning to happen is that the civic spirit, the gung-ho boosterism, fade … and the understanding that green space, parks, and these other kind of public rituals … they’re all left alone. They’re not refurbished. They lose the centrality in the lives of many Newarkers. One could argue that the decline of the green spaces, the public green spaces in Newark, was a sure fire indication that the city was declining spiritually, in addition to the other declines.

For example, I’ve interviewed Newarkers who have told me that before and after World War II, going out to Branch Brook Park and going to Weequahic Park was likened to going to the countryside. So what happens is, Newark is declining, especially after World War II, and these green spaces which used to be almost bookends – you know, on the north side of town there’s Branch Brook, and on the other side of town there’s the other county park, Weequahic, … these parks are no longer kept up as well as they once were. The city is losing its way, and one may argue that Essex County is losing its way. There once was a time where Newark was the centerpiece of Essex County. Essex County, because of Newark, was this urban county. But after World War II, we now know it and the scholarship is clear: Essex County is being more attentive to its suburban residents, to its suburban towns and hamlets, and Newark becomes of secondary importance.

Q. Are you sensing a shift in attitudes around the city, about the city’s future?
Price: It is indeed this sense that Newark is becoming “a new Newark.” A renaissance city. It seemingly has two sources. One, in my travels, I’m noticing more and more homeowners fixing up their front lawns. If you were to drive through Newark in April or May, you would see a lot of rose bushes coming into bloom, in every ward, in every social class, ethnic identity notwithstanding. So there’s seems to be something coming up through the rank and file neighborhoods and neighbors of Newark.

The three county parks are now enjoying the support of local not-for-profits that have steered much-needed cash to strengthen those parks. In Weequahic Park, there’s the Weequahic Park Improvement Association. In Branch Brook Park, there’s the Branch Brook Park Alliance, which is a not-for-profit organization. I sit on the board. And in West Side Park, the great Newark philanthropist Ray Chambers recently sent them a million dollars by way of a grant, to stabilize and refurbish West Side Park. What seems to be the larger context of what’s happening in these big parks is the sense that Newark has yet another opportunity to redefine itself as a livable, and intentionally and increasingly green city.

I think my perception that Newark is becoming a greener city, a city with more plantings, more yard gardens, even cleaner sidewalks and streets, is a part of the transformation of the self-identity of the city “generally,” and the transformation in the identity of growing numbers of Newarkers, who want their little plot of land and their street to look livable and more wholesome. It may have been to an extent one of Mayor Sharpe James’ most important legacies: soon after he was elected in 1986, he launched an award series that lasted about twenty years – it was called “A Sharper Image” award. And urban gardeners received some of these awards. Downtown businesses that improved their signage received the awards. Some of the bigger organizations that just made their space look more appealing, received the awards. And that kind of thing kind of catches on. It becomes almost a kind of civic epidemic. And now, I think it’s in pretty much full bloom. I led a tour of Newark, I guess about five or six years ago, … the late Charles Cummings and I took 2 or 3 busloads of people around Newark, and we both noticed for the first time, the profusion of rose bushes throughout the city. I suspect it had less to do with an official policy in the city, than the fact that so many people love that particular planting.

Q. What about the work of the Greater Newark Conservancy?
Price: This is a post riot narrative. There was a lot of vacant, fallow land in Newark, after the 1967 street disorders. The Greater Newark Conservancy was one of the first not-for-profits to turn barren land into green space. And they did it in a very imaginative way. They collaborated with Rutgers University, and they collaborated with local neighborhood organizations, and got people to take advantage of the vacant lot down the street, glass-strewn, that could be turned into a garden.

Now as a historian I thought that was brilliant, because in the years after 1967, Newark becomes a town predominately inhabited by black Americans who were either born in the south, or their forebears were born in the south. And I think Conservancy and other land-use, green not-for-profits connected culture -- let’s call it ethnic culture -- with the attractiveness of green space and planting, which actually I think links every member of the human family. Essentially we all come from farmers.

The Greater Newark Conservancy makes the short list of just about every foundation that cares for Newark. It started in the late ‘80’s, when Newark is still recovering from its long bout with decline and frustration. It’s a start-up not-for-profit that does three things very well. First of all it reached into neighborhoods and communities that were very much despairing during that period. Secondly, it connects with the Newark public school system and makes environmental education a part of a curriculum that has some legs, that has some logic to it. And thirdly, perhaps most importantly, when Newark was not quite “there” with respect to what to do with all of this vacant land, they come up with a strategy and create the urban gardens movement.

Then they manage to acquire one of Newark’s great nineteenth century edifices, the old Oheb Shalom -- Metropolitan Baptist Church edifice in the central ward. [The three-story brick former synagogue is an example of Moorish Revival architecture and is listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places. – ed.] The Conservancy is going to use the edifice as their headquarters, and now right next to their headquarters is an outdoor learning center, … a parcel of land that is going to help kids and their parents and their caregivers connect Newark’s paved environment with this green environment. So right in the middle of what used to be the most densely-populated part of America will be a learning center for green. And that is really one of the most important things that has happened in this city.

I think there is a connection between what might be called “civic education,” and urban gardening. Over the last ten years, in keeping with hip-hop culture, a lot of younger Newarkers refer to Newark as “Brick City.” I think that probably has to do with the fact that Newark during the second half of the twentieth century built more high rise public housing projects than any other American city proportionate to the size of Newark. So it becomes like a “bricked-in city.” I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, unless if that is the only way that the kids can imagine their city.

What I’m hoping is this urban gardening movement, both the strategy and the practice of urban gardening, will encourage young Newarkers, and maybe not so young Newarkers, to rediscover the great importance of having some facility with the soil. Having some interest in planting, in harvesting. And because once you do that, you really become a steward of the land, and you become a person who – although living in “Brick City” – you’re connecting to your grandparents, and you’re connecting to one of the most important, perhaps the most important industry in the United States, and that’s the agricultural industry. We’re all very dependent on that particular industry.

Q. In much of the work involving the greening of Newark, there’s a great emphasis on citizen involvement. Why?
Price: What will drive the city’s future will not be a city administration, although we have high expectations for the new mayor, and the new council. It will be citizen-driven. What happened during Newark’s decline, second half of the twentieth century, is citizens began to act as if they were non-citizens. They began to act as if they had no aspirations. No deep optimism for the city. That seemingly has bottomed out, and what we’re finding is more civic awareness, more determination, … and also the forging of organizations that look after neighborhoods, promote green spaces, and hold the city government accountable for doing what a city government is supposed to do, and that’s to address the needs of the citizens. The residents of a city.

I think the best example of a citizen-driven effort to stabilize, restore, refurbish would be the Branch Brook Park Alliance, and its sister organization, the Weequahic Park Improvement Association. Weequahic might even be more important in this sense: that park had really lost its way. 1970’s and 1980’s, it was disgraceful. The county had almost cut the park loose. It wasn’t maintained as well as Branch Brook Park. It really was a park almost going back to seed. A group of black residents -- not high and mighty, not people of great political clout -- started a not-for-profit. They began to apply for grants, and they got enough grants to create a walking, jogging trail all along that park. I think it’s one of the most important things that we’ve seen from the black community over the last thirty years … because everybody knows that the Weequahic section was a heavily Jewish section, from the 1940’s on until the early 1970’s. The Jewish families in the main abandoned that section over the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the blacks succeeded the Jews. What I find most remarkable and what gives me great joy as a resident of Newark is that those – if you will – “new settlers” identified with the park first and foremost, and wherever the Weequahic neighborhood is going, I believe the park will get there first.

Q. Many Newarkers we talked to had quite a lot to say about how Newark is perceived from the outside. Is that something Newarkers need to care about?
Price: I think the outside image of Newark is probably more important for Newark than the outside image of, Chicago. Newark rivals Detroit as a city being near the bottom of perception by people who don’t live in this city. In many ways it took Newark almost thirty years to recover from the negative image associated with the ‘67 riots. It may have to do with the fact that although that was a local riot, it was reported nationally, and internationally. So we Newarkers need to care about what outsiders think of us, because to some extent a city rises or falls on the perception that it enjoys or doesn’t enjoy from people from the outside.

Let’s take an example: New York City. Remember when New York City really had this awful reputation as a place where you would come to New York City and you might have a very bad day? And then New York City discovered marketing itself as The Big Apple, as America’s City. And that really worked. Now it’s hard to even get into New York City because of its popularity by people who want a New York City experience. I don’t know if Newark will ever rival New York City, but if Newark can challenge and turn around the negative that it has even in the state in which it is located, … that would be a major plus for the city. That would probably mean that Newark would enjoy what all cities historically enjoy.

Because cities enjoy having things that the suburbs will never have. And there will never be a New Jersey Performing Arts Center type complex in Short Hills or Milburn, although both of those towns are wonderful little towns and they have artistic conceits, especially Millburn. But what Newark has – higher education, a great art museum, a great library, 2 great parks, … we want those who live say fifteen minutes to forty-five minutes from Newark, to rediscover the city, because the city is worthy of a second look.

I also think it’s very important for Newarkers to realize that the outside impression – by outsiders, obviously – affects their lives, for two reasons. One, much of the negativity needs to be challenged. Newark needs to stand up for Newark. And secondly, much of the negativity has to do with race. There’s this old adage in America: when a city becomes either predominately or near-predominately minority, that city is going to decline, and maybe fail. We now know that that is not necessarily the case. It certainly isn’t the case in Newark.

Newark is never going to be as it once was, it’s never going to be a predominately white ethnic city. It’s probably going to be a predominately black and brown city, with whites kind of sprinkled around in various and sundry neighborhoods. And one great contribution that Newark could make is, … can you imagine if the city were to have another era in which things get done, in which big ideas become realities? It would be one of the first times in American urban history where a minority city is a city to be admired.

Q. What are some of the challenges to the urban greening efforts that have been happening over the past decade or two?
Price: There was a double-edged sword in the early work of the Greater Newark Conservancy. They would refurbish a vacant lot, and the city would take it away from them, and turn it over to a developer. I do worry that the vacant land that enabled the Greater Newark Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land [and its Parks for People—Newark program – ed.] to get started in Newark, and to get invested in Newark, does not exist in the same expanse as before.

However what does exist is a mayoral administration and a city council that realizes that Newark’s lack of planning during the twentieth century led to some pretty desperate circumstances, the most important of which is that you had very poor zoning, very poor ordinance enforcement. At the end of the day, you had a city which was kind of illogically moving through the twentieth century. Now Mayor Booker, on the campaign trail and still young in his administration, has pledged to create pocket parks, to protect green spaces, to make Newark … child-friendly. Where I come from, where you come from, … a child-friendly city is a city that has green spaces and neighborhoods, quality neighborhoods and quality play spaces. So if we were to take the new mayor at his word, and we should, he will probably be the first mayor in a generation that places green, children, and rational planning at the top of his agenda.

Q. Are you seeing signs of a return of civic pride?
Price: I believe that the most important change agent in a city is when its residents do good work for themselves and their neighbors. One of the things that seemingly hastened Newark’s decline was that Newark was driven by Broad Street interests, the big banks and the big insurance companies. The neighborhoods almost went to seed because fewer and fewer community, local yokel leaders took on City Hall, or asked for assistance from the corporations. You had this great divide, where downtown Newark remained hustling and bustling, and the neighborhoods were declining, declining. And that is found throughout the city.

So if we are living through a period where people are stepping forward, and they’re trying to start pocket parks, they’re trying to rehabilitate young people, they’re trying to get good housing enforcement in their neighborhoods, … that’s a good thing, because what it does is create a synergy where people who used to be silent begin to become more vocal. And I think it’s the most hopeful thing I’ve seen in Newark in a long time.

I live in Newark, in the Lincoln Park section of the city. And it’s only been over the last three or four years that the other neighbors and the not-for-profits in that community have banded together to form a civic organization. Since we formed that organization, the park is better kept, City Hall answers our complaints, and it’s a more livable community. It’s not rocket science when one says that the small steps create a kind of cadence that has to be recognized by city fathers and mothers.

Q. Overall you see this greening movement as part of a larger movement?
Price: I do see a mindset change in Newark. There’s a demographic shift which means that Newark is receiving a lot of people who don’t have the baggage of Newark’s past. I think we have what might be called a very sophisticated set of not-for-profits who realize the importance of taking advantage of this moment where Newark is attracting the attention of the nation. A lot of people, good people, want to see Newark make it. We haven’t seen that kind of boosterism from the outside in over forty years.

And the other thing that I think inspires me about Newark, is that … there are a lot of players in Newark. There always has been. We have more stuff than any other New Jersey city in terms of art, culture, higher education, some industry left, a lot of commerce, … and all of these entities are digging deeper into Newark. Nobody’s leaving Newark anymore; nobody’s even thinking about leaving Newark. What these institutions/entities are thinking about is making a deeper investment in Newark. The Newark Public Library is to build a huge attachment to the major branch. The Newark Museum wants to create a bolder entrance to that museum. NJPAC is going to start building … market rate housing right across the street from the main building. We know about the arena. In other words, this period, to some extent, rivals Newark’s last golden era and that was that late nineteenth early twentieth century. And, it’s quite a sight.