Thomas R. Brooks Breakdown in Newark Carmine Casciano, a personable, young ark and a former mayoral aide, both to junior-high school teacher, acts as my guide Hugh J. Addonizio and later to Kenneth A. to Newark's "predominantly white" North Gibson. "You've got to remember," said Ward. He is a district leader and president of Malafronte, "that many whites want peace, the North Ward Young Democrats—im- and Imperiale means trouble." Imperiale lost mersed in the politics of his time and place. his 1970 bid for the mayoralty and, although We first pass through tree-lined streets, a he ran well ahead in his own ward, lost in neighborhood of substantial homes and June 1971 a sortie aimed at the North lawns, and this year's cars parked in the Ward's Democratic party leadership. (Im- driveways. "The strength of the Republican periale was a Republican, which may explain party is here in Forest Hills," Casciano tells the failure of his 1971 invasion. For other me. "The other parts of the Ward are Demo- reasons see Richard Krickus's article, p. cratic." But not altogether; as Casciano noses 107.) In the 1971 fall elections, Imperiale his car into a narrow, brick-paved street, he made a comeback, winning an assembly seat says, "Now we're in Imperiale City, basically in the state legislature, as an Independent. a Republican area." This is a neighbor- The ambulance he drives, as a service to his hood of short blocks, tiny plots, and small neighborhood and for part of his living, was frame houses—"$6,000–$7,000-a-year peo- parked outside the storefront that houses his ple." "Imperiale City" is named for State Karate Club and the headquarters of the Assemblyman Anthony Imperiale, elected in North Ward Citizens' Association. Imperi- November 1971 on an Independent ticket. ale's home, I am told by Casciano, is in the Imperiale first gained national attention by North Ward's black neighborhood. winning a seat on the Newark City Council There are some 100,000 residents in the in a white backlash that followed the 1967 North Ward, a broad rise of land west of the riots. He once described his followers as Passaic River and roughly four miles from "the-good guys," and likened Newark to "a downtown Newark. The population is an town of the old West. The good guys are estimated 70-75 percent white, with a siz- prepared to shoot to kill to keep the peace, able black and Spanish-speaking minority. if Negroes come to burn our homes." During Puerto Ricans are the largest single group the tense aftermath of the riot, Imperiale moving into the Ward but, I am told, "a lot sat at one end of a "hot line" while Imamu of the home-buying is done by Cubans." Baraka (Leroi Jones) sat at the other—and "We're basically Italian with a few Irish neither had reconciliation in mind. Imperi- and mixed," Casciano explains as we drive ale's is a politics of resentment; his presence through a neighborhood of the comfortably on the City Council served to inflame the well-off—of "judges, lawyers, doctors, pro- passions of Newark, not to calm them. I dis- fessionals"—and on to another with mod- cussed Imperiale with Don Malafronte, one est, asphalt-sided, single-family houses—of of the most knowledgeable men about New- "mostly factory workers." There is a "proj- 128 ect," with its load of welfare cases; the it's a different story in the North Ward, too, privately owned Colonnades where "the and there white Newark is hardly Business minimum rent is in the $200-a-month Newark. Another photograph showed fire- bracket"; and Academy Spires, "all black, gutted tenements along Springfield Avenue, and most of them vote Democratic." We pass assumed to be "remnants of the 1967 riots." a modest, modem structure, the Church of The caption identified this as Black Newark the Immaculate Conception, called "the little with "the highest crime rate in the nation. Italian Church"; further on, we see Our Lady ."etc.) of Good Council, larger and older, and "the Black Newark, in truth, is a world of great Irish Church." The Catholic high school lets variety. To give but one illustration: the out as we drive by, and a quick look at young parents, most non-Catholic and nearly all faces confirms Casciano's observation, "it's black, of the children at St. Charles Bor- mostly white." Barringer, a prestigious public romeo parochial school, in the predom- high school located in the North Ward, is inantly black South Ward, last summer "mixed," and a local junior high seems so, raised $4,000 at a card party, $20-a-week too. There are not as many For Sale signs at school parking lot barbecues, and $111,- as I was led to expect by newspaper and 000 from a drive to keep the school from downtown accounts. "People want to sell," closing for financial reasons.' Casciano tells me, "but they can't get a de- cent price." We do see some signs and he Newark, with 375,000 souls, is the first points to one, "If you see that sign [put up American city, after Washington, D.C., to by the firm Jordan-Barish], you know they attain a black majority. The Census Bureau want to sell to blacks." There are American gave the city's black population in 1970 as flags out in front of the houses, and flag de- 54.2 percent; Harry L. Wheeler, Newark's cals decorate automobile windows. There director of manpower, estimates that 62 per- also are some Italian flags and decals. "That's cent of Newark is black and 11 percent of new." Spanish background, leaving 27-35 percent When I ask about reactions to Gibson's of the city white. Though a recent study notes election, Casciano says, "People were fright- that immigrants from Europe, "mainly Por- ened, afraid that all whites would suffer. tuguese and some Italian" still come to the During the school strike, it seemed as if their city, there's scarcely a trace left of the 1938 fears were coming true. Things are really Newark, with its 23,400 Irish, 36,900 Ger- polarized now. The way it's around here," mans, 35,600 Poles, 65,000 Jews, and 85,- he added, "Republican and Democrat don't mean much any more; now it's Italian and 1 These pictures are much more apposite than the black." There's a "White Newark" and a Times captions allow. Two years ago I was walk- ing through the blocks off Springfield Avenue, "Black Newark"—the pressure of polariza- heart of the 1967 riot scene. I asked my com- tion showed in the captions of two photo- panion, George Fontaine—director of the Newark graphs illustrating Fred J. Cook's article on office of the Workers Defense League–A. Philip Randolph Joint Apprenticeship Program—if a Newark and Mayor Gibson in the July 25, near-block-long, gutted row of brick houses had 1971 New York Times Magazine. One photo been burned out in the riot. Fontaine smiled and showed Broad Street with the new, gleaming told me, "No, it wasn't the riot, just a fire." Some dwellings were burned in 1967, mostly incidental Prudential Insurance Company headquarters to the destruction of business establishments. in the background. The caption quoted Those vacated buildings one sees in profusion throughout the heart of the Central Ward were Cook: "Bamberger's still there; Ohrbach's emptied by fire. As Fontaine put it, "Fire insur- still there. Business Newark does $3.5 billion ance gets canceled and that's it, baby." Pruden- worth of retail trade annually.... But to the tial as the major insurance company in Newark, therefore, bears some responsibility for boarded- west and south it is a different story." Well, up housing. BREAKDOWN IN NEWARK 129 300 Italians. With the exception of the Ital- white households in Newark in 1966 was ians, the remaining whites in the city are by $6,752. Roughly 75 percent of white fami- and large elderly. Their children and grand- lies in the city earned under $10,000 a year. children presumably live in the middle- and Thirteen percent of its white families are be- working-class suburbs outside Newark. 2 No low the poverty line ($3,000 a year). A ma- one, as far as I know, has recorded the eth- jority of white males (61.7 percent) work in nic migration out of Newark nor located ex- the city, while nearly 40 percent travel out- actly those who stayed, but a report of the side to jobs. Of the female residents, 78.2 Newark office of the American Jewish Com- percent work in Newark and 21.8 percent mittee estimates that "approximately 6,000 outside the city. Jews are left" in the city. The majority live Nearly half of the whites (44.5 percent), in the South Ward (Weequahic Section) and according to the Rutgers' study, have al- the balance in the West Ward (Ivy Hill sec- ways resided in Newark, while 19.5 percent tion). come from other New Jersey points, and 16 The city's predominant remaining white percent from New York, Pennsylvania, or group is Italian American. In Beyond the New England, and 15.6 percent are immi- Melting Pot, their study of New York grants. The study estimated that there are City, Nathan Glazer and Patrick Moynihan 92 white males for every 100 white females found that Italian neighborhoods were more in the population.