Memories from Vailsburg

At the time of the Newark riots I was 10 years old and living in the Vailsburg section, two blocks from Vailsburg Park. I still to this day remember the 10 p.m. curfew and the National Guard stationed at the corner of the block along with tanks positioned in the park. I was born and raised in Newark and spent my first 20 years in the city.

Living in the West Ward of Newark was interesting in the sense of diversity due to the "given" boundary lines......east of the Garden State Parkway was where the black population was continuing to grow and west of the Parkway was where the white population was continuing to diminish. I have great memories of playing baseball at Vailsburg Park and growing up with some great guys from the neighborhood. My family also worked as employees for the city of grandmother worked in City Hall and my mom worked in the Housing Authority.

Several years ago after residing in other parts of the country, I returned to New Jersey and now reside in Somerset County with my family. Today's article brought back a lot of memories both good and bad. I took my sons to the old neighborhood to let them see where I had grown up. My home was an empty had burned down to the ground and I learned that after we sold the home in the mid 70's the neighborhood became a high crime area.

After 40 years and a lot of lessons learned, I sense some opportunities for revitalizing the city;however, I remember an analogy of another city that experienced the same type of difficulties that Newark had and that city took a different course. The city I reference is Baltimore. Baltimore had pretty much the same type of issues Newark had some forty years ago and somehow found a way to rebound and by no means are they perfect but I believe they are ahead of Newark in many ways.

I would not want to be Cory Booker because he is faced with a huge mountain to climb and maybe he should take a hard look at other major cities that climbed the mountain. He needs to be careful in his approach and I wish him all the best. I would love to bring my kids back and show them a revitalized city.

- Ed Fagan, Branchburg