Category Archives: Newark Artwork

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New Jersey Meadowlands

  20 August 2014 , ,
The New Jersey Meadowlands, nestled between New York City and Newark, is a strange sort of in-between zone. It belongs neither to nature nor to man. The grasslands and birds of nature are abundant. So, too, are the derelict factories and warehouses. The unwanted detritus of civilization is cast off into the Meadowlands, ranging from garbage piles to noxious-smelling industries.
Millions of commuters to and from the suburbs to New York City pass through this region of indeterminate identity. Many look out the windows of passing trains, planes, and cars. Yet few care to observe the lapping tides and bizarre beauty of this unwanted strip of land. These views show various scenes from my daily train ride through the Meadowlands between Newark Broad Street and Hoboken Terminal.

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In Memory of Jimmy Hoffa
In Memory of Jimmy Hoffa
Railroad Station
Railroad Station
Factory Yard
Factory Yard
Hackensack River
Hackensack River
NJ Meadowlands
NJ Meadowlands
Dredging toxic industrial runoff buried in the river
Dredging toxic industrial runoff buried in the river
Industial beachhead at Port Newark
Industial beachhead at Port Newark
After hours in Port Newark
After hours in Port Newark
Hackensack River
Hackensack River
New Jersey Meadowlands
New Jersey Meadowlands
Overhead Power Lines
Overhead Power Lines
Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands
Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands
meadowlands 10
meadowlands 7
Power Generators
Power Generators
City in autumn
City in autumn
NJ Meadowlands
NJ Meadowlands
Old drawbridge at Port Newark
Old drawbridge at Port Newark
Shell Oil monopoly
Shell Oil monopoly
Power Generators
Power Generators
Port Newark tire yard
Port Newark tire yard
Sunset on the Passaic River
Sunset on the Passaic River
Jersey City Factories
Jersey City Factories
Premonition of a city on the Passaic River
Premonition of a city on the Passaic River

My little neighborhood in Downtown Newark

  1 June 2014 ,

Washington Park in Downtown Newark

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Newark Model SmallLeft to right: Broad Street Station, Polhemus House, YWCA Building, Newark Museum, Ballantine House,
Second Presbyterian Church, American Insurance Company, Newark Public Library

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When I examine old pictures of my neighborhood in Newark’s archives, I realize that so much of my city’s built environment has vanished. This trend will continue, as it does in most cities where old buildings outlive their use. If not in the form of my city’s physical destruction, this loss is in the form of my gradual loss of childhood memories. To reconcile this, I built the below model as my own souvenir. This keepsake will forever remind me of my Newark identity.
The landmarks depicted are selected from my neighborhood and include my childhood home. The buildings are drawn with ink and pastel on thick paper, which is then cutout to form a two-dimensional silhouette. The trolleys travel back and forth down the street and are magnetically operated by a crank and hidden string beneath the street. The tracks guide the trains up, down, and into the tunnel. These trolleys are modeled on those that used to exist in Newark, long before my time here.
Perhaps, this models presents a more romanticized and idealized Newark than the city that actually exists.

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Subway Entrance
Subway Station
Newark Public Library
Newark Museum
Newsstand
Newark Museum
James Street Ensemble
Presbyterian Church / Broad St. Station
American Insurance / Public Library
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The Old Essex County Jail

  17 April 2014 , ,

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The old Essex Country Jail sits forlorn and abandoned amidst desolate parking lots and lifeless prefab boxes. In the so-called University Heights neighborhood, the jail is testimony to the past. Listed on the National Register of Historical Places, this 1837 structure is one of the oldest jails in America and the oldest civic structure in the city. Abandoned for over fifty years, no successful preservation efforts have materialized.
The urban jungle of junk trees, vines, and garbage conquers the old fortress. The warden’s garden that zealous prisoners once pruned and weeded is now overrun with nature. Used syringes line the cell-block floors. Not a single window is unbroken. Not a single wall is straight or strong. The rigid geometry that defined this urban castle is now blanketed in decay.
Yet, this fortress of old is still a home. A trail of homeless squeeze through the rusted barbed wire fencing. They carry with them their few odd valuables, cans to be recycled or shopping bags of discarded clothes. Every night, they sleep in the very cells their luckless brethren slept in decades before. Every day, they wander city streets in search of donations, food, and work. The physical prison of brute force and searchlights has evolved into the no less oppressive prison of poverty. Both prisons, new and old, are refuges for the luckless. As its occupants have changed, so has the prison. Both are ghosts. Both are vanishing.

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Related content

  1. Read my January 2021 article in The Newarker magazine.
  2. Read this July 2020 article from Jersey Digs
    about my exhibit and the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s proposal to reuse this jail site.
  3. Hear my September 2019 interview about this jail and exhibit from Pod & Market.
  4. Explore this jail as an interactive exhibit online.
  5. View this artwork as part of my short film from 2016 called Pictures of Newark.

 

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North Wing (left) and West Wing (right)

West Wing

Warden’s House

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Ruins of Warden’s House Interior

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Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
Overgrown Courtyard
Overgrown Courtyard
Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
Decayed Stairs
Decayed Stairs
Boiler Room
Boiler Room
Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
Children's books left by homeless inhabitant and her family.
Children’s books left by homeless inhabitant and her family.
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
Mural
Mural
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Newark’s Hidden River

  2 March 2014 ,

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It is ironic that Newark should ignore the very river it was founded on, the Passaic River. It was the pristine wooded river our city’s founding fathers first saw in 1666. It was our city’s artery to the sea and our industries’ source of wealth. It was the throbbing, flowing heart of our city.
After the automobile drove people to the suburbs and globalization exported jobs abroad, the Passaic was no longer a water highway. It is now this industrial town’s polluted heart. The corporate towers of Newark’s “Renaissance” meet industrial history at the riverbank. The murky waters contain secrets of illegal dumping and toxic pollution that will remain buried for eternity, leaking their oils and toxins down stream. The industrial past clings on, refusing to vanish in forgotten waters. The river of change, the Passaic River, is a place of shifting contrasts, where past meets present.
The river flows on.
View this artwork as part of a short film titled Pictures of Newark

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Sunset on the Passaic River
Sunset on the Passaic River
Waiting for demolition at the "Little Annie Drawbridge"
Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Drawbridge”
Symmetrical bridges cross the Passic River
Symmetrical bridges cross the Passic River
Old drawbridge at Port Newark
Old drawbridge at Port Newark
The city's industrial past is still reflected in the Passaic River
The city’s industrial past is still reflected in the Passaic River
Dredging toxic industrial runoff buried in the river
Dredging toxic industrial runoff buried in the river
A new park on the Passaic River
A new park on the Passaic River
Forgotten industrial waste on the Passaic River
Forgotten industrial waste on the Passaic River
Port Newark
Port Newark
Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands
Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands
New Jersey Meadowlands
New Jersey Meadowlands
Waiting for demolition at the "Little Annie Bridge"
Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Bridge”
Industial beachhead at Port Newark
Industial beachhead at Port Newark
Founding fathers
Founding fathers
City in autumn
City in autumn
After hours in Port Newark
After hours in Port Newark
Golden age city at sunset
Golden age city at sunset
Premonition of a city on the Passaic River
Premonition of a city on the Passaic River