After The Riots
The 1970s and 1980s brought continued decline. The middle class of all races continued to leave the city. Certain pockets of the city developed as domains of poverty and social isolation. Whenever the media of New York needed to find some example of urban despair, they traveled to Newark.
In American Pastoral, the 1997 novel by Newark-born author Philip Roth, the protagonist Swede Levov says:
| “ | Newark used to be the city where they manufactured everything, now it's the car theft capital of the world ... there was a factory where somebody was making something on every side street. Now there's a liquor store on every street — a liquor store, a pizza stand, and a seedy storefront church. Everything else is in ruins or boarded up. | ” |
In January 1975, an article in Harper's Magazine ranked the fifty largest American cities in twenty-four categories, ranging from park space to crime. Newark was one of the five worst in nineteen out of twenty-four categories, and the very worst in nine. According to the article, only 70 percent of residents owned a telephone. St. Louis, the city ranked second worst, was much farther from Newark than the cities in the top five were from each other. The article concluded:
| “ | The city of Newark stands without serious challenge as the worst city of all. It ranked among the worst cities in no fewer than nineteen of twenty-four categories, and it was dead last in nine of them... Newark is a city that desperately needs help. | ” |
Newark has had several achievements in the two and a half decades since the riots. In 1968, the New Community Corporation was founded. It has become one of the most successful community development corporations in the nation. By 1987, the NCC owned and managed 2,265 low-income housing units.
Newark's downtown began to redevelop in the post-riot decades. Less than two weeks after the riots, Prudential announced plans to underwrite a $24 million office complex near Penn Station, dubbed "Gateway." Today, Gateway houses thousands of white-collar workers, though few live in Newark.
Before the riots, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was considering building in the suburbs. The riots and Newark's undeniable desperation kept the medical school in the city. However, instead of being built on 167 acres (676,000 m²), the medical school was built on just 60 acres (240,000 m2), part of which was already city owned. Students at the medical school soon started the "Student Family Health Clinic" to provide free health care for the underserved population, along with other community service projects. It continues to operate today as one of the nation's oldest student-run free health clinics.
In 1970, Kenneth A. Gibson was the first African-American to be elected mayor of Newark, as well as to be elected mayor of a major northeastern city. The 1970s were a time of battles between Gibson and the shrinking white population. Gibson admitted that "Newark may be the most decayed and financially crippled city in the nation." He and the city council raised taxes to try to improve services such as schools and sanitation, but they did nothing for Newark's economic base. The CEO of Ballantine's Brewery asserted that Newark's $1 million annual tax bill was the cause of the company's bankruptcy.
Read more about this topic: History Of Newark, New Jersey