3rd oldest city in the U.S. behind
Boston and New York City. The butt of many jokes nationwide and on Television shows, because many writers and comedians are orginally from there. Pronounced "Noork" by residents. Historically, a great city second only to New York, but in the last one-hundred years experienced a sharp decline, due to poor municipal planning and the 1967 riots, from which it has never recovered. See white flight and urban blight. It is broken into five distinctive wards, the central ward, the north ward, the south ward,see Weequahic, east ward see ironbound and the west ward, see vailsburg.
The central ward and south wards are home to absolutely nothing.
The north ward is home to many great
Italian restaurants and Branch Brook park, designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead, see New York's Central Park.
The east ward is home to many Portugese and Brazilian residents and many great Portugese restaurants often right next to each other.
The west ward is the most suburban, marred by South
Orange Avenue and it's open air drug market.
Newark is the sad victim of
New Jersey's odd tribalism and suburbanites' strange belief that each suburb is better than the other, especially Newark. Which has made investors afraid to invest in the city and invest in second rate
New Jersey cities such as Jersey City and Hoboken, and financial boondoggles such as the Meadowland's Xanadu (which is located in a swamp). Most
people that pass through Newark are mildly surprised that it is not as bad as they thought or had heard. An unnatural
fear and many urban legends about the city prevail. New Jerseyans often shun any major project planned in Newark such as, the NJPAC and Devil's Arena, citing that no one will attend events there, but are usually proven wrong when attendance exceeds expecation and would rather projects be in surrounding areas such as Harrison, Hoboken or Jersey City, which to
people not from
New Jersey are totally indistinguishable. Often
people think they are still in Newark when they visit surrounding areas because they ARE indistinguishable.
A possible cultural center of
New Jersey, but somehow, not. Probably because New Jerseyans believe that everything should be spread out throughout
New Jersey, contributing to horrible, backed up traffic conditions.
Suburban
girl: I was going to Harrison and I took a wrong turn, I ended up in Newark! I locked my doors, I was so scared!
Suburban girl2: Oh my God! What happend?
Suburban
girl: Nothing! But, I got out of there really fast!
Example 2:
Suburbanite: So where are you from?
Newarker: I'm from Newark.
Suburbanite: *after a
long pause* You're from the Ironbound right?
