Everything Newark

Newark Star Ledger: Bearing the burden of a country’s lifelong wait. We were looking forward to posting up videos of Brazil or Portugal celebrating their World Cup win in the Ironbound, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Brad Parks interviews local Portuguese after their crushing loss to France on Wednesday.

For the team’s many supporters in this heavily Portuguese enclave, it’s been the wait of a lifetime.

“I wasn’t born the last time this happened,” said Costa, as he watched the early minutes of Portugal’s struggle against France. “I talked to my father and he told me about crying last time. I may never live to see us get this far again. That’s the kind of moment this is.”

It’s difficult to explain what exactly it means to be a Portuguese soccer die-hard. The short version goes like this: Portugal never wins anything.

Newark Star Ledger: Booker unveils his tough-love plan for Newark. Booker rolls out a plan to prevent crime in the city, enroll the community to help, and asks for accountability. This is really encouraging for citizens who, for a long time, have felt captive in their own neighborhoods by violent crime.

Booker unveiled his new program at a news conference at West Side Park that included law enforcement officials, politicians and a display of expensive new police equipment.

He called the two prongs of his plan “discipline” and “love,” in which criminals will be punished and struggling people—drug ad dicts, jobless youth, poor families and ex-cons looking to turn around their lives—will get the help they need to stay out of trouble.

The program starts this weekend and will end Sept. 7, when the new school year begins. At that point, Booker said he will start another initiative aimed at school safety.

7Online: Anti-Violence Task Force To Target Newark Killings. Newark and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announce a joint effort to quell violent crime in the city of Newark. The task force, which includes the DEA, FBI, and U.S. Marshals office adds dozens of officers on the ground in Newark’s neighborhoods and, presumably, costs the city little in terms of municpal dollars—very shrewd move on the part of Mayor Booker. Here’s hoping that this new task force puts down the trend of violent crime we’ve seen in recent weeks, including a string of five shootings in Newark and Orange just Monday night.

With scores of killings already committed this year in the state’s largest city, an anti-violence task force led by federal law enforcement agents said Monday it will focus solely on Newark to try to end the carnage.

Newsvine: Mayor Offers Beleaguered Newark New Hope. Newsvine picks up the Associated Press story on Newark’s new day, with a great photo of our new mayor.

By the time Mayor Cory Booker concluded his inauguration address Saturday, he was screaming above the thundering crowd.

“Will you stand with me, Newark?” he asked and asked again, sounding like a preacher addressing his congregation. “We must stand now and meet our challenges.”

The Newark Star Ledger is providing some clips of the Inauguration, which features some clips of Booker’s speech, and a bit of a gaffe during his oath. The Ledger also recorded some video from outside the event where Joan Whitlow pokes a little fun at the $500 donation to attend (via Newark Speaks).

The Battle for Newark blog did a lot of great work in the last couple of days. Here’s Booker sworn in as Newark mayor.

Newark Star Ledger: Emotional Side of the Game. Ironbounders were both elated and depressed over this weekend’s fútbol results. Portugal beat out England 3 – 1 in penalty kicks at the end of a long and intense game, which sent droves of Portuguese to the streets for celebration.

In a thrilling penalty kick shoot-out, Portugal bested England, 3-1, unleashing thousands of ecstatic Portuguese fans onto the Ironbound streets, their sheer enthusiasm forcing police to redirect traffic out of the area.

Cars draped in Portuguese flags idled on side streets, horns blowing and lights flashing. Men wearing flags as capes danced arm in arm through traffic.

“We’re going to be champions!” screamed Amilcar Heleno, a contractor from Springfield.

“We’re going to keep partying until tomorrow!” said Vieira.

Brazil, however, didn’t fare so well, losing to France 0 – 1 in a suprising upset.

New York Times: Booker Names 6 to Top Jobs in Newark. Two days before his inauguration, Cory Booker named officials to the top jobs in his administration. Booker’s appointments will be scrutinized relative to how they are able to deal with the growing crime problem as citizens fear an increase in the homicide rate.

Anthony Campos, a 20-year veteran of the Newark Police Department, was named acting police chief. Mr. Campos, 39, is currently the deputy chief of police and will succeed Chief Irving F. Bradley Jr. Mr. Booker said he was conducting a nationwide search for a permanent police director and chief but that he had authorized Mr. Campos to increase police presence on the street within hours of the swearing-in at noon on Saturday.

Newark has seen a rise in violent crime in the last year, and both Mr. Booker and Chief Campos cited last weekend’s violence in the city, in which eight people were shot and two of them died.

New York Times: For 75 Years, It Was a Sight to Steer By in Newark. Jonathan Miller describes the end of an icon as the Pabst brewery bottle is torn down from the Newark skyline.

It was the 60-foot-tall Pabst beer bottle, which had loomed 185 feet above Newark for 75 years, serving as a guidepost for countless weary drivers.

But on Monday, after a lengthy struggle, the rusted bottle — which was actually a 55,000-gallon water tank — came down piece by piece over seven hours. For now it is five enormous pieces of steel and copper plate three-eighths of an inch thick, and its fate is far from settled.

Ted Fiore, whose company has been demolishing the 10-acre site of the former Pabst brewery for two years, said he planned to restore the bottle at his warehouse in Newark and then give it a new home.

Today’s Flickr Friday photo comes from Flickr user paytonc, who blogs at West North. This photo has a number of notes on it to indicate places of interest, like Newark Penn Station and Branch Brook Park. Click the photo to get to the Flickr page and hold your mouse cursor over the photo to see the notes.

For more of an, ahem, overview of Newark, check out its Wikipedia page.

Newark Star Ledger: A mighty splashy Saturday for Newark. The Star Ledger has an critical opinion piece on Cory’s Inaugural Ball on Saturday. Apparently, you can’t attend the main event unless you’re making some sweet moolah (or were a volunteer for the campaign). Anyone planning to go to the “FREE” events?

If Jon Corzine could get by charging $250 a ticket for his gubernatorial inauguration, does it matter that Newark’s mayor-elect Cory Booker is charging $500 and up for his inaugural ball this Saturday at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium?