Everything Newark

Bill Cosby came back to Newark to discuss stemming the violence the city has experienced in the past six months. He essentially stuck to his script of criticizing disengaged parents and political leaders that have failed to attach the city’s problems effectively. 7Online and the Ledger have the story:

7Online: Bill Cosby discusses violence in Newark

Comedian Bill Cosby appearing in Newark on Tuesday night, but he was not there as entertainment.

Instead, he is speaking out about the alarming rate of violence in that community, especially among young people.

So far, 50 people have been murdered in Newark this year.

Live from the Ledger: Comedian Bill Cosby urges Newark to get serious

The New York Sun: Newark Takes a Hard Lesson In the Pro Stadium Game.

It seems Newark Mayor-elect Cory Booker never did make it to those sports business management classes during his days as a Rhodes scholar or at Yale’s law school. It might have saved him some aggravation in dealing with major league sports owners.

Booker, who takes office on Saturday, is thinking about backing out of the agreement that outgoing Mayor Sharpe James cut with New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek to build a Newark arena for the hockey team. Why not welcome the Devils to Newark with open arms? Because James bought the city a major league franchise that won’t have the word Newark in its name or on its arena, and he did it for a questionable price.

Newark Star Ledger: Tempting bite-size delicacies at Mompou. The Newark Star Ledger positively reviewed Mompou, the tapas & wine bar up on Ferry street in the Ironbound. I agree with them—my wife and I were there back in March, after they’d been open for about eight months, and had a great time.

The exposed brick and copper ceiling makes this restaurant look as though it was plucked from Chelsea or Tribeca. Mompou has prime real estate two blocks from Penn Station and, during the summer, Mompou opens its doors out to the sidewalk so patrons can enjoy the culture of nearby Iberia.

Find out more at their website: Mompou Tapas.

Mompou is a tapas and wine bar in Newark’s historic Ironbound district. Its distinctive atmosphere and superior Spanish cuisine make the eight-month-old storefront a standout.

Several shootings in the south and central wards of the city—one of them fatal—have been hitting the news outlets.

7Online: Can Newark’s streets be taken back?. Also with a 2-minute video of the report.

A violent night has become a busy day for police detectives in Newark. Authorities are investigating several shooting incidents that erupted last night only a few hours apart.
One of the victims was killed and eight others ended up in hospital emergency rooms.

It was a wild night on Newark’s south side. Police are still trying to figure out exactly what happened and why all these occurred a matter of blocks from one another in a matter of hours.

Live from the Ledger: Off-duty female officer robbed at gunpoint in Newark

An off-duty female officer was robbed in the driveway of her home in the South Ward, but was not harmed. From the Star Ledger:

Detectives from the Newark Police Department are searching for a bandit who robbed an off-duty female city police officer at gunpoint around 2:45 p.m. today.

During the robbery, the suspect took the officer’s purse which contained her service weapon, her police identification card and other personal items. Authorities did not identify the officer, but she was not injured.

The incident started after the 44-year-old officer parked her car in the driveway of her Newark home.

Newark Star Ledger: Newark official stripped of license. If you’ve been thinking of buying up property in Newark on the verge of its resurgence, this article from the Star Ledger will likely give you pause, particularly the bit about how this official failed to inspect some essential facilities for new development in Newark. His lack of effectiveness allowed developers to put up housing using substandard lumber and construction techniques.

State officials have revoked the license of a former Newark construction official, charging that he profited from his position by getting a discounted price on a home he was inspecting.

Today’s gorgeous Flickr Friday photo comes from Flickr user drp, a graphic designer from Belleville, New Jersey—just north of the city. This photo was taken in Newark’s own Branch Brook Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (who also designed New York’s Central Park). The park’s cherry trees rival Washington D.C. in variety and beauty.

More information about Branch Brook Park can be found on its Wikipedia page and the Branch Brook Park Alliance site. You can also view 9 other photos of the park in drp’s A Walk Through Cherry Blossom Land set on Flickr.

law.com: Could McCarter & English Be Moving out of Newark?. McCarter & English is a major law firm that, as was announced back in September, was planned to be a major tenant in a new riverfront development project planned at McCarter Highway and Raymond Boulevard. Delays in the project, though, have put M&E [...]

Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal: A New Arc. On the relationship between Cory Booker and city visionary, Jane Jacobs.

Like Mr. Florida, Cory Booker grew up in a North Jersey suburb. The son of a middle-class African-American couple who broke the color barrier, the tall, athletic Mr. Booker played football at Stanford and later studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. And like Richard Florida, he is a disciple of Jane Jacobs.

“She had a very strong belief in creating strong neighborhoods and communities,” Mr. Booker told me a couple of days before Tuesday’s election for mayor of Newark, which he won in a landslide.

Live from the Ledger: Two teens killed in Essex County. Two more teenage boys are killed this weekend due to gunfire: one in Irvington, and another on Sunset Avenue in Newark.

A 15-year-old died and two oth­ers were injured in a drive-by shooting outside a party in Ir­vington, while in Newark a 19-year-old was shot several times after an argument, police said today.

The 15-year-old, identified by his mother as Shafe Boyd Cruz of Irvington, was pronounced dead at the scene, Irvington Police Chief Michael Chase said.

…

In Newark, Kevin Hennix, a city resident, was shot several times in the upper torso about 2:45 p.m. Saturday on Sunset Street in the aftermath of an argument, said Newark Police Detective Herbert Henderson, a police spokesman.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.