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NJ PAC
NJ PAC, Newark, NJ

NEWARK

Turning Neighborhoods Around

Some are calling this once-destitute city the “New Newark.” Crime rates are plummeting, communities are reclaiming drug-infested parks, and schooling and career-development programs are on the rise. But while central Newark has been revitalized, most of its old neighborhoods remain impoverished. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has been a major force in the effort to make sure that Newark ’s renaissance isn’t confined to the business district. LISC plans to support the construction of over 1,000 housing units by 2006. Prudential Financial Services, one of Living Cities’ founding members and Newark ’s oldest corporation, has been a longtime sponsor of revitalization.

Bringing Supermarkets Back to the Neighborhoods

For decades after the 1967 riots, many in inner city Newark had no access to supermarkets. Local CDCs have been particularly active in the effort to bring them back. In Newark’s North Ward, La Casa de Don Pedro CDC has been at work on the economic development of the Lower Broadway Commercial Corridor, and has played a large role in the development of Broad Street Plaza, which includes a 40,000 square-foot supermarket and 21,000 square feet of additional commercial real estate. Similar projects have been undertaken in the Central Ward by Crest CDC, which is involved in the development of a 52,000 square-foot shopping center.

Rebuilding the Central Ward

newark

Newark ’s Central Ward, devastated by the 1967 riots, has come back as well, and CDCs have been responsible for much of its success. The New Community Corporation, a CDC organized by Father William J. Linder one year after the riots, has been funding housing development and community services for over 35 years, developing and financing more than 3,000 homes, job training, and major shopping centers.

Its success is of particular note because of the difficulties New Community faced in its early years as one of the nation’s first CDCs. After a decade spent earning the trust of a suspicious local population, the accomplishments started piling up: its first major development opened in 1975, and family and senior citizen residences were built throughout the 1980s and 1990s. A Pathmark supermarket opened in 1990 and paved the way for private businesses to return to the area. Most recently, a $25 million housing development of two- and three-bedroom townhouses has been completed on the site of the old Hayes Homes public housing project, the flashpoint of the 1967 riots.