Burning Buildings, Broken Windows and My Dad

Jeff Cohen

I posted the following on Facebook earlier this week and it got enough of a response that I thought I might let my DEAD GUY friends see it as well. It's true, as well as I can remember, and it is meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of a violent moment in the history of Newark, New Jersey from which the city has still not completely recovered. I will not debate the politics of that moment, which some call riots and others a rebellion, as I was nine years old at the time and not exactly a savvy observer of social issues. This is a personal story, and it's related as well as I can given that a half-century has gone by since it happened.

I've done a little revising.

Fifty years after the violence in Newark (call it riot or rebellion) I have a very modest story to tell: I was nine years old and we lived in Irvington, a suburb of Newark, less than four miles from the heart of the disturbance. Since then Irvington has gained its own reputation for violence and crime, but that is another story. 

My father owned a paint and wallpaper store on West Market Street in Newark and traveled there every morning at six. He came home at six every evening. The people in the neighborhood, who were almost exclusively African-American, weren't "friends," but knew him well enough to understand the kind of man he was.

When the trouble began during the "Summer of Love," there was extensive coverage on television and radio. I remember my mother being terrified and calling the store to reach Dad. He was waffling on staying there and waiting for things to quiet down. She was adamant: COME HOME NOW!

My father would do anything for my mother, and acquiesced to her wishes (later letting us know he had stopped at the bank and had a decent wad of cash on him because he didn't know when he'd be back). There were no cell phones, children, so the time between that first phone call and when he'd be expected to walk through our door was radio silence.

But walk through he did and I've never seen my mother, who is now 88, look so relieved. I felt it myself, although I wasn't sure why everybody in Newark was so angry (I found out later). He told us about the buildings on fire and the broken windows and doors he's seen on the drive home. He'd seen violence on Springfield Avenue and downplayed it in front of the children, but the newspapers, television and radio didn't care that we were young; they told it all.

There were reports of arson and looting going on in and around the neighborhood of my father's store. He was concerned about what he'd find when he went back.

I honestly don't remember if Dad returned the the store the next day or three days later. My mother says he was probably home a couple of days until the state of emergency was lifted. But he called us when he got there and reported no damage to his business.

Instead he found that the locals had taken bars of soap and written the words SOUL BROTHER on his front plate-glass window. The store had been untouched.

A few years after that summer my father had moved the store back to where it began, on Chancellor Avenue in Irvington because the new University of Medicine and Dentistry was expanding and bought the building from my father. Today a parking lot stands on that street. I don't know if he ever discussed those awful days (26 people died and many more were injured) with his neighbors on West Market Street, or thanked them for their kind gesture. But there had been a trust--probably unspoken--between and among them and it had been borne out.

It speaks to me today of what kind of man my father was, but also of what kind of people lived in that city. When the real time of crisis--and it was nothing short of that--came, they looked out for those who had treated them with respect. It says a lot.

Comments

[Alice Duncan]

That's one of the best (as in goodest, but that's not a word) story I've ever heard. Glad you told it.

[Art Taylor]

Very much enjoyed this story, Jeff. Thanks so much for sharing it. It does indeed say a lot about your dad and about the people in the city.

[Sue]

Most Interesting!

[Patty]

Thank you for the story, Jeff. Your father sounds like he was an upstanding member of the community and was rewarded for it.

[carl brookins]

Perhaps someday we'll learn, from recollections like this one, that people are not good, bad or ordinary, in groups. We must learn to interact as individuals, with individuals and avoid labels. Thanks for this memory, Jeff.