The year is 1950. The place is the Roseville Armory. The occasion is the annual Roseville Punkin Parade. More accurately, it's the prelude to the parade, where contestants vie for prizes for Best Costume. I bet if we look hard enough we can recognize somebody in the audience. Photo courtesy St. Rose rectory.
I don't remember exactly, but I am as sure as I can be I am in there somewhere. And you're right, I don't live there anymore -- haven't since 1970. :-)
Yep, those numbers match my thinking, too. For anyone who used to participate in neighborhood events and wonderful festivities like the Pumpkin Parade, just as I once did, it might as well have been a thousand years ago. Man, whatever happened to that city?
A lot of complex things happened to Newark, beginning a century ago. First there was the movement of the well to do and factory owners from the city to the near suburbs in the early 1900s, making Newark's natural leadership reluctant to pay taxes on their business property that remained in the city for the amenities like the museum and libraries they once supported, but their families no longer used. Along came the depression, which bankrupted the city. A wartime mini-boom of short duration led to the post WWII prosperity and blue collar opportunities to buy homes in the suburbs and a national road building program facilitated those suburbs. The 1967 riots, accompanied by the increasing overall deindustrialization of America and disappearance of both factories and jobs, plus local mini-disasters like the construction of RT. 280 and assorted crooked politicians raiding an increasingly diminshed city treasury was the icing on the cake, so to speak.
As for me, I always had a yen to live in the country and do outdoor things, although I did appreciate the things of the city, like the proximity of NYC, a great library, good restaurants and food. When the opportunity came, home from the war and with everyone else gone or going, however, I jumped "down the shore," where my wife grew up. I still visit, mostly for Italian hot dogs. :-)
Whewie, a dissertation! I was reflecting philosophically, not historically.
But, hey, you're right, all that did happen and it's a complex subject to analyze. As for any modern manufacturing centers anywhere: MADE IN CHINA.
THANK YOU JOE. THAT WAS GREAT!
WE MOVED IN FEB. OF 66. MY PARENTS FELT THAT IT WAS NO LONGER SAFE FOR US TO LIVE IN ROSEVILLE.I WAS MUGGED WHILE WALKING UP 11TH STREET TO MEET DEBBIE CORDASCO. WHEN WERE GOING TO THE BRANCH BROOK SKATING RINK. THE RACIAL TENSIONS WERE ALREADY HIGH. THE POLICE WERE AWARE OF IT. THEY TOLD US THAT THEY COULD ONLY CHARGE THE GIRLS WITH WHO MUGGED ME WITH STEALING MY PURSE, NOT WITH THE ACTUAL MUGGING. MY PURSE HAD $2.00 IN IT. WE HAD TO GO TO JUVENILE COURT AND WERE PUT ON PROBATION FOR 1 YEAR.
FATHER MCDONALD KNEW THE GIRLS AND THEY APPARENTLY TOLD HIM THE SMAE STORY THAT THEY TOLD THE JUDGE IN JUVENILE COURT. THAT WAS THAT MY MOTHER AND I BEAT THEM UP. THE JUDGE SAW THREW THEIR STORY BUT FATHER MCDONALD NEVER DID.
