Just reading today's New York Daily News and saw the headline "Newark docu: A hard look at a tough town"--there will be a five-part series on Newark called "Brick City" starting tonight at 10 on the Sundance channel. Thought all you guys might be interested. I know I'll check it out.

For those who have Cablevision, the program will be on Channel No. 192. I'll miss Monday's broadcast as I'll be watching the Monday Night Football game. I spent over 30 years dealing with the crime in Newark. Not much they could show me that I haven't seen already. These shootings and Homocides are really nothings compared to what went on in the 70's and 80's when the police department was at an alltime low in personnel patroling the streets. Those incidents were primarly robbery related compared to the gang/drug wars of today.

Did anyone ever hear that nickname?

I don't have that channel- so I won't be able to watch- but why is Newark called "Brick City"
In fact- I didn't know that there was even any brick factories around.

My Roseville relatives were hatters...

I have heard it's because of all the brick housing projects, most of which have been torn down.

1.)Brick City got its name because the streets used to be bricks. In American Pastoral, Philip Roth describes the riots and looting that went on in 1967. The looting was so bad that the very bricks from the streets were looted by construction companies. One day after the riots the protagonist returns to his factory in Newark to discover even the roads were gone. Even sculpted pieces of old buildings were looted. The nickname had to be redefined because to bring up its original context only reminds everyone of the city's rapid demise.
2.)"Brick City" referred to the acres of public housing projects which teemed over Newark. One could stand on the corner of Springfield Avenue and look south down Irvine Turner Boulevard -- formerly Belmont Avenue. As far as you could see were the towers (in this case Stella Wright) of the failed public housing projects -- all constructed of bricks. For many native Newarkers, who can remember life in the projects, the term "Brick City" still stings.
3.)"Nickname for Newark, New Jersey, it derived from the large amount of crack bricks that can be purchased. The hardest, most ghetto city in America, possibly the world. If you think your city is ghetto, come here and prepare to be blown away."

I heard that 60 years ago Newark was voted the most livable city in the US. Today that is an unbelievable fact. I don't think that another place has ever fallen so hard and so fast.

Well, there was Pompei . . .

. . . and Little Big Horn.

have you foregotten 1968?that was the death of what use to called the poor mans paris

I do not recall the name being used until this film.

Interesting, the reference to 'Brick City" and the disappearing bricks (and the Belgian Block street pavers also) in these past messages.

A number of years back, as a neighbor and I from Maplewood used to commute into Newark every day, we would notice the ever-expanding holes in the sides of the abandoned brick buildings. We used to comment that the "brick moths" must be at work to make this happen. It was a wonder that none of these buildings had collapsed on anyone, considering the sizes of the disappearing walls. Sure enough, eventually it did happen and made the newspapers about person(s) being injured.

There must have been a meaningful market for those reclaimeded bricks, much like I saw in Berlin, Germany during the mid 50's while serving in the US Army.