‘Hidden History Of Newark’ by Helen Lippman
Hidden History Of Newark (2024)
Helen Lippman
(The History Press)
Longtime Newark resident Helen Lippman has followed up her terrific To Newark With Love with Hidden History Of Newark. While the former keys in on her personal history, the latter is filled with priceless pieces of information about this city, founded in 1666. President George Washington stayed here for an elongated period of time. Newark was once known for jewelry as much as Detroit is known for cars. It was also known for the finest cider in the country. It also led the way in patent leather. Upon transcending its agrarian colonial roots to becoming an industrial hub, it also gave birth to the modern beer can. Branchbrook Park, in 1895, became America’s first County Park and still hosts the most bountiful array of cherry blossoms in the country, even more colorful than in Washington DC.
Lippman doesn’t spare on her historical acumen. New Jersey was the last northern state to abolish slavery, even acquiring a nickname as “The Slave State Of The North” for its tardiness. In fact, the last 16 enslaved New Jersey residents found freedom there three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and six months after Juneteenth, the day—June 19, 1865—that the last of the Southern states, Texas, finally did away with slavery. In 1912, Newark was also a leader in the fight to allow women the right to vote.
Chapters fly by in anecdotal fashion—stunning research!—including Newark’s 1919 Communist Party and Newark’s 1933 Nazi Party. The rise of gangster Longy Zwillman, “The Boss Of Newark,” is also covered. Longy was known as “The Al Capone of New Jersey.” He was instrumental in bringing together the five New York mob families. (He also, besides murdering people a lot, gave out turkeys to poor Jewish families on Thanksgiving, including mine. My mother had a crush on him.) In 1933, the first Newark riot was between homegrown Nazis and anti-Fascists. In 1967, the second Newark riot erupted due to police brutality. Lippman’s prose is eminently readable, filled with fascinating asides, and peppered with the kind of little-known information that warrants its title.
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