From 1967 till 1970 I worked for National
Newark & Essex Bank in their Trust Dept. first in the securities
"cage" handling the physical stocks and bonds and then
as the "trader" buying and selling stocks and bonds for
both the bank and their customers accounts. This was my very first
job after coming home to Newark from the Marine Corps. I posted
a story about this in the Newark Memories section a few years ago.
I left the bank in 1970 and went to work on Wall Street for the
next 20 years as a "securities trader" (actually the new
movie: "WALL STREET - Money Never Sleeps" comes out today)
for Merrill Lynch, Bache, and a few other firms. Anyway, last week
I was contacted by Joanne Orozco who is now the "Property Manager"
for that building as well as the Raymond Commerce building around
the corner for Cogswell Realty. She had read my article and invited
me to come over and see the wonderful multi-million dollar renovations
that they had made to that building several years ago.
This was my first time since I left there in 1970 that I had been
in the building. For those of you who remember it, the main banking
floor, which you walked up to or took an escalator up to, was called
the Mezzanine. On all of the surrounding walls were beautiful, old,
original, paintings of Newark and it's industries in it's heyday.
Those paintings are still intact. Joanne told me that before the
building had been renovated someone had just thrown out the beautiful
old hanging light fixtures into the street in front of the bank
for anyone to take. Cogswell has installed very similar light fixtures
in the lobby now. They now rent out that Mezzanine for "Private
Parties." I have a post card of it and will send it over to
Glenn so that he can post it here.
She took me up to the 33rd or 34th Street to show me the spectacular
views of the surrounding area - South toward Elizabeth; West toward
the Watchung mountains; East along the Passaic River heading toward
Jersey City and Manhattan; and North toward Belleville. The views
are unbelievable from up there. I'll send them over to Glenn also.
Earlier in the year I had received an e-mail from Rob Ettenson
whose family owned "HUYLER'S RESTAURANT" which was on
the ground floor of that building on Broad Street. Anyone remember
this restaurant?
We walked around the corner onto Clinton Street and I showed her
where the old COLONNADE RESTAURANT was located as well as one of
my favorite places downtown - ARNOLD'S RESTAURANT on that same block.
For those of you who might remember, ESSEX COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
got it's start right there in the late 1960's on the corner of Clinton
and Beaver Streets and there was a lot of controversy about the
value of a two year college education at that time. Around the corner
on Bever Street was the old "PRESS CLUB" restaurant.
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