Growing Up On Baldwin Street


by Jack Conway

 

Growing up in Newark I guess many of us really didn't appreciate what the city meant to us. Now when I look back - and thanks to many of your pictures - I can somehow relive the days of my childhood and the memories flood back. We learned to explore Newark and spent many days tentatively going further and further form our home base on Baldwin St. The Museum was almost a second home and the guard always called the sweaty kids by name, We also knew all the movie theaters on Broad and Market and Springfield to Court. Renting row boats in Branch brook and Weequahic for 35 cent an hour was the big treat and Biking to South Mountain reservation for an over night stay.

Newark has its problems and people coped and learned to be self sufficient and able to protect each other. That's a quality I still proudly carry with me today and am so grateful that I had the experience

My family didn't have much but I remember vividly the street scene when in the summer evening people sat on front stoops, radios blaring and kids playing in the street. Chipping in to buy a watermelon and sharing it with 20-30 people. Then as it got darker the radios were tuned to war news, followed by Bob Hope or Jack Benny. We had a stable past West street and the Horses occasionally dropped their Manure. During our football games we used the manure when calling a pass play and the manure was our Post pattern. Go to the left of the pile and the defender has to go through it.

Newark was and is an important city and I am very proud to say I was raised there and that was a formative experience for me

 


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