This walking tour will cover nearly 2 miles of the Newark riverfront between Penn Station and Chapel Street: its history, current developments, and visions for its future. Newarkers have been working for more than three decades to create public access to the river; come see how far we’ve come!

Wear comfortable clothes and sturdy closed-toe shoes. You are encouraged to bring a bottle of water.

Saturday, May 25, 2013, 11 am–1 pm
Meet at Newark Penn Station Info Booth
Free and open to the public, but RSVP required!
(973) 733-5736
newarkriverfront [at] gmail [dot] com

UPDATE: The tour has reached capacity, but please call or email to be placed on the waiting list and to receive news of future tours.

Help us finish the welcome sign for the second segment of riverfront park. What buildings do you recognize or not? What looks good? What looks funny? Post comments here or write newarkriverfront [at] gmail.com.

Click on image for larger version.

“The river walkers stop in their tracks and there is a collective gasp. There are the first orange planks of a boardwalk.”

Star-Ledger, April 14, 2013: Five reasons to clean up the Passaic River

Star-Ledger, April 14, 2013: A grand adventure on the Passaic River: A Q&A with Mary Bruno

Star-Ledger, April 14, 2013: The attempted murder of the Passaic River

For the first time in 100 years, Newark has a public boat dock. Connected to the orange boardwalk, the dock is made from plastic panels measuring 60 feet across and 10 feet wide. The dock floats, held in place by “strong-arm connectors” attached to the boardwalk. Purchase and installation was funded by a grant to Newark Riverfront Revival from the New Jersey Department of Transportation Office of Maritime Service’s I BOAT NJ Program, which uses a fraction of registration fees paid by boaters to improve public maritime infrastructure. Thanks to the I BOAT NJ team for their patience and continuous helpfulness!

The dock was designed with events like the Passaic River Paddle Relay and Project USE’s boatbuilding program in mind. Newark Riverfront Revival is working to recommend procedures and rules for the dock’s operations. If you are involved with boating, or want to become involved with this effort, email Newark Riverfront Revival.

Star-Ledger, February 25, 2013: Resolution may be near for towns, companies dragged into massive N.J. pollution case

Star-Ledger, March 24, 2013: 70 firms devise strategy to quash EPA’s plans for Passaic River cleanup

Ironbound Riverfront Walk
Saturday, May 25, 11 am-1 pm
Meet at Info Booth in Newark Penn Station
Wear comfortable clothes and sturdy closed-toe shoes. You are encouraged to bring a bottle of water.
Free and open to the public, but RSVP required!
Please RSVP to (973) 733-5736 or newarkriverfront [at] gmail.com.

UPDATE: The tour has reached capacity, but please call or email to be placed on the waiting list and to receive news of future tours.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Friends of Riverfront Park meeting, 6-7:30 pm, Riverbank Park Fieldhouse. (Enter park on Somme Street between Market Street and Raymond Blvd.)

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Watch this space for the announcement of the Summer 2013 boat tour schedule!

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Send events to newarkriverfront [at] gmail.com.

The Orange Boardwalk intersects with the path down from Raymond Boulevard near the Dancing Pavilion.

At Somme Street, the structures for the Overlook and the Osprey Rook have appeared.

A partnership between the wall’s owner, Seidler Chemical, and the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) nominated the wall to the Newark Public Art Program‘s annual Call for Walls, explaining that the story of community organizing behind the new park deserved to be told through public art in the park itself. As one of six selected sites for 2012, the Newark Public Art Program convened and led a team of artists headed by Kevin Sampson to work with ICC and Ironbound residents to develop the design and produce the mural.

The painting shows a fantasy steampunk version of the area’s relationship to the river, visualizing how the river, the city, and residents have mechanically grown into one another in both amazing productive and frighteningly poisonous ways. Most of all it shows how people have come together to improve this system, including creating the park that the mural overlooks. The painting team has been hard at work up and down scaffolding on dry days and expects to finish in 2013.

We are working to recruit a group of young people to work regularly on the project and create materials to help educate the rest of their city.

For our first project, we worked with a group of students from East Side High School. We met early at Cortlandt Street Family Success Center. Nice mural!

The aftermath of Sandy was apparent. The Center was being used as a distribution point for emergency supplies. The goal of the workshop was to gather evidence about how the storm affected Newark.

We visited “the Island,” a part of the Ironbound close to Route 1&9.

We took notes and made photographs.

Here, the impact of the storm was clear and frightening. Many houses had been declared unsafe by the Buildings Department. Some had foundations that had completely collapsed.

We drove near the Passaic Valley Sewerage Authority, which has been in the news due to problems caused by the storm. A guard advised us to move along.

Closer to the seaport, we began to notice strange things about fences.

We could not prove it, but it was easy to imagine these objects being put here by a large gush of water.

Besides the guard, we didn’t see many people. We did see signs of what kinds of businesses exist in this part of the city.

A few times, we saw standing pools of water, but it was difficult to tell if it was a usual situation or caused by the storm.

Stay tuned for further river-related explorations.