For the next two years, Ironbound Community Corporation and Newark Riverfront Revival have been awarded funding through the EPA’s Urban Waters program to develop and deliver educational programs for Newark young people about the Passaic River and the politics of the environment.
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.
Friends of Newark Riverfront 