As a part of the “Newark at a Crossroads” series, taped at NJIT, Anthony Cucchi, New Jersey State Director of The Trust for Public Land, talks about the new and improved Newark Riverfront Park on the Passaic River and how this park is strengthening this urban community by improving physical and psychological health.
City Child/City River
by Margaret Tsuda
It is good for a child
to grow up by a river.
There is much talk of
coming from
passing along
going toward
from a river.
Comments put into
sparkling form whose
luster is not forgotten.
It is good for a child
to grow up in a city by a river
where concrete can
be seen to merge into fluid
the static into the ever-flowing.
And a river can give assurance
of the power of beauty
to surmount defilement and
that is important
to a child
growing up in a city.
This poem appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on August 14, 1975, and was included in Tsuda’s collection Urban River, published in Newark in 1976.
Newark Riverfront Revival 