[Darley] How often do you take the time to look, to really look at your daily surroundings?

With our busy lives, it can be difficult to find the time, but I assure you, if you allow for even a few breaths, to stare and wonder and get curious about that stained glass window or that cherry blossom tree or that train station ticker, or what's behind that door?

Wow.

?you'll find there's a story there.

And sometimes it's magic.

We're on a quest to learn about the fabric of Newark's culture, history, and where it's going next through its built environment.

I'm Darley Newman, and welcome to Look Up.

[♪♪♪] A striking cathedral, a sacred synagogue, an exhibition to share a life story and remembering the past to help change the future.

In Newark, New Jersey, I'm diving in to share those wonderful surprises that are often hidden in plain sight with the help of local experts, starting with a cathedral that may make your spirit soar.

Wow.

This is impressive.

I have been to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, of course, and also Westminster Abbey in London.

And this is comparable in many ways, which is astounding.

[Father Mantia] The towers are 232 feet tall, which actually makes them taller than Notre Dame in Paris, taller than Westminster Abbey.

[Darley] These stained glass windows are really spectacular and the light coming.

Just beautiful, all the different colors.

-Our stained glass has been called by many art historians the second finest stained glass in the world.

The Cathedral Chatres in France is the gold standard by which you measure stained glass.

Supposedly, and I've even heard this from their head tour guide, we are second only to them as far as quality.

What makes the windows so spectacular is that even though they were put in in the 20th century, it is actually done exactly the same way, the same techniques, the same colors, the same figurations that a window being made for an authentic Medieval Gothic cathedral would be made.

It's interesting that the title of your series is Look Up, because you're in the one building that from its very inception, is purposely designed to make you do just that.

You walk in the front door, every line in the building is a vertical.

Every arch is pointed.

Everything comes to a point on top, specifically to force your eyes upward.

In the Middle Ages, the Gothic Cathedral was considered when you walked in the front door, you left the earth behind, and that you were now in God's presence and where do we normally look to see God?

Up.

[Darley] It's all so much bigger than you would think.

[Father Mantia] And at the same time, because you're so far away from everything, you don't realize the scale.

[Darley] What are some other interesting aspects of how this was actually constructed?

Because again, it must have been a huge project.

-It certainly was.

And it's a testament to the exponential growth of the Catholic population in this area in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

[Darley] They laid the cornerstone in 1899 and it took 50-- -Fifty-five years to get it finished.

-[Darley] Yeah.

-But you have to understand, as with any great construction, it kind of happened in spits and spurts.

Nobody showed up for work every day for 55 years.

Shortly after it got started, they needed to close construction down because of a mistake in the original plans.

The building, as originally designed, probably wasn't going to stand up.

It needed then to be redesigned, and in the redesign, it actually got scaled down a little bit.

-This was the smaller version.

Wow!

-This is the little one.

Then we ran into the Depression, and from 1929 to 1950, nothing was being done.

There are any number of people still alive who will tell me that they remember just four walls and the ceiling, just an empty shell of a building.

And then finally in 1950, it was decided, we've got to finish this place already, so although it was 55 years from start to finish, for almost 30 years, nothing was happening.

-There are all those construction issues with new buildings, so?

[Father Mantia] Exactly.

[Darley] This one just took a little longer.

[Father Mantia] But when you consider that a building like this in the Medieval Period would have taken hundreds of years to build?

[Darley] True.

[Father Mantia] ?55 isn't so bad.

-Wow.

I was not expecting this.

I'm visiting the Newark Museum of Art to learn the backstory of this Beaux-Arts building that opened in 1926 and was funded by an icon of the Newark and Jewish community, Louis Bamberger.

Walking into the museum, it's striking.

Bamberger's name is right up top.

[Linda Forgosh] He hired Jarvis Hunt who was an architect who was known?

He also did the building for Bamberger, the Bamberger Department Store that we see now on Broad, Market, Washington and Bank.

It's all one solid block.

You know that Bamberger did not come from Newark, but he loved the city of Newark.

[Darley] At the time that Louis Bamberger's department store Bamberger's was thriving in the late 19th and early part of the 20th century, so was the Jewish community in downtown Newark.

Newark boasted one of the largest enclaves of European Jews in the New York metropolitan area.

[Linda Forgosh] In the city, on Prince Street, one person significant to the history of documenting Newark called it Baghdad on the Passaic, because you could buy just almost anything.

They all had Jewish proprietors, but Bamberger didn't want to get caught in that idea that Newark was just a place to buy things.

Of course, he loved his department store.

He wanted people to know that Newark was a cultural center.

And he was instrumental in providing significant funds.

And of course, the museum.

I can think of people who remember Bamberger's fondly.

I myself, I have to think about it because it was the only time my mother actually paid retail for the dress I wore for my Bat Mitzvah.

We came to Newark, and we shopped at Bamberger's.

That's called personal history.

[Darley] Personal history is actually my favorite.

And at the Newark Public Library, I come across another female historian who has a personal history with another icon of Newark's Jewish community.

You may feel like you're in Italy walking into the Newark Public Library.

The renderings for this Beaux-Arts style building were based on the 15th century Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.

Rosemary Steinbaum is taking me inside the Philip Roth Personal Library at the Newark Public Library to uncover this space that was designed to reveal Philip Roth more personally.

-Roth had a choice of several spaces in the library when we were originally conceiving his personal library, but we had our work cut out for us.

This was a storage space with a lot of beauty in its bones, but that beauty needed to be reclaimed.

-You just need to have good bones, though, right?

That's what we hear in the world of building.

Well, so many decisions had to be made.

As I look around, many decisions, everything from what to put in the timeline to what awards to present, I'm sure there were so many, to the quotes that you were going to pick out.

[Rosemary Steinbaum] We spent a lot of time on the quotations.

We really wanted to capture the sensibility of Roth.

We were purposely designing the space not just for scholars, not just for Roth fans who would flock, but for people to wander in who didn't know Roth.

When we were designing it, we had several things in mind.

Philip Roth's own domestic environment was very spare, very white on white.

So we somehow wanted to marry a clean contemporary esthetic with the beauty of the 19th century space.

[Darley] One thing that I did want to comment on, though, Rosemary, is that I hear you have kind of a funny story about how you actually met Philip Roth, because you were leading tours, Philip Roth tours.

-Yes.

-And he crashed your tour?

-Yes.

He decided it would be funny.

He got wind that there was a tour of Philip Roth's Newark and Roth decided it would be a hoot to come on the Philip Roth tour of Newark.

-I feel like for him, it might have been an out of body experience because you're hearing someone give a tour about where you grew up and your life.

-And I think that's why he thought it would be fun.

-I think it's funny.

-[both chuckle] [Rosemary Steinbaum] This is interesting.

It's the front page of the school newspaper, and I've had graduates from Weequahic High School make a beeline for this because it lists the class rank.

-And he was 15th!

-He was 15.

-Out of 21.

-And I've talked with some of these guys who?

-If you don't do well in school, you can still succeed.

Just read, people.

Just read.

[Rosemary Steinbaum] It was a highly competitive school.

He read a lot.

-Well, I love this one that you chose over here, this quotation, "Writing is like baseball.

You fail two thirds of the time."

But you win one third.

And that wasn't finalized.

[Rosemary Steinbaum] He was articulate on the subject of how hard it is to write, word by word.

[Darley] It's inspiring, though, for all of us out there trying to do something that's hard, which is a lot of things in life.

Coming to a place like this gives you appreciation for that, appreciation for the challenges and appreciation when you do find that win, like a good win in baseball.

While many buildings in Newark serve as reminders of Newark's strides in art, entrepreneurship, and innovation, some also remind us of the more difficult times in Newark's history.

Noelle Lorraine Williams, the Director of the African American History Program for the New Jersey Historical Commission, is leading me to a building whose significance is equally important to internalize.

-We are here at the First Precinct, formerly known as the Fourth Precinct, a significant site in Newark history because this is where the Newark Rebellion, also known as the Newark Riots, occurred in 1967.

The Newark Rebellion started because community members thought that the police had killed a taxi cab driver.

But in fact, what they had done was, they had harmed him after a kind of like a traffic incident and they had beaten him badly.

But people here in Newark were just so angry about all of the police brutality that had taken place here in Newark for such a long time that the thought of the fact that potentially someone had gotten killed, a taxi cab driver, just enraged people.

And because, you know, all the rumors were going around that he had potentially been killed, people gathered here outside of the precinct on the streets.

Bob Curvin, a popular activist during that period, he came out to try to calm the crowd, but it began of a series of disturbances and riots over the next couple of nights.

More than two dozen people were murdered during this period.

In a lot of ways, you know, it put Newark on the map, and Newark is still, you know, having to contend with this memory.

[Darley] Yeah.

And I'm just reading the plaque and it says, may this plaque serve as a symbol of our shared humanity and our commitment to seek justice and equality.

-That's definitely what the city hopes, and what we all hope.

And so in that way, by having this plaque here and marking this space, we get to talk about these ongoing conversations about what community means and what justice is here in Newark, so it's significant that we still have this building.

[Darley] Preserving history is a true community effort and it doesn't happen without the buy-in of community leaders.

Hahne & Company, also known as Hahne's, is another example of a historic building that's been preserved to remember Newark's past, and one that's been primed for modern use.

Inside, restaurants, shops, residences, and even a center for arts and design affiliated with Rutgers University, Express Newark, welcome in the community.

It's where I'm meeting Mayor Ras J. Baraka to find out more about Newark's past and future.

Your family's been in Newark for decades, and you grew up here.

What was it like growing up in Newark, and how have you seen the architectural landscape change over time?

-Right.

I was a kid in the late '60s, early '70s, right after the Newark Rebellion, and there was a lot of, you know, devastation, economic and material devastation of property, damaged, abandoned properties, vacant lots.

And we're still trying to recover from a lot of those things.

But I watched Mayor James, and Mayor Gibson before him, challenge the city and themselves in trying to develop and redevelop properties and bring the city back through Renaissance after Renaissance after Renaissance.

Since that time, you see the downtown skyline has changed tremendously.

And then there's this whole refurbishing of old buildings, which is a good thing because it preserves the kind of old feel of the city at the same time that we watch the modernization.

This Hahne's Building itself helped spark a lot of development that took place around it, and up and down the street.

[Darley] I love spaces like this where you've got galleries, and local artists can participate and young people can be involved.

That's pretty cool.

-That's right.

-What's your vision for the future of Newark?

-Ultimately, you know, we are just trying to make it a livable city.

We're in the very early phases of watching that happen in the city.

And it hasn't happened probably since before 1967.

So we're excited about it, you know, we're excited about continuing to be the state's largest city welcoming visitors and welcoming new residents and businesses to our community, and we will continue to grow that way.

[Darley] In addition to being the Mayor of Newark, Baraka is the son of legendary poets and himself a published author and educator who released a popular spoken word video in 2019 "What We Want."

So I did watch your video "What We Want."

I saw it on YouTube.

-Oh, okay.

-Are there any specific lyrics that really stand out for you?

-We want music every day, especially on Sunday.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite lines in the poem because it really talks about who we are and our historical growth in this country, and we want to be able to celebrate ourselves and our culture every day.

And I say especially on Sunday, because we jam on Sundays.

[chuckles] Yeah.

-Well, you have enough churches to jam in, a lot of different places here in Newark.

-That's right.

[Darley] And a noteworthy synagogue, too.

[Eric Freedman] Welcome to the Congregation Ahavas Shalom, Newark, New Jersey's last remaining synagogue from the great European migration of the early 20th century.

This congregation was formed in 1905.

This, the physical plant of the building we're standing in, was built in 1922/23.

And our pride and joy is our majestic Aron Hakodesh, which means Holy Ark.

Welcome.

-Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I saw the plaque outside, National Register.

[Eric Freedman] Yes.

One of the first things I attempted to do when the elders asked me to take over the presidency was to look into historic landmark designation, and when you drive up here, you know that it's not the Taj Mahal.

This was formed by first generation Eastern European immigrants.

They were poor.

They lived above their stores a block and a half down.

When Jewish people come in, they are stunned to see an Ark of this magnificence, here.

It was not original to the building in 1922.

We were fortunate to receive it from a large synagogue in Manhattan.

It's the oldest Holy Ark in New Jersey and possibly top 10/15 in the entire nation.

-Wow.

Well, you've done remarkable things because not only just you, but the members of the synagogue.

[Eric Freedman] Absolutely.

So we don't have a large, critical mass of congregants, but we have a really committed core group of, you know, 12, 15 people.

But one of the, one of my personal drives and the community's drive is the passionate pursuit of dual Jewish tenets, which are called tikkun olam, which means repair the world, and tzedakah, which most people define as charity, but actually what it really means is social justice.

Early on, I found that one of the really meaningful ways we can make a contribution is simply opening our doors.

One of the true joys of being part of a really old congregation in an old building is, you stumble across buried treasure.

And what I'm about to show you is indicative of just that.

[Darley] The treasure hunt continues.

-So this is an incredible artifact heirloom.

I stumbled upon this incredible ledger and?

if you read the paragraph here, it talks about the Ladies Auxiliary of the Congregation of Ahavas Shalom organized in 1910.

The care that they took, the penmanship, it's remarkable.

But this is how we piece our history together, as you would have.

So as I started to look through the ledger, lo and behold, May 1929 "For Ark, 550 dollars."

[Darley] Wow.

-And we do know that the congregation in Manhattan donated the ark, so this had to be for transportation.

Even though women may not have participated at that time in the services, they made immeasurable contributions, and this is a perfect example.

[Darley] I'm grabbing a coffee before I hit the road at a shop that's been operating in Newark since 1869. small business has been around for that long, you know it's got to be good.

Scott Sommer is the fourth generation of his family to help run T.M.

Ward Coffee Company.

[Scott Sommer] The Founders blend, that's our original from day one.

We bought that back in 150 years.

-History you can drink right there.

Yeah.

-Yeah.

[Darley] How does this space look, compared to--?

[Scott Sommer] Pretty much looks the same.

All the bins, as you see here, are the original.

In that picture, you can see that's all the wall fixtures.

That's my grandfather, my father, and that shelf you see there is still in the back.

[Darley] Who's taking part today?

[Scott Sommer] My mother, brother Rob, my brother Jeff, my son Zachary.

-It's a family coffee empire.

-Yes.

[Darley] Scott, I've seen a lot of foot traffic coming through here, but I know you also supply restaurants.

You've quite a celebrity clientele.

-Done some coffee for Bruce Springsteen, the sets for The Sopranos.

A lot of the stars come in, and Howard Stern called me to do his coffee.

-It smells really good in here.

I'm don't know if I'm smelling hazelnut, which is one of my favorites, or what I'm smelling.

[Scott Sommer] Probably hazelnut.

Probably a little butterscotch.

-[Darley] Wow.

Well caffeinated and ready to roll home, I'm exiting Newark through Newark Penn Station, which shines a light on the golden age of travel with its stunning art deco architecture dating back to 1935.

Busy travelers and commuters may not always stop to recognize its splendid architecture.

But as Dave Abeles shares, if you take a few minutes to wander and look up, there's a beautiful world of design, history, and even excitement to discover.

-The globes here in the main waiting room, these are custom built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, when they built the station.

They only exist here.

It's the signs of the Zodiac in a beautiful bronze and white gold globe with opaque opal glass.

And they weigh about 800 pounds apiece and they come down on a chain for maintenance, but they're iconic and they're only here, and it's one of those little pieces of Penn Station that I just am in love with.

-That's very art deco.

[Dave Abeles] Very much so.

Yeah.

[Darley] It's so funny because I often would take the train from D.C. to New York City, and I would get confused.

I would think I'm at Newark, Penn Station, and I would think I'm going to Penn Station, should I get off here?

So how did that come to be that we have New York's Penn Station in the city, and then Newark's.

[Dave Abeles] Both stations were built by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which around the turn of the century into the '10s and 20s, was one of, if not the most powerful and rich corporations in the entire world.

This was at the zenith of American railroading.

-Well, it's absolutely beautiful if you look up at the ceiling.

[Dave Abeles] So this is Art Deco, and actually it was designed by the same firm that did the original grandeur of the New York Penn Station.

It's a spectacular form of architecture.

And you see it a lot in the Northeast and it's very much in the era when the station was built.

You see a lot of distressed aluminum, a lot of brushed aluminum looks with intricate patterns, floral, a very imperial and Empire State building kind of a look.

So it was designed to be as grand as the Pennsylvania was at that time, and it was designed in-house.

They didn't ask permission from anyone.

They did it their way.

And I think that's one of the things that the railroad in that era really did.

It glorified travel.

[Darley] Designed by the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, Newark Penn Station reminds me of a splendid jewel box, one which you would open that would play cool jazz music.

And then, I see all these [indistinct] of travel around us here.

[Dave Abeles] Newark is a city that's long been a transportation crossroads, and these medallions were designed in concert with the Pennsylvania Railroad to commemorate the earliest Native American travelers right through the Prairie Schooners for the Western expansion, right through a whole era of immigration.

My daily commute takes me through here.

Like any great airport or any great train station, you walk in, and you look at the thing and I'm like, well, do I want to go home via Lebanon?

Do I want to go to Morristown, New York?

No, I want to go to New Orleans.

[Darley] So today, whether I'm coming from New York City, or I'm coming in from Newark and stepping into this train station, I can look up, I can look around, I can see beautiful art deco architecture, all these motifs of travel, and I can get excited because I've come to a place that is so grand and is going to take me on to a new adventure.

[Dave Abeles] One hundred percent.

[♪♪♪] Did we coordinate on the hats?

-Oh, I'm sorry.

Are we live?

-[Greg] Yeah.

-[Darley] Well, not live.

-Edit.

Edit.

Edit.

Edit.

[Darley] We'll be editing, you don't worry.

It's gale force winds.

And the rain!

I haven't been this cold in a while.

Do you want to angle a little bit this way?

If you could, Scott, come around here, so he gets that in the background, because he's trying to avoid those windows.

Yeah.

My coffee in the morning is like kind of a thing.

See, that was so easy, right?

I mean?