newark

3rd oldest city in the U.S. behind Boston and New York City. The butt of many jokes nationwide and on Television shows, because many writers and comedians are orginally from there. Pronounced "Noork" by residents. Historically, a great city second only to New York, but in the last one-hundred years experienced a sharp decline, due to poor municipal planning and the 1967 riots, from which it has never recovered. See white flight and urban blight. It is broken into five distinctive wards, the central ward, the north ward, the south ward,see Weequahic, east ward see ironbound and the west ward, see vailsburg. The central ward and south wards are home to absolutely nothing. The north ward is home to many great Italian restaurants and Branch Brook park, designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead, see New York's Central Park. The east ward is home to many Portugese and Brazilian residents and many great Portugese restaurants often right next to each other. The west ward is the most suburban, marred by South Orange Avenue and it's open air drug market. Newark is the sad victim of New Jersey's odd tribalism and suburbanites' strange belief that each suburb is better than the other, especially Newark. Which has made investors afraid to invest in the city and invest in second rate New Jersey cities such as Jersey City and Hoboken, and financial boondoggles such as the Meadowland's Xanadu (which is located in a swamp). Most people that pass through Newark are mildly surprised that it is not as bad as they thought or had heard. An unnatural fear and many urban legends about the city prevail. New Jerseyans often shun any major project planned in Newark such as, the NJPAC and Devil's Arena, citing that no one will attend events there, but are usually proven wrong when attendance exceeds expecation and would rather projects be in surrounding areas such as Harrison, Hoboken or Jersey City, which to people not from New Jersey are totally indistinguishable. Often people think they are still in Newark when they visit surrounding areas because they ARE indistinguishable. A possible cultural center of New Jersey, but somehow, not. Probably because New Jerseyans believe that everything should be spread out throughout New Jersey, contributing to horrible, backed up traffic conditions.