Magazine

If cities were classified like patients, then Newark, N.J., to many outsiders, would be quadriplegic. You can make the patient comfortable, improve his quality of life and buy a high-end wheelchair, but the sad fact is he will never walk again.

Since race riots devastated it in 1967, the nation’s third-oldest city has spent much of its existence atop lists no city wants to be anywhere near: most dangerous, poorest, even fewest on-time arrivals at its airport. In 1975, Harper’s magazine wrote a particularly damning pronouncement: “The City of Newark stands without serious challenge as the worst city of all.” Today, however, first-time visitors who walk worriedly out of Newark Penn Station see that Newark’s downtown is clean, polished and, around rush hour, absolutely packed with people. Perhaps they work there, at Prudential Insurance Company, a downtown institution, or at Cablevision, or at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield. Perhaps they live there, in a new development or in Eleven80, a refurbished Art Deco tower built during Newark’s ’30s heyday. Perhaps they study at Seton Hall Law School, or Rutgers University’s Newark campus, or Essex County College. They might be seeing a New Jersey Devils game at the Prudential Center or the London Symphony Orchestra at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, which visitors can connect to via a sleek light rail line.