brianac
November 3rd, 2007, 06:01 AM
Jersey
Avenue That Used to Be Awaits a Rebirth
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/04/nyregion/colnj600.jpg Richard Perry/The New York Times
FORMIDABLE FACADES Architecture along Central Avenue in East Orange recalls its heyday.
By KEVIN COYNE
Published: November 4, 2007
East Orange
THE granite blocks are set like steppingstones in the sidewalk along Central Avenue, engraved with the names of the city’s famous former residents, marching right up to the marquee of the grand old Deco movie palace with the Spanish-tile roof and the ornate pressed-copper frieze.
“I was there for Dionne Warwick, and John Amos, too,” said Mitchell Williams, standing at the oval sales counter in his store on the next block, Debonaire Men’s Wear, recalling the ceremonies enshrining the names on the city’s new Walk of Fame, a roster that also includes Queen Latifah (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/queen_latifah/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Wyclef Jean and Eddie Rabbitt. “I’ve seen the highs and the lows here on Central Avenue.”
For much of the last few decades, conversations about Central Avenue — the main business corridor in this Essex County city of 70,000, once lined with so many fine stores it was known as the Fifth Avenue of the suburbs — have tended to include the phrase “used to.” Kress and B. Altman used to be across the street from Debonaire. Best & Company and Sears used to be neighbors, too. Well-heeled matrons used to stroll from the furrier to the jeweler to the milliner, and the Hollywood Theater used to be packed with their children on matinee Saturdays.
“Everything in here is original,” Mr. Williams said, sweeping his arm to take in the polished walnut display cases, dentil molding and ceiling beams in one of the few places along the avenue that still looks the way it once did. “We’re a landmark here.”
But what about the rest of the avenue, where the dollar stores and hair salons and take-out restaurants that now occupy the old limestone facades look shrunken inside them, as if they were wearing the kind of ill-fitting suits the dapper Mr. Williams would never let out his door?
“If we could just get over the hump of commercial people believing that they’re pioneers coming to an urban area,” said Mayor Robert L. Bowser, whose family has been settled in the city since the 1880s, and whose own conversations often include another phrase: “56 percent,” the drop in the city’s crime rate over the last three years. “It makes them hesitate.”
Like many other cities with diminished retail districts, East Orange has, over the last several years, made some attempts at resuscitation, efforts shaped by an unusual degree of both poignancy and difficulty, given the wide gap between what Central Avenue was and what it had become. The most visible initial step was the restoration of the Hollywood Theater, which once played host to Spencer Tracy for the 1940 red-carpet world premiere of “Edison the Man,” but which had sat shuttered and vacant for almost 20 years.
The old stage and dressing rooms, the 1,600 sagging seats, the crumbling plaster, the leaky roof — all of it went, and the interior was portioned into five new theaters by a New York developer with family roots in the North Jersey theater business, Edmondo Schwartz. “They even popped their own popcorn,” said Mr. Bowser, who was a regular as a boy, and became a regular again after the Hollywood reopened as a first-run movie theater in December 2005. A few months later, the city dedicated its Walk of Fame outside.
But for the last six weeks, the doors have been locked and the only word on the marquee is one that surprised almost everyone when it went up: “Closed.” Mr. Schwartz did not return calls for comment, but city officials say that attendance at the theater was lower than expected.
“We’re going to get the Hollywood open again,” said Mr. Bowser, who has met with the owner to discuss a potential property tax abatement and other ways the city might help. Mr. Williams, who is president of the Central Avenue Business Improvement District, said he has also spoken with Mr. Schwartz, whom he described as “cautiously optimistic” about the Hollywood’s future.
When Mr. Williams opened Debonaire in 1980, Central Avenue was in the midst of an earlier experiment in urban revitalization. To make the street more like the malls that were siphoning away business, the city built a curved acrylic-glass canopy over the sidewalks. But when the anchor stores later left, so too did many of the smaller ones, and the sidewalks became dreary tunnels. “Even on a sunshiny day it was dark,” Mr. Bowser said.
The canopy was finally removed this year, and on a recent sunny morning, the buildings it once concealed seemed to blink in the sharp-edged light, like hibernating creatures just emerging from slumber. The racks in Mr. Williams’s store were thick with fine Italian suits. The glass display cases were stacked with hats that ranged from $250 pinch-front beaver Stetsons to the $45 derbies that adorn so many heads on prom nights.
“We do a big job for the churches,” said Mr. Williams, 60, who is an officer at a local Baptist church. “You go to any church around here on a Sunday morning and you’ll see a Debonaire man — that’s what we call them — and they’ll be proud of it.”
With the canopy gone, the city now plans to spruce up the streetscape — sidewalks, plantings, lights, restored facades. And the granite blocks in the sidewalk for this year’s class in the Walk of Fame need a little attention, too, some kind of coating to make them less slippery. The footing is sometimes unsure when you’re trying to move ahead along the avenue.
Avenue That Used to Be Awaits a Rebirth
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/04/nyregion/colnj600.jpg Richard Perry/The New York Times
FORMIDABLE FACADES Architecture along Central Avenue in East Orange recalls its heyday.
By KEVIN COYNE
Published: November 4, 2007
East Orange
THE granite blocks are set like steppingstones in the sidewalk along Central Avenue, engraved with the names of the city’s famous former residents, marching right up to the marquee of the grand old Deco movie palace with the Spanish-tile roof and the ornate pressed-copper frieze.
“I was there for Dionne Warwick, and John Amos, too,” said Mitchell Williams, standing at the oval sales counter in his store on the next block, Debonaire Men’s Wear, recalling the ceremonies enshrining the names on the city’s new Walk of Fame, a roster that also includes Queen Latifah (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/queen_latifah/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Wyclef Jean and Eddie Rabbitt. “I’ve seen the highs and the lows here on Central Avenue.”
For much of the last few decades, conversations about Central Avenue — the main business corridor in this Essex County city of 70,000, once lined with so many fine stores it was known as the Fifth Avenue of the suburbs — have tended to include the phrase “used to.” Kress and B. Altman used to be across the street from Debonaire. Best & Company and Sears used to be neighbors, too. Well-heeled matrons used to stroll from the furrier to the jeweler to the milliner, and the Hollywood Theater used to be packed with their children on matinee Saturdays.
“Everything in here is original,” Mr. Williams said, sweeping his arm to take in the polished walnut display cases, dentil molding and ceiling beams in one of the few places along the avenue that still looks the way it once did. “We’re a landmark here.”
But what about the rest of the avenue, where the dollar stores and hair salons and take-out restaurants that now occupy the old limestone facades look shrunken inside them, as if they were wearing the kind of ill-fitting suits the dapper Mr. Williams would never let out his door?
“If we could just get over the hump of commercial people believing that they’re pioneers coming to an urban area,” said Mayor Robert L. Bowser, whose family has been settled in the city since the 1880s, and whose own conversations often include another phrase: “56 percent,” the drop in the city’s crime rate over the last three years. “It makes them hesitate.”
Like many other cities with diminished retail districts, East Orange has, over the last several years, made some attempts at resuscitation, efforts shaped by an unusual degree of both poignancy and difficulty, given the wide gap between what Central Avenue was and what it had become. The most visible initial step was the restoration of the Hollywood Theater, which once played host to Spencer Tracy for the 1940 red-carpet world premiere of “Edison the Man,” but which had sat shuttered and vacant for almost 20 years.
The old stage and dressing rooms, the 1,600 sagging seats, the crumbling plaster, the leaky roof — all of it went, and the interior was portioned into five new theaters by a New York developer with family roots in the North Jersey theater business, Edmondo Schwartz. “They even popped their own popcorn,” said Mr. Bowser, who was a regular as a boy, and became a regular again after the Hollywood reopened as a first-run movie theater in December 2005. A few months later, the city dedicated its Walk of Fame outside.
But for the last six weeks, the doors have been locked and the only word on the marquee is one that surprised almost everyone when it went up: “Closed.” Mr. Schwartz did not return calls for comment, but city officials say that attendance at the theater was lower than expected.
“We’re going to get the Hollywood open again,” said Mr. Bowser, who has met with the owner to discuss a potential property tax abatement and other ways the city might help. Mr. Williams, who is president of the Central Avenue Business Improvement District, said he has also spoken with Mr. Schwartz, whom he described as “cautiously optimistic” about the Hollywood’s future.
When Mr. Williams opened Debonaire in 1980, Central Avenue was in the midst of an earlier experiment in urban revitalization. To make the street more like the malls that were siphoning away business, the city built a curved acrylic-glass canopy over the sidewalks. But when the anchor stores later left, so too did many of the smaller ones, and the sidewalks became dreary tunnels. “Even on a sunshiny day it was dark,” Mr. Bowser said.
The canopy was finally removed this year, and on a recent sunny morning, the buildings it once concealed seemed to blink in the sharp-edged light, like hibernating creatures just emerging from slumber. The racks in Mr. Williams’s store were thick with fine Italian suits. The glass display cases were stacked with hats that ranged from $250 pinch-front beaver Stetsons to the $45 derbies that adorn so many heads on prom nights.
“We do a big job for the churches,” said Mr. Williams, 60, who is an officer at a local Baptist church. “You go to any church around here on a Sunday morning and you’ll see a Debonaire man — that’s what we call them — and they’ll be proud of it.”
With the canopy gone, the city now plans to spruce up the streetscape — sidewalks, plantings, lights, restored facades. And the granite blocks in the sidewalk for this year’s class in the Walk of Fame need a little attention, too, some kind of coating to make them less slippery. The footing is sometimes unsure when you’re trying to move ahead along the avenue.