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It is ironic that Newark should ignore the very river it was founded on, the Passaic River. It was the pristine wooded river our city’s founding fathers first saw in 1666. It was our city’s artery to the sea and our industries’ source of wealth. It was the throbbing, flowing heart of our city.
After the automobile drove people to the suburbs and globalization exported jobs abroad, the Passaic was no longer a water highway. It is now this industrial town’s polluted heart. The corporate towers of Newark’s “Renaissance” meet industrial history at the riverbank. The murky waters contain secrets of illegal dumping and toxic pollution that will remain buried for eternity, leaking their oils and toxins down stream. The industrial past clings on, refusing to vanish in forgotten waters. The river of change, the Passaic River, is a place of shifting contrasts, where past meets present.
The river flows on.
View this artwork as part of a short film titled Pictures of Newark
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Sunset on the Passaic River
Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Drawbridge”
Symmetrical bridges cross the Passic River
Old drawbridge at Port Newark
The city’s industrial past is still reflected in the Passaic River
Dredging toxic industrial runoff buried in the river
A new park on the Passaic River
Forgotten industrial waste on the Passaic River
Port Newark
Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands
New Jersey Meadowlands
Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Bridge”
Industial beachhead at Port Newark
Founding fathers
City in autumn
After hours in Port Newark
Golden age city at sunset
Premonition of a city on the Passaic River
