Decay Came in a Few Sharp Years in Newark's Central Ward. The Repair Took Five Institutions and Five Decades.
By the time Newark's Central Ward exploded in July 1967, two separate government projects had already spent years demolishing it. A highway had razed hundreds of homes and businesses to clear a path through the neighborhood. A mayor's plan for a new medical school was set to take 150 more acres and displace up to 20,000 residents. The uprising itself started over a police beating -- but the ground under it had already been cleared, piece by piece, for years. Real repair came too, in pieces of its own, starting as early as 1988 and still building today.
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