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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
ELIZABETH (70 alt., 114,589 pop.) is southernmost in a chain of old cities -- now industrialized -- that form continuous links along the Jersey shore in the metropolitan area. The city's northeastern boundary is a purely theoretical line marking the place where Newark begins. The centers of the two cities are only 5 miles apart, and the business and residential continuity between them is unbroken.
Elizabeth has seen its native American population augmented by an influx of workers from this country and Europe, and has watched old landmarks succumb to the demand for factories, apartment houses, and service stations. With a water front on Newark Bay and Staten Island Sound, the city was the natural terminus of the earliest highways and the first railroads. Although it is no longer an important terminal, Elizabeth has grown in stature as an industrial and residential area.
The better residential section has a handsome assortment of shade trees and gardens. Blue iris brightens many front yards in May; the somber leaves of the copper beech stand out against a cheerful background of blossoming horse chestnuts and catalpas, and the omnipresent maple. The colors of the town, with the exception of its greenery, are those of a manufacturing place; faded and stained reds, grays, yellows, and browns. The white clapboard dwellings that might be expected from Elizabeth's early American heritage are rarely found.
Houses range from the yellow brick flats and nondescript frame structures of the poorer sections to the commuters' and businessmen's compact, modern homes in the early American or English cottage style. Characteristic of the older residential district are the semi-mansions of the late nine, teenth and early twentieth centuries: bulky structures, often with commodious corner towers and bay windows, built in combinations of brick and stone, shingle and clapboard, stucco and half-timber ; decorated with a fantastic variety of porch columns and moldings.
Business buildings include a full quota of the heavy-corniced brick structures of 40 years ago. Others, of more recent construction, are simply and neatly designed. The city's one large office building is a 13-story structure modernly individualistic in design, its exterior richly decorated with aluminum panels and terra cotta ornaments. Red brick factories and a few modern industrial buildings fringe the city.
The northern end of the business district has a reminder of the days when Elizabeth was an important railroad terminal. This is "the Arch," where Broad Street dips to pass under a broad stone arch of the Jersey Central, and the viaduct of the Pennsylvania main line crosses over both the Jersey Central tracks and the street. Trolley cars no longer thump along Broad Street under the Arch ; they have been replaced by trackless trolleys and busses. Above is an almost unending roar of freight and passenger trains on the two railroads. The decline of water transportation was followed by relocation of the city's industrial life; factories now are clustered mainly along the railroads more than a mile inland.
Elizabethans, because of the city's location on the metropolitan fringe, are a mingling of the urban with the suburban. Their culture is influenced by contact with New York's theaters, concert halls, and social movements. The city is well stocked with churches, some of them outstanding native specimens, others of European inspiration.
The labor movement is more advanced in Elizabeth than in the outlying communities. The textile workers maintain a local office, and the building trades have a central headquarters. For nearly 50 years the Labor Advocate, one of the State's very few labor newspapers, has been published monthly in Elizabeth.
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