Founded in 1666 by colonists intent on setting up a Puritan theocracy (new ark), Newark is the largest city in New Jersey and the state’s industrial center. Its population boomed from the middle of the 19th century until the Great Depression. At its height in 1930, Newark had 442,337 residents making it the 18th biggest city in the United States. Since then, the population has dropped precipitously, flattening out at about 277,000 today. Newark’s decline began with the Great Depression, was worsened by the general loss of manufacturing jobs in the North over the following two decades and then exacerbated by white flight, especially following the riots of 1967.

The result of this boom and bust is that Newark has a remarkable collection of outstanding buildings, both big and little, in its core. Many of them are in disrepair and various stages of decrepitude, but nevertheless they are still standing. And in many cases they are replete with wonderful lettering from the first half of the 20th century of the sort that is rapidly disappearing in New York. Newark has Art Deco, ghost signs, neon, Lombardic capitals, classic Roman capitals, scripts and more. The usual panoply of any American city that was prosperous in the first half of the 20th century. The city even has its own small subway and light rail system with some excellent lettering.

This Newark lettering walk is a follow-up to one that Paul did for Legacy of Letters in June. A few of the highlights from that walk (e.g. the ghost sign for the Coleman National Business College) will be revisited, but most of the itinerary will be new as we will go further out from Pennsylvania Station than before.

Newark may be in another state, but it is closer to Manhattan than the farthest reaches of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. It is less than an hour away from downtown New York by PATH train. Don’t miss this opportunity to see some of the lettering riches of the Garden State.
Paul Shaw is a designer and a design historian. He has been leading lettering tours of New York City neighborhoods for 10 years and of other cities, both here and in Italy, since 1997. As a designer he specializes in letterforms from calligraphy to type design. Paul has designed or co-designed 18 fonts, including Kolo, Donatello and Old Claude. As a historian he has written or lectured about Bartolomeo Sanvito, W.A. Dwiggins, Oswald Cooper, Frederic W. Goudy, George Salter, Phil Gruskin, Hermann Zapf and others.

Meeting place and itinerary will be emailed a few days in advance of the tour.