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Health & Fitness

Wake Up! Bring the Brick City's Coffeehouse Back!

In 2010 the city experienced what looked like a small loss; it wasn't...

As any of my Arts High students will tell you, I’m continually fascinated by the long, epic history of the Brick City. Newark has been around for a long, long time…since the 1600’s, actually, and borne witness to nearly every major era, trend, tragedy and triumph that marks the national story. Typically, my blogs concern some event or person that impacted the city in the distant past; perhaps a Newark resident at Pearl Harbor, or one that fought Indians in King Philip’s War of the 1670’s. But after doing some research on a topic that I find particularly interesting (the coffeehouse), I found that Newark’s historical intersection with this exact concept was far more recent. How recent? Try June 25, 2010.

 

So what was so notable on that summer day, less than a half decade ago? Did an unexpected earthquake rock the city? Did a legendary rock group or rapper stop on Market Street for an impromptu performance? Did the president make a dramatic political appearance on the Rutgers-Newark campus? No. But what did happen was huge, both symbolically and literally, for the city, and it needs to be reversed, soon. What happened on that day was the closure of the city’s only coffeehouse (that I ever knew of), Starbucks, near the famous intersection of Broad and Market Streets (a block north of it, actually).

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Now give me a moment to make things clear. I am not saying that the former Starbucks on Broad Street was the only establishment in the city that served coffee. Nor am I stipulating that it was the only café or coffee shop in the city. The city has always had many of these, from IHOP on Bergen Street to a few trendy, indoor-outdoor cafes in the Ironbound. And some of the Portuguese cafes on or near Ferry Street serve some of the best coffee around…really strong stuff that keeps you wide-awake past midnight.

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Ah, but a coffeehouse! Now that is a venerable, centuries-old institution. The coffeehouse has a longstanding tradition and history in the Atlantic World, ever since the first one was opened in 1651, in the University town of Oxford, England. It was there, within the maze of a community still awakening from the Middle Ages, that a Jewish businessman opened The Angel, and introduced the world to an entirely new concept and place.  A year later, another proprietor, Pasqua Rosee, followed up in busy London, opening The Turk’s Head.

 

And what a concept it was (and remains)! Unlike the chaotic, dim, stuffy and sometimes violent tavern, the coffeehouse was meant to be a place of sober debate, of diligent reading, of pleasant conversation. It was a place meant for thinking people to converse, to sit and pass the time and enjoy one of the greatest legacies of that potent tropical fruit, the coffee bean. It was a place to people-watch, to read the latest papers or dive into a good book while enjoying the common company of others of a like faith. It was a locale to organize and meet, but not in a violent or raucous manner, but in a civilized, pleasant way. Revolutionaries, it’s true, took action in the pub, but they were born in the coffeehouse. It was, to use a term coined by the London Newspapers of the 1700’s, “The Penny University.”

 

The coffeehouse was a fixture of the Colonial Atlantic World. It quickly spread to Boston in the late 1600’s, and by the mid-1700’s there were dozens in every East Coast port. New York had several of them; Philadelphia’s London Coffeehouse was a major gathering center for the city’s literate Quaker population. It was in the coffeehouses that the colonial elite and educated classes mixed, networked and conversed on a daily basis. Here was a place that served a beverage that quickened minds, instead of muddling them. And coffee was safe too; one could drink it without the fear of getting deathly ill from some mysterious, unseen microbe. Coffee is brewed, and during that process the boiling conveniently eliminates any potential pathogens.

 

Economically, the coffeehouse was the place to do business. Lloyd’s of London, the famed international insurance firm, began as a coffeehouse. Major stock exchanges and financial institutions grew out of them as well. The colonial coffeehouse could be visited by anyone of the highest rank on any given day, from the governor to the local legislator and the town teacher. University classes might formally take place in some stately structure nearby, but the most enthusiastic learners regularly followed their professors to the coffeehouse to continue conversation and deliberation.

 

The coffeehouse was where the poet crossed paths with the politician, the writer with the local printer. It’s where people who got things done, who involved themselves in the world, went to involve themselves further, albeit at a more leisurely pace while enjoying a delicious hot beverage. And for those who, for some unnatural reason, abhorred the smell and taste of coffee, there was hot chocolate.

 

The coffeehouse would never become extinct in urban America, but over the centuries its central place in the hearts and minds of the professional and artistic communities faded. By the 1920’s one could still find them here and there, but America by this time was vastly different than in the 18th century. With the advent of radio and television, by the 1950’s the revered privacy of the modern home (or apartment) threatened to take almost all forms of intellectual and informal human interaction out of the public sphere. Then, as I always tell my students, something happened. That something was the arrival of the Boomers, and their time was the late 1960’s.

 

The counter-culture movement of that decade brought the coffeehouse back to life, almost instantly. Starting in America’s major cities, particularly New York, Seattle and San Francisco, a new, huge Bohemian-leaning population made up of aspiring artists, entrepreneurs, idealists and educators discovered a place where they could talk freely, enjoy each other’s company, and publicly organize and perform. They found a place where like-minded, wired souls could feel safe, read radical and strange publications and, of course, drink lots and lots of coffee.  

 

By the mid-1980’s, as this population aged and became wealthier professionals, their coffeehouses followed them everywhere. From Greenwich Village to Fifth Avenue to the local suburban strip mall, by the 1990’s the coffeehouse was back, and everywhere. Starbucks and smaller establishments with names like “The Beanery” and “The Java Cup” appeared overnight. Suddenly there was a “new” gathering place for sober-minded teens and adults. Now every community had its central coffeehouse, which regularly held “Open Mic Fridays” and “Poetry Slams.” Book clubs, sci-fi chat groups, tutors and students and local political parties could meet up, and civil society seemed born anew. And then, the energy unleashed by the coffeehouse was amplified to make it even more attractive, as free wifi was born. Now the place to “network” was a place where you could, well, get on the network.

 

The big news came to Newark at the launch of the Brick City’s Renaissance, in the 1990’s. When the announcement was made that Starbucks would open up a full coffeehouse on Broad Street in the heart of downtown, it got major attention. Mayor Sharpe James and several members of the city council took full notice and made sure to attend the opening. The coffeehouse immediately became a point of pride for all city-folk regardless of class or location. Residents still fondly recall it as a crowded, busy place where professionals from Prudential would chat with local high school students over steaming cups of java. Newark’s Starbucks was proof that civil society had returned to the Brick City, that people were feeling confident enough to gather in the city center to, well, spend some time and relax. Newark’s Central Ward apparently was no longer a place where people went just because they had to. The neighborhood’s vibrancy, once lost long ago, had returned!

 

The years went on but Starbucks as a corporation began to founder. Overextended in the late 1990’s, the company had been too aggressive and admitted it. People in Manhattan even joked that not a week went by before another Starbucks opened, typically across the street from an already established one. The company founded hundreds of stores in places where people never cared much for cosmopolitan coffee culture, like Des Moines, Iowa and Beijing, China. Business and profits began to thin out. It was also at this time that a new invention came along that really did provide just about anyone, anywhere with the perfect and near-instant cup of coffee at home, that being the Keurig Machine. Now one didn’t have to venture out to the local Starbucks for a flawless cup of java after all.

 

In a dramatic move, in 2008 the company surprised many when it announced it would be closing 600 stores of every shape, size and location. Hundreds more would be physically cut in half as the corporation realized that more customers were interested in buying coffee on the go than sitting around for hours conversing about Hamlet or politics. So some stores shut, while others were transformed into mere coffee stands.

 

When the news reached Newark that the Broad Street Starbucks would be closed, reaction was swift. Mayor Cory Booker immediately ordered his top economic advisors to look into the situation, and perhaps convince or incentivize the company to allow the store to remain open. Local residents began a campaign on behalf of the coffeehouse, posting flyers and petitioning Starbucks management. The city found the news of the planned closure so devastating that it was covered in the New York Times, which claimed that the closing might not have been such a big deal for Starbucks, but for Newark, “it’s a trauma.”

 

According to most sources, on June 25, 2010 the Broad Street Starbucks closed its doors for the last time. The coffee machines were turned off and hauled away. The free wifi stopped. The corporate logo wiped clean from the building. Yes, the world did not come to an end. Nobody died. But Newark lost a bit of the progress it had made since the fearsome days of the 1970’s. It had taken many steps forward, but this was a small step back.

 

Life went on. Last week Mayor Booker became Senator Booker, and his successor is yet undetermined. But to that person I have this to say: do what you can to bring that business back to Broad Street. Give Starbucks (or one of its competitors) whatever they want; tax breaks, low rent, whatever…let the coffeehouse live again. It meant so much more to the people who live and work downtown than you could possibly know. 

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