East side Pennsylvania looking northeast from southwest corner of Vanderpool on May 18, 1961:
Theresa Randolph writes:
In 1934, my parents paid $1,500* to buy that house at 167A Pennsylvania Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. I was born five years later in 1939. We were the first black family in the neighborhood. Neighbors on one side of us were Italian. Neighbors on the other side were Polish and Irish. Most people in the neighborhood were white immigrants from Europe.
Now the tavern on the corner at 171 Pennsylvania Avenue was named Stern’s Bar and & Grill. It was owned by a Jewish man. My dad and other blacks soon learned that this store owner refused to sell to black customers. You could enter and sit down, but he would just refused to serve you. We learned to avoid Stern’s tavern and to bring our business elsewhere. That wasn’t much of a problem back in those days because we had a choice of many other taverns and corner stores in the neighborhood. We could walk everywhere, and all the businesses that we needed were within walking distance of our home.
167A Pennsylvania Avenue:
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- Theresa Randolph’s House
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- Stern’s Bar & Grill
Stern’s Tavern is now closed. Theresa Randolph’s house was demolished and transformed into what is now a parking lot for City of Newark garbage trucks.
