Haarith Alston-Taalib writes:
“Back in the 60s, at the time of the riots, my family lived at the corner of Wallace Street and 12th Ave. There’s a little triangular shaped park that’s still there today. We lived above John M. Riccio’s grocery store. The little park sat in the center of West Market, 12th Ave. and Wallace Street. When I visit Newark, I drive past there sometimes; it brings back Wallace Street memories. Thanks for providing these photos of Newark. It warms the heart to see those old streets, stores, buildings, parks, uses, trucks, cars, etc.
“I lived at the intersection of Wallace Street and 12th Ave. There was a hospital across the street from where I lived and a triangular shaped park across the street from me (the park is still there today). I lived in the block between 12th and 13th avenues; 32 Wallace street was right at the corner. I still have a photo of me as a kid standing at this street corner posing for a photo on Easter. The fire hydrant is still there at the corner today; there’s a new building there now where my house was. I lived at 32 Wallace street.”
Riccio’s bodega advertised the following products and prices in April 1967:
– Spaghetti sauce for 19¢
– Liquid starch for 35¢
– Maine sardines for $2.25
– Fancy peaches for 29¢
– Pineapple juice for 25¢
– Dog food for $3.25
– Print lard for $2.35
– Canned sodas for $1.99
A kid returns home after shopping at Riccio’s in April 1967:
The identical street scene and view in December 2024:
All that survives today from history is this fire hydrant and the broken carcass of a rental scooter:
Haarith Alston-Taalib writes:
“Yes, at the corner in this photo is where my family lived until June of 1968. We lived in the apartment just above the sign for John M. Riccio’s grocery store; I have a photo of me at that intersection. I also have a photo of my brother Richard and I on Easter standing at that wall next to the door by the car under the billboard. That fence before the garage was our backyard. The garage was where Mr. Riccio’s food supply was stored. Next to our house, on the right, was a house where Nuns lived (it has that gate around it). I’m going to send the photo of me. We moved from there the year after the riots in Newark.”
Haarith Alston-Taalib’s home was the second-floor window on the left. He writes:
“One of those cars near the corner was my dad’s car in 1967-68.”
Photo of the identical location in June 2012, now the campus of UMDNJ:
Haarith Alston-Taalib writes:
“I remember that red brick building; it was covered with vines. After the hospital closed, the kids would climb the tall mansion gate on the Newton Street side of the hospital and try to go inside the old buildings; we were never successful.”
The Newark Memorial Hospital in 1916 vs. 2016:
Haarith Alston-Taalib writes:
That one block was my world, my playground; I can visualize just about every house and the neighbors who lived on that block. All of my friends were from the middle to the end of the block. There were no houses across the street from me, just that hospital. I can still see the patients sitting outside in wheelchairs with nursing staff; the trucks making deliveries at the ramp across the street from my house. You don’t know what it did for me to see the photos of where I lived; it brought back a simpler time.
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