Carolyn Peggy Smith writes:
“I was renting an apartment at 29 Watson Avenue in fall 1965. I was living here with my dad Samuel Q Cody, my mother Shirley Cody, and my one-year-old son Anthony Smith. I don’t remember much about the other businesses on Watson Avenue. But I do remember that down the street at the bottom of the hill was White Castle, where we went for hamburgers and fast food on special days. That was a real treat!
“It was a racially integrated neighborhood. On the ground floor was C Nesmith’s grocery story, where I used to buy candy, sodas, and other daily goods for our home. All told, there were probably a dozen family-owned grocery stores and hundreds of small businesses in the area. And now there are almost none.
“I went to school just up the street at the Peshine Avenue Elementary School. Those were the days when we did not have a car. We had to walk everywhere. It was more work to get around. But it was easier to stay physically in shape when almost everything we needed to buy was nearby.
“After having my son Anthony, the highway came through our neighborhood and took us from our home.”
Note: Interstate 78 was built in the 1960s and displaced about 8,000 Newark residents in the Weequahic neighborhood, as well as at least 500 family-owned businesses. A few of these businesses were on Watson Avenue, which used to be a commercial street before the highway came through. The winter 1965 city directory records the names of a few of these Jewish-owned and black-owned family businesses, just months before they were demolished:
– McCall’s Hair Fashions
– Fisher Bros Cleaners
– Hillco Frozen Meats
– Les Femmes Beauty Shop
– Norman’s Beauty Shop
– C Fong Laundry
– Leola’s Variety Shop / Neighborhood Barber Shop
– Norman’s Prescription Pharmacy
– Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church of the Living God.
