Going Local
Going Local, originally uploaded by bloomfieldguy.
I picked up the local paper, The Star-Ledger, today instead of the Daily News for the first time. While I prefer the tabloid format over broadsheet, esp. on the train, I want to have a better appreciation for what’s going on in and around my new hometown. The Essex County section’s feature on the Family Day Nursery’s new learning garden was exactly the kind of local story I love to read about, but the quality and focus of their sports coverage will ultimately dictate whether or not it supplants the News as my morning read.
Steve Politi’s column on the All-Star game was a nice ode to the House that Ruth Jackson, Nettles, Randolph and Dent Built — in whose shadow I grew up during the 70s — and reminded me how much it will always remain a special place for me, despite my being a die-hard Mets fans since the early 80s. I’m catching a game at Shea next week, probably my last before it’s demolished at the end of the season (unless the stars align and I get another shot at the playoff tickets that went up in smoke last September) but I really want to catch one more game at Yankee Stadium before it disappears forever.
Will I ever be that attached to anything here in Jersey, other than my own house?
From Bloomberg to Bloomfield 
Welcome to Bloomfield! I cam across your photos on flickr and found a link to your blog, and have enjoyed it so far.
I, too, am a NYC transplant (Brooklyn and the LES) and I can say that while the south end of Essex County isn’t The Big Apple, it’s got a lot going for it if people would only give it a chance.
We live in Halcyon Park — we’re close to Newark AND East Orange — and heard all the “horror stories” when we decided to buy a house in Bloomfield, but there’s honestly more crime in Montclair than I’ve ever seen in Bloomfield, even the south end. I love the fact that my neighborhood is diverse and someone from just about every race, religion, sexual orientation or political affiliation is represented, and we all manage to get along somehow. It’s annoying when people reinforce negative racial stereotypes based on nothing but fear and hearsay.
Anyway, again, welcome, and I hope you and your family like it here. We’ve been in Bloomfield 5 years now and are still glad we settled here.
Charles Burns
July 18, 2008
My wife and I are Latino (I’m half-black) so Bloomfield’s diversity was very appealing to us and most of the negatives we heard about it were, ironically, thinly veiled references about exactly that. Funny what people will assume where you’re not dark-skinned!
Halcyon Park was the other neighborhood we really liked and we actually bid on a house over there but the owner was pretty firm on their listed price, having already dropped $10k. About a month later, they dropped it another $20k, almost to our original offer, but we were already sold on the one we ultimately bought which cost more but is closer to both school and transportation.
Thanks for reading!
bloomfieldguy
July 19, 2008