DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290002

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT

                                            LENGTH:   88 lines

ARTS, CULTURE AND DOWNTOWNS A TALE OF TWO CITIES: NEWARK AND NORFOLK

It was a gala opening night. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, soprano Kathleen Battle, the Lincoln Center Jazz orchestra, dancer Savion Glover, the New Jersey Symphony, actress-dancer Chita Rivera and Tango X2 were on the bill Oct. 18 when the New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened in downtown Newark, N.J.

But the biggest act on the bill was the handsome red-brick performing-arts center itself, created by internationally acclaimed architect/urbanologist Barton Myers, based in Los Angeles but a Norfolk native.

The NJPAC opening was a high point for a city that has yet to recover from near-mortal wounds inflicted by the 1967 rioting in Newark's black ghetto when chunks of Newark disappeared in flames.

Only minutes by rail from Manhattan, Newark was a dynamic port and manufacturing center. By the 1960s, the city had been brought low by changing markets and new technologies that destroyed many industrial enterprises. The city lost the shipping business. Endemic political corruption hastened decline.

Joblessness, poverty, despair, squalor and crime rates had escalated. The 1967 riots accelerated disintegration. Fearful black and white middle-income residents migrated to less menacing ground. Newark's population tumbled from 406,000 in 1967 to 259,000 in 1994.

Some attractive neighborhoods survived. Some corporations hung on. Prudential Insurance Company of America, more than a century in Newark, maintains its headquarters in a quartet of office towers downtown. About 85,000 people commute to jobs or school in the city. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center aims to give them reasons to linger.

The complex contains, among other things, a large theater (2,750 seats - a hundred more than Norfolk's Chrysler Hall), a small theater, a restaurant. But NJPAC will prosper only by regularly enticing thousands of New Jerseyites - 4.6 million live within 25 miles of downtown Newark - with its offerings.

Alas, people shrink from Newark. As NJPAC president Lawrence M. Goldman told The New York Times, ``This is the big idea: to change the way people think about Newark. It's not the place where you get your car stolen; it's where you go to concerts.''

Changing Newark's image is no small order. The expectation is that NJPAC will lure developers. Plans call for a hotel and offices on nearby land controlled by NJPAC. No one forecasts swift development, but arts and culture are essential components of any center-city revival.

What happens in Newark will be watched by cities like Norfolk. Socio-economic ills clustered in older cities threaten municipal health. Norfolk is the arts-and-culture capital of Hampton Roads, and the arts directly and indirectly generate significant tax revenue. But the city is nonetheless fiscally stressed. Average household income in Norfolk is markedly lower than in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

Myers is extremely critical of Norfolk's half-century-long urban-rejuvenation efforts. He deplores the bulldozing of most of the city's downtown architectural heritage. In a question-and-answer document published by NJPAC, Myers says:

``Norfolk adopted an urban-renewal program that demolished downtown. It was like Gen. Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Air Command had leveled the place. Probably it was the worst program of urban renewal ever carried out in the United States.

``Newark was luckier. Though the riots of 1967 were terribly destructive and cast a shadow over the city's reputation, Newark did not lose all of its fabric. It kept many of its wonderful old buildings. . . . Unfortunately, most people today don't understand how architecturally rich Newark already is, and how much more wonderful it could be.''

Myers doubtless is right about the potential in Newark's architecture. He is understandably pained by ``the tearing apart'' of old Norfolk. He said:

``My ancestor Moses Myers was a member of one of the earliest Jewish families to come to North America. He settled in Norfolk, did well, and built one of the finest townhouses in the South, called the Moses Myers House. My family lived there from 1791 until 1932, when the house passed to the city. It's now open to the public, operated by the Chrysler Museum . . . (M)y grandfather was a city builder and developer, who laid out some of the most beautiful parks in the city. So architecture and urbanism were also part of my background, and I always felt a deep sense of belonging to Norfolk.''

Preservation and robust investment may yet restore Newark's reputation and strengthen its economy and improve the quality of life. Wish the city well. And a standing ovation for the multimillion-dollar NJPAC, and its architect, and the three New Jersey governors who championed the project.

And yes, preservation lost during the post-World War II years when Norfolk fought to protect its tax base. Norfolk's future is far from bleak. There is still rebuilding to do, but much has been done. With NJPAC in place, the rebuilding of Newark has begun with fanfare. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The

Virginian-Pilot.

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