Shoprite – Interstate 280E – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Jeans Billboard Has Newark Talking About Sex

The billboard for Akoo jeans hovers high at the corner of Market and Washington streets in Newark. - Ed Murray/The Star-Ledger

Sexually suggestive jeans billboard in Newark sends wrong message By Barry Carter/The Star-Ledger

Only one thought comes to mind when looking at the new billboard towering above downtown Newark. Okay, two. Is the young, seductive woman about to have oral sex with the young man 30 feet above a major intersection of the state’s largest city? Or have they just finished? – NJ Star Ledger

Newark USA – L. Craig Schoonmaker on Fading Ads

© L. Craig Schoonmaker (Newark USA)

L. Craig Schoonmaker’s Newark USA is ” a fotojournal about living in Newark USA, New Jersey’s largest and most cultured city, by the author of the foto-essay website RESURGENCE CITY: Newark USA.” Schoonmaker was kind enough to give me a spell-check on “haberdashery” and feature our blog on his visually engaging city-centered site. Above is a great collection of wall ads on Springfield & 12th. Schoonmaker’s posting also provides an historical context for the misspelled Burnett Street sign I posted demarcating the location of the S&S Packing Co & Eastern Meats wall signs.

Hahne & Company © L. Craig Schoonmaker

Above is a great night shot of Hahne & Company which I also featured in a previous post last December. After reading Schoonmaker’s descriptive historical narrative, I realized he likes alternative spellings (i.e. graffics and photograff). Maybe I should have stuck with the “habadashery” spelling in my categories after all?

Valley Landscape Inc. (Another Drive-by) – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun,
Mama always said you’d be
The Chosen One. – Steven Van Zandt

Google Maps

Don Wiss on Brooklyn Storefronts & Newark’s J. Wiss & Sons Co.

“Wiss, Founded 1848, New Jersey’s Leading Jewelers”

I was recently contacted by Don Wiss, a descendant (one of many) of the J. Wiss & Sons Jewelers & Wiss Shears families. Here is our correspondence below:

January 19, 2008

Hi Frank,

I see we both like to take pictures of buildings (my Brooklyn storefronts are famous enough that I presume you are aware of them). I came upon your site because of your picture of the Wiss building in Newark. It is a bit sad for me to see it. I have a picture from an old book, and it looked a lot better.

I just bought the Better Homes & Garden ad that you show. I gather you settled for the picture that was used to sell it. Where did your Wiss Store ad come from? My side of the family was the manufacturing side, so I have less interest in the store.My newest site is jwissandsons.com. That ad just arrived today, and I just put a PDF of it up. If you want a higher quality image of the ad I can provide one.

Don.

Dear Don-

Very pleased to meet you. Went to your site and it is voluminously entertaining. Will link your jwiss and donwiss sites & pdf to the [original] posting and post a new one about your site. Funny how similar interests and the Internet can make people cross paths. How did you stumble upon my blog? Do keep in touch and glad to have converged!

Best,
Frank

Don’s reply:

I follow what is being sold under Wiss at eBay. I buy some scissors. I look for material for my jwiss site. And mostly I send corrections for the listings to the sellers. One of the current listings (for a silver plated pinking shears which is new to me) borrowed the same text from the Smithonian’s SIRIS site that you borrowed. When I saw it I recognized it as being familiar, but I couldn’t remember where. So I searched on a string of it.

Visit the J. Wiss & Sons Co. Website!

Scissor Plan – TIME Magazine 1933

1906 ad – E-bay

Mockridge & Sons Hardware – Newark, NJ

¹ Google Books

Coachmaker’s Rabbet Plane

Hollow Plane²

³ Mockridge & Francis Molding Planes –Lot 223. THREE CLEAN COMPLEX MOLDING PLANES including examples marked Austin, Auburn Tool Company and Mockridge and Francis.

² Crafts Spring Tool Auction
³ Indianapolis Fall International Catalogue Antique Tool Auction

Edwin Allen Kirch, Furniture Trader – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

History of the City of Newark – digitized by Google

J Wiss & Sons Jewelers – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

J. Wiss & Sons Company was founded in 1848 by Jacob Wiss, a thirty-one-year-old immigrant from Switzerland who was an experienced cutler and gunsmith. The company, headed by Wiss and his descendants in Newark, N.J., emphasized high quality in its products which became known world-wide and sold to the U.S. Government in the Civil War and the two World Wars. In 1914, Wiss acquired the manufacturing facilities of a competitor and became the largest producer of fine scissors and shears in the world. Following World War I, Wiss weathered a severe depression in scissors markets, partly caused by dumping of European products. Increased U.S. help remedied this situation. Recently, the Wiss Company became a subsidiary of Cooper Industries. ¹

(e-Bay)

This PDF download courtesy of Don Wiss.

Roth, Race & Newark – A Marxist look at Newark’s writer Philip Roth (Portnoy’s Complaint)

Newark was a thriving city right up to the end of the 1920’s. Even with the brewing industry shifted into the underground economy, Newark’s factory life was robust, as Newark historian John Cunningham reported:

“The city had 1,668 factories in 1925, with an annual payroll of $90 million and Newark continued to boast that no other town manufactured a greater variety of products. . . . Most of the factories were small, employing fewer than thirty. But there were giants among them: Clark Thread Company, Westighouse, Weston, Balbach’s, Baker & Company, J. Wiss, Ward Baking Company, Tiffany, Pittsburgh Plate glass (making paint in Newark), Benjamin Moore, Murphy Varnish, Mennen, General Electric, Fischer Baking Company, Conmar and Johnson & Murphy, shoemakers.

– Larry Schwartz

Visit the J. Wiss & Sons Co. Website!

S. Klein’s – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Bamberger’s – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Driving through Newark’s “Department Store Graveyard,” I found Bamberger’s, a defunct Newark based department store with locations formerly in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware & Maryland.

Hahne & Company – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Old Newark Website – Hahne & Company – Montclair Times

S&S Packing Co. & Eastern Meats – Newark, NJ

Beef, Lamb, Veal

© Frank H. Jump

Rosso’s Fruit Baskets – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Newark Sunday Call – Halsey Street, Newark NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Coleman National Business College – Newark, NJ

© Frank H. Jump

Check out virtualnewarknj.com & Satan’s Laundromat on Newark