eNews Full Length Articles
Fall 2008 eNewsletter:
Full Length Articles
In this Issue:
LISC & the NFL Grassroots Program Team Up
A New $5 Million Preschool for Ivy Hill
Culture + Arts + Green Living = Lincoln Park / Coast Cultural District
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LISC & the NFL Grassroots Program Team Up
Are you ready for some football? The youth of Newark and Jersey City will be geared up very soon thanks to The NFL Grassroots Program. With the program’s support, the brand new Nat Turner Field in Newark broke ground in June, and a newly refurbished field for Cochrane Stadium at Caven Point, Jersey City will be ready for the fall season.
Both fields were natural choices for $200,000 awards from The NFL Grassroots Program, a partnership between LISC, the NFL Youth Football Fund with local support from the New York Football Giants. The program chooses upwards of 30 recipients annually from a national pool of applicants in a competitive vetting process. Awards provide financing towards everything from new artificial turf to goal posts and bleachers. In the words of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, “Fields are an integral part of creating viable and healthy communities. The development and refurbishment of these football fields gives youngsters across the country a safe place to play the game, and brings families and neighborhoods together.”¹
The Cochrane Stadium field, a 2007 NFL Grassroots award recipient, serves the public high schools of William L. Dickinson, James J. Ferris, Lincoln and Henry Snyder as well as a number of parochial schools and the local youth football leagues. Because of Cochrane’s heavy use, the Jersey City Recreation Foundation with the support of the City of Jersey City and the Jersey City Board of Education, undertook the effort to raise funds for its refurbishment. LISC’s award for the Cochrane Stadium renovation was matched by $250,000 from Jersey City and $400,000 from Hudson County. The renovation of the widely used Cochrane Stadium at Caven Point will be completed in time for the 2008 fall season.
Construction began in June for the creation of the new Nat Turner Park, the future home of Nat Turner Field. The largest city-owned park in Newark, the project includes an amphitheatre, community event space, football field, 400-meter regulation track, ornamental perimeter fencing, a playground, picnic areas, and streetscape improvements. The park design was created with community input as part of a participatory approach used by the Trust for Public Land (“TPL”); the group is also spearheading the construction of the athletic field. TPL is working in partnership with Newark Public Schools, Springfield/Belmont Super Neighborhood Council, and Friends of Nat Turner Park to move the project forward and garner community wide support. TPL held a series of workshops giving local residents the opportunity to voice their wishes for the park. As a result, the currently underutilized nine-acre lot will be transformed into a much wanted green space fulfilling community needs. The lot is located in the Central Ward’s Springfield neighborhood, and lies within a quarter-mile radius of approximately 5,800 residents, including 2,000 children under the age of 18. (The greater neighborhood area includes nearly 7,000 neighborhood children.) This $10 million construction project is expected to be complete by next summer.
Lead funding for Nat Turner Park was provided by the City of Newark, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Victoria Foundation. Additional support was contributed by Essex County Recreation & Open Space Trust Fund, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Local Initiatives Support Corporation's NFL Grassroots Program, National Recreation Foundation, The Prudential Foundation and New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Authority.
> Download the 2008 NFL Grassroots Program Request for Proposals
> Download an overview of the LISC Youth & Recreation Program
[1] Journal Staff, “NFL chips in for a new field at Jersey City’s Caven Point”, The Jersey Journal (June 8, 2008).
Grantee
Spotlight: Jersey City Recreation Foundation
Founded in
2001, the Jersey City Recreation Foundation funds recreation programs that serve
as positive outlets for Jersey
City youth.
Spearheaded by Executive Director Robert Hurley, the foundation has
funded 20 youth athletic activities and leagues. The supported activities are diverse,
from baseball, football, soccer and basketball to fencing, trampolining,
wrestling, tennis, and track & field.
With approximately 18.6% of the Jersey
City families living under the poverty line, compared to 8.4% for
across the State of New Jersey and 12.7%
nationally, for a number of Jersey
City youth, the foundation supported programs are the
only opportunity to participate in organized sport.
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A New $5 Million Preschool for Ivy Hill
Some of the youngest residents in Ivy Hill section of Newark’s Vailsburg Community can look forward to a new preschool facility. Complete with ample play space to meet the needs of its 3 and 4 year old target population, this posh, 27,000 square foot new facility, which broke ground July 23, 2008, is being developed by the Unified Vailsburg Services Organization (UVSO) of Newark.
The Abbott Preschool will begin to serve 210 children by Spring 2009. This is the fifth preschool to be developed by UVSO and the second that has received financial and technical support from LISC. LISC’s Community Investment Collaborative for Kids (CICK) program committed $97, 317 in predevelopment funding. Greater Newark/Jersey City LISC also contributed a $1.3 million construction loan towards the Ivy Hill center. Additional financing for the project came from New Jersey Community Capital, Leviticus, and the Federal Office of Community Services. LISC and UVSO have a long history of partnership in community development. LISC has committed over $1.5 million towards previous UVSO projects, including $500,000 towards the $ 1.8 million budget for the construction of the Smith Street Early Childhood Education Center.
Local support for the new Ivy Hill facility has been well received across the City of Newark. By addressing the service shortages in Ivy Hill, the new preschool center is formally endorsed by the Newark Public Schools and the New Jersey Department of Education. Speakers and attendees of the ground breaking included: The Honorable Cory A. Booker, Mayor of City of Newark; Jacqueline Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Commissioner, Division of early Childhood Education, NJ Department of Education; Marion Bolden, Outgoing superintendent, Newark Public Schools; and Clifford Janey, Incoming Superintendent, Newark Public Schools.
Formed in 1972, the Unified Vailsburg Services Organization is a true neighborhood resource. Created to stabilize the Vailsburg community in the face of a changing urban environment, UVSO has turned into a vital multi-service organization. Current services of the organization include Meals on Wheels, a visiting nurse and homemaker program, crises intervention and family counseling, after school centers, a teen center, preschool centers, a summer day camp, a community organizing program and a senior citizen center. Over the years, UVSO has also fashioned a successful housing development program, which has been a catalyst in the revitalization of the Vailsburg neighborhood. On a typical day, this neighborhood gem serves 1,000 Vailsburg residents.
Responding to the needs of the community, Unified Vailsburg Services Organization has sought to meet the demands for good childcare through the creation and management of several childcare centers. UVSO currently serves 277 children in preschool and infant‑toddler classrooms. The total includes 90 preschool children at 179 Smith Street; 45 preschool children at 462 Sanford Avenue; 52 infants and toddlers at 1040 South Orange Avenue; and 90 preschool children at 24 Hazelwood Avenue. The newest center, at Smith Street, opened in 2003 in a brand new facility created just for children. Despite this fairly recent opening, the demand for sites tending to Newark’s youngest are still not satisfied. There are currently waiting lists for all of UVSO’s centers.
This new site will increase UVSO’s overall preschool enrollment capacity to 397 children. The Ivy Hill preschool will be built on a 1.6 acre lot on Irvington Avenue. Within the center’s 2,700 square feet will be 14 classrooms, an indoor play and motor-skill development area, two bathrooms in each class, a meeting room, a nurse’s room and administrative offices. A state-of-the-art playground will also be directly accessible from all the three-year old class rooms on the first floor.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Culture + Arts + Green Living = Lincoln Park / Coast Cultural District
Once an area of abandoned lots and substandard housing, the Lincoln Park/ Coast area of Newark is transforming into an energized synergy of culture, arts and green living. This 11 acre, four block, community transformation is being spearheaded by the Lincoln Park/Coast Cultural District (LPCCD) through a five-phased, community supported mixed-use development project. The project includes 300 affordable, LEED certified, town homes and lofts, the utilization of Lincoln Park as a music and cultural venue, historic restoration projects and the opening of the Museum of African American Music, a Smithsonian Affiliate. The story of this community as LPCCD describes it “is a chronicle of Newark's past, from colonial village, to thriving industrial center,” side by side an old Barbary Coast (a Black entertainment and red light district), into decline and now to renewal.
In August, LPCCD celebrated the completion of the first part of Phase I of this project - the Washington Street Mixed Use Buildings. A ribbon cutting ceremony and open house was held at the site to celebrate the completion of these six LEED certified, 3800 square feet, three-unit buildings, which include both residential and commercial space. Dwelling units have been outfitted with Energy Star appliances, low-flow water fixtures, super insulated building materials, low-VOC paints, durable, sustainable building materials, and special heating and cooling filters to improve air quality. Greater Newark & Jersey City LISC provided a $250,000 recoverable grant, $584,000 pre-development loan, and an $800,000 construction loan towards this project. Generous support for the project was also received from Wachovia and PSEG.
Formed in 2002 as a result of redevelopment planning led by the tri-state Regional Plan Association (RPA), the Lincoln Park/ Cultural Coast District (LPCCD) is dedicated the creation of a sustainable arts and cultural community in the Lincoln Park area of Newark. LPCCD, lead by Executive Director, Baye Wilson, began as an advocacy group for the Lincoln Park neighborhood. It has since evolved into a community development corporation as community members began to initiate redevelopment themselves.
Key parts of this redevelopment effort are the creation of the Museum of African American Music (MoAAM) and the mixed-use housing development. The museum will serve as the centerpiece to the cultural arts district and the burgeoning artist community in the area. The first Smithsonian Affiliate in New Jersey, the museum is also the first of its kind to focus specifically on African‑American music.
The other cornerstone in the creation of a sustainable arts and cultural community is the development of affordable housing with a focus on providing artists with live/work space. The affordable housing will be part of a mixed-used development. The development a series of townhouses, lofts, artist studios and work/live units. What’s more, the units will be green! The organization anticipates 25% of the units to target low to moderate income householders (those with incomes under 60% of median) and the remainder at 80% and above of median. Phase (1A) of the development, the construction six (6), four-story two -family town-homes, is now complete.
Profile: Lincoln
Park/Coast Area
Lincoln Park was once one of the most exclusive
neighborhoods in the United
States: home of two New Jersey Governors and the founders
of Prudential, Ballantine Beer, the Public Service Electric & Gas Company,
and the largest law firm in New
Jersey, McCarter & English. The Coast neighborhood
is just north of Lincoln
Park, and was once a working‑class African‑American jazz
and entertainment district between the 1920s and 1940s. Many of those Lincoln Park/Coast
residents either relocated or closed their facilities during the 1950s and1960s. The neighborhood had
steadily deteriorated until this recent revitalization effort.