IRVINGTON - Melody Thomas was considering the Fourth Annual 18th Avenue Day a success even though the street fair had not yet wound down at 3 p.m. May 15.
"Today's event was a good one," said Thomas as she was helping to put folding tables into a township van off the corner of 18th and Columbia avenues. "We drew 500 people, like last year. We had sunny weather today, not like the rain we had last year."
Thomas, as the township's Neighborhood Preservation Program Coordinator, headed up the annual festival. She had brought in portable basketball hoops for scheduled and pickup games, set up vendors tables between Munn and Isabella avenues, held the Irvington Idol II final competition and attracted a mix of public and private groups to the North Ward neighborhood.
Thomas looked back to see local youths playing two simultaneous pickup games where the Second Annual Police vs. Fire Street Basketball Game was held. There were spectators watching from both sides of the avenue, helping to keep the hired DJ to play his music.
The hoops were the last to be put away, at around 3:30 p.m. - not long after the township's mobile police command and two fire trucks had pulled away. Remaining spectators lingered about, talking about the day's activities while stopping in neighborhood stores on their way home.
The scene was a reflection of the fair's first hour. There was a crowd present along the fair's three blocks at 10:30 a.m., even though several vendors were still setting up. City employees had set up sawhorse barricades, detouring NJTransit No. 1 buses and other traffic. Avenue neighbors, including Renee Bolds, were among the volunteers looking to help vendors and spectators.
"I volunteered at last year's fair," said Bolds. "It's a day for people to come out and enjoy."
That welcoming spirit apparently included the avenue's alley cats. One feline walked over to the local Wells Fargo bank employees while they were unloading and had a closer look at that exhibitor's literature.
The first 18th Avenue Day was held May 12, 2007. The festival then stretched from Isabella Avenue east to Western Parkway just short of the Garden State Parkway and ran 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Thomas said that the fair drew around 200 people but the count has grown over the next three years.
"Four years ago, people were afraid to come here," said Thomas. "It's all about developing this neighborhood and bringing community together. Everyone is feeling a little comfortable now and feel a little more safe now."
Thomas then described about a developer wanting to put in a small strip mall at a corner of 18th and Western Parkway. It would be on or across from a site where a closed service station, which once sold Richfield gasoline in the early 1960s, stands.
The developer's proposal originally sought for a mixed residential-commercial plaza but scaled back. Thomas is hoping that some of the closed 1920s-era apartment buildings along the avenue will reopen soon.
The May 15 fair took up two to four blocks of the avenue's 12-block stretch through Irvington. 18th Avenue, travelling west from the intersection of Irvine Turner Boulevard and Spruce Street in Newark's Central Ward, runs about 2.75 miles or 39 blocks to Sanford Avenue in that city's Vailsburg section.
The avenue was most likely carved out of farmland and woods just after the Civil War. Newark librarian James Lewis said that 18th Avenue is first found in that city's 1873-74 directories. The new road bisected Camptown, which became the Village of Irvington March 24, 1874.
Newark's street grid pattern - which also spilled into neighboring modern-day East Orange, Belleville and Bloomfield - was adopted before 1840. Lewis said that the city had numbered up to Seventh Street in 1840-41. While the grid date's implementation may be currently lost to history, it can be presumed that Newark's leaders borrowed the concept from New York City's 1812 grid for Manhattan.
Contemporary 18th Avenue courses past the New Central High School, Jesse Allen and West Side parks, 18th Avenue School and other landmarks. The avenue has always had a mix of landmarks, residences and businesses.
18th Avenue, however, has been trying to shed a reputation for poverty, crime and drug sales. The township, for example, established its NPP in March 2006 to upgrade the neighborhood's appearance and attract new residential and commercial development. The area is also within Irvington's Urban Enterprise Zone - and within Operation Ceasefire's three-town crime prevention plan.
The township meanwhile began cracking down on various civil and criminal violations. An August 2006 code violation sweep, for instance, prompted four stores to close until they received their proper township permits. Irvington, Newark and the State Police have been conducting a joint borderline crime patrol area.
One resident approached Local talk, saying that crime and drug dealing along the avenue has declined in the last four years. Although Kearny Federal Savings closed its branch in 2008, Thomas said that a new business is about to move into that site.
Congressman Donald Payne, Sr.'s Web site has meanwhile listed a $500,000 request filing from Irvington as of March 11. The township is requesting the money from the federal government for repaving the avenue and installing a new streetscape.
Smith, who formally opened the fair at around 11 a.m., placed the avenue's development within the context of other Irvington projects.
"My focus is to develop all proposed economic development projects," said Smith. "Valley Fair (on Chancellor Avenue) is closing down next month and the (Irvington General) Hospital site may be closed (by a new developer) within a couple of weeks. All the projects are moving forward and we're really excited."
The festival has been attracting people from neighboring towns, most notably recently re-elected Newark West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice.
"I'm seeing what Irvington's doing and how I can apply it to the West Ward part of 19th Avenue," said Rice that morning. "We're trying to develop a resident-merchant partnership similar to the NPP. Besides, when I was on the campaign trail, I had little time to relax."
Thomas meanwhile focused on returning two events that were introduced last year to the fair: the Police vs. Fire department basketball game and Irvington Idol II.
"Last year the fire department won the game; this year the police department will play hard to win," said Thomas. "The Idol competition is of three finalists who had qualified by winning three regional contests.
Irvington Fire Department narrowly retained its bragging rights over the police department, 25-23. Gabriel Moses, 9, successfully defended his Idol crown with his own rap music performance.
Moses, brother Jeremiah and mother Ronelle were seen taking in the free food, pickup games and township information before and after the Idol finals.
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