For several years in the 1930s, a man named Robert Ring worked as the assistant managing editor of the Newark Sunday Call, a weekly newspaper kaput since 1946. Each week he wrote a column called "All Around Essex," which today reads like a series of brilliant telegrams (or tweets!) from a Depression-era Newark now 75 years in the grave.
Ring had a real eye for the gently comic and absurd but also for the strangely affecting and poignant. More than anything, though, Ring was all about capturing transitory moments involving regular people. So you get snatches of conversation with a 18-year-old, job-seeking kid from Elizabeth feeding the pigeons in Military Park with rice bought with a dime spared from his busfare, or learn that in 1934 Newark watering holes were offering rye and gin at 5 cents a drink.
In columns such as this one from the October 13, 1935 edition, Ring achieves the apotheosis of his own chosen form, and becomes a sort of bare-bones Joseph Mitchell for Mayor Ellenstein's breadline Brick City:
A comely blond girl, about 10, is employed in an auto wrecking yard on Boyd street. She can often be seen swinging a sledge hammer and wielding a chisel. She is reputed to be a fine saleswoman in disposing of auto parts.
The Salvation Army headquarters on Washington street displays in the window a large Bible. A page is turned each morning. During the last three months a Negro has made his appearance every day to read the text carefully.
High price touring car, E6551, with the top down, being driven by a fine looking man of about 60. In the back seat, regal in appearance, sits a uniformed Negro chauffeur.
Dr. Richard Dieffenbach has not worn a hat, winter or summer, for nearly eight years.
Oraton parkway, named after an Indian chief, has no statute of an Indian. But it has one of Lincoln. There is no statute of the Great Emancipator in Lincoln Park, but there is one of an Indian.
The gal who earns her bed and board disrobing on the stage of a local burlesque house raised a fuss with her hotel manager here because her bedroom shade was out of order.
A building was demolished at Lawrence and Commerce streets. Its place was taken by this sign: 'No Dumping, No Trespassing--Police Take Notice.'
An old man wearing a swallow-tailed coat and a cloth carnation travels from tavern to tavern on Springfield avenue to play the piano. He is a graduate of a leading Berlin conservatory of music. He lost his children, wife and mother-in-law in the General Slocum East river disaster in 1904 and has been an aimless wanderer ever since.
On Mulberry street is a store with a sign: 'Original Old Ale House'. Adjoining is a store with a sign, 'This Is the Original Old Ale House of Newark'.
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