East Orange High School

"Immediately after the consolidation of the school districts, the town purchased a lot on 

Winans Street and the erection of a high school building was undertaken. It was finished 

in December, 1891, and contained 10 recitation rooms, two large study halls, a drawing 

room, a chemistry laboratory and a gymnasium."  *

The tower was 90 feet tall.

Image below is from an 1895 insurance map

"By 1899, the rapid growth of the high school population induced the Board of Education 

to buy a piece of property on North Walnut Street, adjoining the high school, and shortly 

thereafter began erecting an addition. Joined to the 1891 building on the north side, the 

new edition was ready for occupancy in September, 1911, holding 750 boys and girls. 

Graduation exercises, held up to that time in Ashland School, were celebrated in the new 

high school auditorium for the first time in June, 1912." * 

I was inside the high school only once: In 1955 during the Davy Crockett craze caused by the Walt Disney miniseries, an event at the East Orange High School auditorium was advertised as featuring an appearance by "Davy Crockett." We kids packed the place but when "Davy Crockett" walked out onto the stage we were stunned to see that it wasn't Fess Parker, everyone started booing, and that's my only memory of the event.  

Image below is from a 1911 Sanborn insurance map

                      *text from a 1963 history of East Orange celebrating the city's centennial 

Columbian School

                                          Above: view is looking NE across Grove Street

From a description in 1922:

"Columbian School derives its name from the fact that it was opened in the 400th year
after the discovery of America by Columbus. Originally, it was an eight room building
and was considered one of the most complete schools in the state on its opening. It was
built at the corner of Springdale Avenue and Grove Street. Just 100 pupils occupied its
spacious quarters on opening.

This spaciousness didn’t last long. As the population in the Fifth Ward began increasing
by leaps and bounds, the 7th and 8th grades had to be transferred to Eastern School. In
1902, four new rooms and an assembly hall were added. In 1912, it was necessary to use
a portable building to accommodate two extra classes until another addition was
completed a year later. At present, Columbian has 35 classrooms, two gyms, many
special classrooms and a teaching staff of 46 members. It handles over 1,000 students."

            Above: views are looking SE from NW corner of Springdale Avenue/Grove Street intersection

Frank S Coe was principal of Columbian from its opening to his retirement in 1938.

For many years until 1958, Stockton students went on to Columbian for 7th and 8th grades. The main memory of the Columbian area for those of us who didn't attend Columbian School was the Columbian Playground, especially the Playground's annual carnival.

Above: view is looking ENE across Grove Street

Below: view is looking NE across Grove Street

Below: from a 1911 Sanborn insurance map

Park Avenue Methodist Church

Park Avenue Methodist Church on the NW corner of Park Avenue and North Grove Street had been organized in 1893 as the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church with a temporary, "straw board" chapel and in 1898 the church building that still exists today was built with Rev. W. W. C. Walker as the first pastor. The Methodist churches to the east and to the west of the area were overcrowded so the location had been chosen to serve the Methodists in the rapidly growing neighborhoods between the Roseville church in Newark and the Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church at Main St and Walnut St in downtown East Orange.*

In 1958 the church was celebrating its 60th anniversary in the 1898 building, one of the events was a baby contest, and my mother an excellent seamstress made my brother Drew a sailor suit for the contest. A photographer for the Newark News was there and snapped this photo which appeared on the front page of the Newark Sunday News the next day, November 9, 1958. 

The little girl in the photo, Laura Israel, is now an award-winning documentary film maker, winning for the film Windfall  which shows the somewhat unexpected negative, local environmental effects of windpower.  Laura's father, former Stockton School student  Harry Israel, was a 1952 graduate of East Orange High School and later a teacher at Vernon L Davey Junior High School where he taught Janis Fink, soon to be known as Janis Ian.

My family attended the church from 1947 to 1959 and one Sunday morning in spring 1957, I put on my Sunday clothes and my Sunday School pin with its ladder of attendance pieces hanging from it. My family didn't always attend the church service possibly because my little brother was only 6 months old but I always went to Sunday school with the lengthy attendance pin as extra incentive. I walked up William St to Grove St and started the long walk down Grove toward Park Avenue Methodist Church, but as I got close to Park Avenue, I could see kids I knew walking up Grove toward me from Park Avenue and as I got closer I asked one kid where they were all going. "Sunday school's over" the kid said, "you're an hour late." It was the first weekend of Daylight Saving Time, my parents had forgotten to "spring forward" and I was embarrassed as the other kids laughed at me, but at least it was my parents' fault, not mine.

                                                            Above: a recent photo

In 1959 the church's pastor Rev. Clark van Auken gave the invocation at Stockton School's 8th grade graduation ceremony. 

* From a history of the church:

Bob Dylan in East Orange

Robert Zimmerman, later known as Bob Dylan, arrived in New York City from Minnesota in January 1961 with the intent to perform in the NYC folk scene, but also to track down and meet influence and idol Woody Guthrie.

Dylan soon discovered that the best way to meet Guthrie was to travel to East Orange on a Sunday afternoon to the apartment of Bob and Sidsel Gleason at 182 North Arlington Avenue near the southeast corner of Park Avenue and North Arlington Avenue, and  Dylan met Guthrie there for the first time on Sunday January 29, 1961. (date from Woody Guthrie: Writing America's Songs by Ronald D Cohen) The Gleasons had been hosting Guthrie's outpatient visits for several years from Greystone Park Hospital where he was being cared for as he suffered from Huntington's disease.  

Dylan continued to visit the Gleasons and over several weeks in February and March he recorded a group of cover songs there under the title East Orange Tape aka Gleason home tape ( Remember Me  from that tape along with early photos of Dylan). While Dylan hadn't been in NYC very long, he was quickly disappointed with the reception to his performances, began performing at a coffee house in East Orange and in May he hitchhiked back to the Midwest for a month.

He wrote a song called Talkin' New York in which he described New Yorkers' derisive reactions in early 1961 to his performing style and he ended the song with a humorous allusion to his time in East Orange combined with his Midwest trip:

"So one mornin’ when the sun was warm
I rambled out of New York town
Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And headed out for the western skies
So long, New York
Howdy, East Orange"

He also wrote a satirical song, well, monolog, called East Orange, New Jersey (link is to his performance of East Orange at the Gaslight Cafe in NYC, September 6, 1961) about his experience at the coffee house, The Cave* which was on Main Street in East Orange near the SE corner of Main Street and Halsted Street:

First time I ever worked in East Orange, New Jersey --
Folks, never go to East Orange, New Jersey,
It's a horrible town.
I once had to play in a coffeehouse out there.
It was so bad -- uh -- so bad,
People playing chess out there -- uh --
It's all they thought about
Was chess 'n' chess 'n' chess.
People come up to me
You play a song, you play a real quiet song
In the middle of the song ya hear "check"
And "Hey, that was a good move"
And all kinds of stuff like that.Yes, folks, it was so bad I had a little dream out there
The first night I worked,
About this chess playing stuff.
I dreamed I went to work out in East Orange, New Jersey,
And -- uh -- about the time I quit in two days
I went there to ask the guy for my money,
"I worked two days for you"
He says, "Uh, well, o.k., we don't pay money around here, though."
I says, "Uh, yeah?" He says, "Uh, well"
He says, "Uh, we pay chessmen."
I said, "Uh, well, gimme my chessmen then. I worked for two days."
I was sort of -- didn't really figure --
I thought he was lying at first,
But I took it anyway.
He gave me a king and a queen for working two days.
I says, "Uh, fine, that's o.k."
So I took my king and queen, went down to a bar, the nearest bar I could find.
I walked in the bar and ordered a pint.
Down the bar, the bartender,
I says, "Can I have a pint?"
I'll be damned, he give me a pint.
He asks me for the money,
I gave him my king and queen.
I'll be damned, he took that king and queen,
Threw it under the counter,
And brought me out four pawns, two bishops, and a rook for change.
Little story about East Orange, New Jersey.

 Promoter Jerry Schoenkopf, an owner of The Cave in 1961, writes "The real story is Bob came to East Orange every weekend for 4 or 5 months. He got paid in money, not much, but money. There was a lot of chess playing going on. Bob was loved and his music was greatly admired and appreciated. I met Bob at Gerde's Folk City hootenanny on a Monday night and asked him to play at our coffee house in East Orange, The Cave. He did." 

 More about the Sunday visits at the Gleasons   Blowin' in the Wind 1962

*The 1961 East Orange High yearbook references The Cave in a prediction about the 1961 graduates:

"As a late arrival opens the door of East Orange's famous cafe "The Cave," his 

eyes become accustomed to the smog-like atmosphere and he smells the pungent 

espresso coffee perking in time with the beats of the bongos. 

Jimmie Hooper's "Hippers" swing out with a modern version of "On, East 

Orange," while from across the dim room come the opening strains of "Stand 

Up and Cheer," transmitted by Billie Brooks and his combo. 

With an experienced air, Al Monica, the Dick Clark of '81, announces that 

David Tute, the versatile entertainer of international renown, will present his 

ever-popular night club act. 

Suddenly, whistles pierce the smoke as models Judy Curry, Brigitte Falck, and 

Randy Bishop enter, wearing the latest fashions of designer Sharon Jetter. 

Seated in a conservative corner, Sheila Flower, Rosalind Bjornson, and Laura 

Fitzpatrick industriously collect information for their theses on the influence of the 

Cave upon its middle-aged patrons."