[The following articles are products of original research by the Historical Society; Elizabeth NJ Inc. for the city’s 350TH Anniversary celebration. Its officers, Paul H Mattingly and Ken Ward, originally wrote the first essay and worked with former Newark Star-Ledger columnist Bob Braun, adapting the Historical Society’s FORUM 2014 – BROAD STREET COMMERCE AND CULTURE – to construct the second essay. Both appeared in slightly different formats in the Newark Star Ledger Special 350th Anniversary edition (Sept 28, 2014)]

THE FOUNDING OF ELIZABETHTOWN
In 1664 a band of English immigrants established the city of Elizabethtown , the oldest English establishment in this colony. The group formalized themselves with the name Elizabethtown Associates and purchased land from the Lenni Lenape Indians. They proceeded to allocate governmental responsibilities among themselves. Virtually all of them were English Protestants or Huguenots, who had explored settlement possibilities earlier in the colony of Connecticut and on Long Island. The site of Elizabeth on the Arthur Kill, within easy water commute to Manhattan but distant from it, set in motion many themes of transportation and commerce that would affect the city’s history for the next 350 years.

Elizabethport became a settlement dependent on the adjacent waterway. Its fertile soil produced vegetables for residents and travelers. Its ferry service to New York made its inns and later hotels attractive for all colonials south of the colony of New Jersey who had business with New York, both its international and its alongshore trade. Staten Island offered a buffer and protection against storms and for a time aided the vigorous smuggling trade that drove a substantial portion of the 18th century economy of the state and city.

During the American Revolution Elizabeth’s strategic position made it both a British and Tory target as well as a base camp for George Washington and the patriot leadership. From Elizabeth the patriot militias could use the hilly country to the west as a hideaway and winter quarters; they could also use the city’s centrality for recruitment and its waterway access for provisioning the army and monitoring of the British fleet. It was not an accident that the city experienced many skirmishes and sent participants to the straguerrillategic engagements of Trenton and Monmouth. George Washington, ever on the move as befit a guerrilla commander, used Elizabeth often to keep track of British movements up and down the strategic artery of the Hudson River. His limited resources argued against major frontal engagements and urged caution to his officers about keeping outside the range of British cannons. His use of Elizabeth bought him the crucial value of time in his revolutionary struggles and extracted much expense from the British, who were ultimately worn down and outmaneuvered by Washington’s strategies. Elizabeth’s role as a strategic switch point was central not only to the Revolution but to the rest of its history.

In the first half of the 19th century the city became a locus of many imported craftsmen, making clocks, furniture, boats among many other artifacts. Its markets made possible the creation of a getaway resort for New Yorkers, bent on the diversion of fresh food, fish, and articles of trade. The construction of both a major hotel and the arrival of the railroad in the 1830s only reinforced the city’s natural advantages.

Since 1739 when NJ governor Lewis Morris appointed Joseph Bonnell mayor of Elizabeth, all mayors served at the pleasure of the governor. In 1855 Governor Rodman Price assented to a referendum breaking Union County away from Essex County and permitted Elizabeth to elect its own mayor, an unpaid and part-time post. The first such mayor – Elias Darby – had served as appointed mayor since 1853 but after the act of incorporation of the city (March 13, 1857), he was the first elected mayor and served until 1860. Importantly he was born 1798, a representative of the post-Revolutionary dynamic of the city and of the town’s commercial craftsmen, a silversmith by trade.

The city’s industry took a substantive turn in 1872 with the coming of the Singer Sewing Machine Works, which shortly would become the primary employer of Elizabeth, and a tremendous resource to the city’s economy. It would remain so for a century, until its closing in 1982. In that time the city’s industrial complex exploded, largely because of its proximity to the Arthur Kill, New York Harbor and the international commerce these waterways implied. Other industries and indeed many other immigrant groups after the turn of 20th century would provide resources and energies that transformed and modernized Elizabeth. The 20th century expansion of the Port Authority of Newark/ NY made the region a vital national airport, adding to the water and rail transportation facilities that the city always enjoyed.

BROAD STREET MAKES A CITY
Before and during the Revolutionary War, Elizabeth Avenue—then Water Street—was Elizabeth’s main thoroughfare. It is where the earliest buildings were constructed, the road traveled by farmers bringing produce to market, and the path of travelers leaving town for the rest of New Jersey and other colonies. What would become Broad Street left only a trace back then—notably two taverns, the Sign of the Unicorn and The Red Lion Inn, located at the site of the Elizabeth Public Library.
The war itself pushed residents farther from the water because of Tory and British raiding parties attacking from Staten Island. Then some 50 years later, came the railroads and they brought travelers and others seeking manufactured goods. Elizabeth Avenue supported heavy industry; Broad Street, commerce and the professions.

Like book-ends, two churches—First Presbyterian and St. John’s Episcopal enclosed a growing class of merchants and entrepreneurs, dominated by a small number of families, including the Keans who, while they were masters of Liberty Hall, a few miles away, they owned all or part of utilities, banks and even railroads. It was an era when the residents of Elizabeth owned the community’s businesses and wealth, a circumstance that would change in the future.

With a population surge provoked by the Civil War, the building faces of Broad Street and its environs began to change. With the increased use of steel and iron in construction, residences became shops, with glass exposure at street level and storage areas above. Families owned tailor shops, restaurants, and grocery stores. Later, Broad Street became the home of National State Bank, the Elizabethtown Gas Company, and the Elizabethtown Water Company. The city’s uptown became a powerful commercial center.
Like all urban centers, Elizabeth became the home of many immigrants, many of them skilled laborers coming to the city’s factories, especially the Singer Sewing Machine Company, opened in 1872, that would become a dominant employer for nearly a century. From 1870 to 1900, Elizabeth’s population more than quadrupled, from less than 11,000 to more than 52,000. Many Eastern European immigrants converged on Elizabeth Avenue, near the water. The area around Broad Street, however, attracted fewer immigrants and many of those were from Scandinavia. From a quarter to a third of the residents of the uptown area were drawn from the professional and managerial classes.

Many African-American families lived and worked on what was called Washington Street—now Dickinson Street. Many took in southern-born young women who worked as seamstresses and laundresses for wealthier, white clients. Widows of all races—many whose husbands were killed in increasing industrial accidents– took in boarders to supplement their income.

At the turn of the century, some of Broad Street’s shops expanded and the era of department stores came to Elizabeth. The stores bought in large lots and could keep prices low. They organized their goods by type on different floors—clothing, household items, furniture. The most famous of these was R .J. Goerke’s 6-story department store on Broad and West Jersey that opened shortly before World War 1. Through a variety of corporate changes, it would become Steinbach’s. It was joined by the Levy Brothers’ store. At the height of its commercial dominance—not just of Elizabeth but of the region—Broad Street also was the site of three chain department stores—W.T. Grant, F.W. Woolworth, and H.L. Green’s. Many upscale shops, including Claire Angrist’s fashion design house, Natelson’s, Poppy’s, Carlin’s, Carlsten’s, Rogers Clothes, Florsheim’s Shoes, Vogel’s music store, drew customers from the farther reaches of Union County and beyond. Other gems included the four movie theaters within walking distance of each other—the Regent, the Ritz, the Liberty, and the New—and each of them only feet away from “sweet shops” where movie-goers could stop for dessert.

By mid-century, the commercial dominance of Broad Street was most obvious on Thursday night—the city’s late shopping night—and Saturday afternoons when the sidewalks were jammed with shoppers. Thursday nights also became the night for cruising by the city’s teenagers who would drive their cars, many of them customized hot rods, in a loop from the arch to the triangle created by South Broad and Pearl.

Broad Street produced only one building that could make even a modest claim on skyscraper status—the 14-story Hersh Tower, built in 1931 at $1,750,000, an upscale, art-deco office building that boasted dramatic aluminum decorative touches and, for decades, was the business address in the city. The Hersh family maintained ownership until the 1970s. Its last Elizabeth owner, lawyer Frank Beninato, died in 2005. It is now owned by a Brooklyn real estate company.

Elizabeth was a center of civic and political spectacle as well, with Broad Street the venue of parades marking Memorial Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, and other holidays. The campaigning President Harry S. Truman came to Elizabeth in 1948—and, four years later, so did Dwight Eisenhower, running for his first term.

Broad Street has changed—just as the people of the city have changed and just as shopping habits have changed. Although the upscale department stores and shops survived the first onslaught of competition from malls, the city’s more expensive stores closed, giving way to bargain shops. Parking has been a problem as was the loss of local ownership. But few, if any, Broad Street venues are shuttered. Citizens are understandably concerned about how to sustain and upgrade Broad Street commerce. People now fix their eyes on the empty spaces between Broad Street and the Elizabeth River, not to mention the 40 acres recently razed, where the Burry Biscuit once stood near the North Elizabeth train station. How this land is developed, especially as it is geared to middle class commuters using the two train stations, will determine the fate of not only Broad Street commerce but the city of Elizabeth itself. Our political representatives must work with Elizabeth citizens, not just lawyers, architects and developers, to shape these properties for the lasting good of all Elizabethans, to add an upscale chapter to the history of a vital city.