1910-era ethnic map of Newark, New Jersey

Newark's Chinatown was a neighborhood in the city of Newark in Essex County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

, United States. It was an ethnic enclave with a large percentage of Chinese immigrants, centered along Market Street from 1875 and remaining on some scale for nearly one hundred years. The center of the neighborhood was directly east of the Government Center neighborhood. The first Chinese in Newark came from the community in neighboring Belleville, home of the East Coast's first Chinese commnunity. The first Chinese businesses appeared in Newark in the second half of the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century. By the 1920s, the small area had a Chinese population of over 3000. In 1910, a small lane with housing and shopping was built called Mulberry Arcade, connecting Mulberry Street and Columbia Street between Lafayette and Green Streets. In the 1920s, recurring federal

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which ...

raids163 CHINESE SEIZED IN 16 OPIUM RAIDS
"50 Imported Federal Agents Ply Axes and Pikes in Drive on Newark's Chinatown. GET $50,000 NARCOTIC GEAR Use Fire Trucks and Spotlights to Surprise Quarry in Alleged Centre of Contraband Traffic." disrupted the community, causing many to move to more peaceful places. Despite an attempt to revive the neighborhood decades later, the Mulberry Arcade (the center of Chinatown) was removed in the 1950s. A 21st century project in the area is called

Mulberry Commons Mulberry Commons is a public park in Newark, New Jersey. It was first proposed in 2005 to be the centerpiece of of the city's Downtown surrounded by Gateway Center, Newark Penn Station, Government Center and Prudential Center, a 19,000 sea ...

. Today there is barely any sign that a Chinatown existed in the neighborhood, and only a small Chinese population remains. There is a Chinese restaurant on Lafayette Street and another on Green St. Nearby, the Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center on Liberty Street, in an old factory in the Chinatown neighborhood, exhibits arts from various world cultures.

References

External links

Sumei Multidisciplanary Center1910 map showing Chinese population in Chinatown
{{coord, 40.734771, -74.168100, display=title Chinese-American culture in New Jersey Ethnic enclaves in New Jersey Neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey Newark Populated places established in 1875 1875 establishments in New Jersey