As Newark Celebrates Its 350th, RU-N Film Looks Back and Ahead
New footage of Clement Price speaking about Newark
To mark the start of the City of Newark’s 350th anniversary celebrations, Rutgers University-Newark has reissued the award-winning documentary film, The Once and Future Newark, which now includes never-before-seen extended footage of the celebrated teacher, scholar and Newark city historian Dr. Clement Alexander Price, speaking about his adopted and beloved city of Newark. Price was a professor of history at RU-N for decades until his untimely death in late 2014.
Originally issued in 2006, the film, part travelogue, part documentary, and part history lesson, features 18 sites in Newark, chosen for their historical, cultural, social and historic significance. Dr. Price tours the city with colleagues and students, from Branch Brook Park to Weequahic Park, from the Rutgers University campus to the Ironbound, and including Weequahic High School, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Essex County Courthouse, the Newark Museum, Newark Public Library and more. The film incorporates many historical images of Newark.
With the film’s reissue, Rutgers has also made available a 45-minute segment, featuring Dr. Price speaking about the city – its history, culture, people and promise. This never-before-seen segment was filmed in the historic Ballantine House of the Newark Museum.
“We are proud to be reissuing this film at the start of Newark’s 350th celebration,” noted Helen Paxton, the film’s producer, and director of communications at RU-N. Paxton worked with Dr. Price and with filmmaker Michael Podolski of Blackbird Media Group on the film, which has been seen frequently on WNET-Thirteen and New Jersey public television. “It is a fitting, if indeed sad, to honor Dr. Price with this reissue of the film, at this time of celebration for the city and the university,” noted Paxton. Price was chair of the Newark celebration planning, and a key player in the Rutgers 250th celebration planning.
Dr. Price’s tours of Newark were legendary, inspiring students, educators, current and former residents, and visitors from around the country and abroad with Newark’s past and present and with the promise of its future. Many who toured the city with Price have gone on to develop deep personal connections and active engagement with the city. "The growing interest in the new Newark that is taking shape has truly heartened my role as a New Jersey and public historian, “ Dr. Price noted in 2006. “The film enables me to reach thousands of people who live, work and study in Newark, those who left the city years ago and, to be sure, those who deserve an opportunity to better understand New Jersey's largest and most important regional center."
For information on the film, please visit www.newark.rutgers.edu/once-and-future-newark. For more information about Dr. Price, please visit www.newark.rutgers.edu/hymrn-clement-price.
Copies of the DVD are available for purchase from the RU-N Office of Communications, Room 210, 249 University Ave. , Newark, NJ 07102; the cost is $19.50 for the general public; $15 for educators, libraries, and Rutgers faculty, staff, students and alumni. Checks or money orders should be made payable to Rutgers University.
The film can also be viewed on RU-N’s YouTube channel, at The Once and Future Newark. Rutgers plans to make the extended footage also available on the internet in the near future.
For further information, please contact occ@andromeda.rutgers.edu.
Media contact: Carla Capizzi, 973/353-5263.
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