Is this Buick even roadworthy?
(first posted 9/27/2018) Dr. Samuel Berg (1898-1990) of Newark, N.J. was a true visionary. In the early 1960s, somehow sensing that everything in his beloved city was about to disappear or change forever, he began a monumental quest. His self-appointed mission: to photograph every street and block in the city of Newark. The scale of this project would not be matched until the recent advent of Google street views.
After his death, Dr. Berg’s collection of 2,787 photographs made its way to the archives of the Newark Public Library. It is now available for browsing online. This is a goldmine for people who love Victorian and vernacular architecture and cars from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s–shown in actual use! I have gone through the collection, and have selected photos of some of the more interesting cars and backgrounds.
Newark at this time was a quaint but worn out city of rich architectural detail, brick and cobblestone streets, and widespread poverty. Most (but not all) of its residents were black and poor. However, in the early ’60s (when these photos were taken) the urban fabric was frayed but not torn. But then the July 1967 riots changed everything, and large areas of the city were destroyed. By the time I first saw Newark (c. 1978), some of what is seen in these pictures was still intact. As the 1980s and ’90s wore on, large sections of the Central Ward were cleared to make way for new development (mostly government subsidized, on expansive acreages of cheap land, with big tax abatements). Anyone who tries to go back and find what is shown in these pictures won’t see much.
Dr. Berg’s photographs preserved not only architectural history, but automotive history as well. Many of the cars shown here were back row, bottom of the used car market “transportation specials”, probably sold with low down payments and high monthly interest. This is not Concours d’Elegance type stuff–which makes it all the more interesting. So these photos are really “The last of”–The last years of the city as it had existed, and the last of the ’50s cars in daily use, before being towed to the junkyards of the Jersey swamplands to be crushed and melted down–never seen again.
If I went back in time and told the owner of this ’59 Cadillac convertible that one day his car would be worth $120,000 in this condition, what would he say?
Is that Ford a woody?
1957 Plymouth 4-door sedan–almost impossible to find today (unlike the ’57 Chevys. What’s parked in front of it?)
Lots of Cadillacs!
“BRAKES ADJUSTED 50 CENTS” What a deal! Is that a Simca?
Schraff Mansion: South Orange Avenue & Hunterdon Street. 1957 De Soto; Unidentified van.
Stripped ’60 Plymouth.
’57 Lincoln coupe and Ford fastback.
Packard Clipper.
1957 Ford with headlight rust (They all do that!); ’61 Imperial.
Yes sir, the doctor’s got a really fine car!
1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.
Corvette and Pontiac
Plymouth convertible and Pontiac Bonneville–both would be worth quite a bit today!
Another ’59 Caddy convertible!
1955 Chrysler hardtop (so uncommon, then and now); 1953 Buick sedan in front of Paul’s Wine & Liquor.
A few Studebakers could still be seen occasionally.
1963 Corvette split-window
Oldest car I found (from the 1930s) STILL IN USE! Maybe someone can identify it!
In the photo with the corvette, there are 2 1959 Oldsmobiles. Still remember, as a kid in the ’60s, lots of those around.
Could it be a Morris Minor in front of the 57 Plymouth? And maybe the old car in the last shot a 1940 Pontiac.
Great but neglected buildings. You are right about Newark, S Orange and Hunterdon has only one vintage building in sight now.
Indeed it is a Minor
Excellent set of pictures!
The car in pic # 4 on front of the ’57 Plymouth is a Morris Minor. It could have been made from ’48 to being brand new at the time of the picture.
The car in pic # 6 is, as you say, a Simca Aronde, and that body was made from ’58 to ’64.
Interesting that there’s a Morris Minor and a Simca, but no VW Beetles.
Thanks for sharing! That’s a taste of Newark as Phillip Roth so vividly described it in his novels – so present in his childhood and youth.
What a treasure trove of photographs, documenting now-lost architectural gems and mid-century automobiles that are now, in many cases, quite scarce. The variety of cars photographed illustrates that there was a time, not too far distant, when American carmakers produced an abundance of models for the car-buying public. Thank you for selecting these wonderful photos. I’d love to see a lot more of them in a future post!
The unidentified car in front of the 57 Plymouth is a Morris Minor. The unidentified “van” is a Chevy panel truck, 1953ish. As for the oldest car in the last photo I’m going with a 1939 Buick.
As an engineering student at NJIT from 1981 to 86 I was able to still see some of the beautiful old Newark intact. My parents who were both natives from the 1920’s to late 50’s spoke sadly about the aftermath of the riots and downfall of the huge hi rise low income “housing projects”
Thanks for bringing back some good memories – Newark Museum and the Ballantine House are true gems. Behind NJIT there was a restaurant called the Italian Kitchen. Building dated to the late 1880’s and it was run by an elderly couple who had been there since the 50’s. No menu, just what they wanted to make. Torn down in 1986
To why there are so many more ’57 Chevy sightings than ’57 Plymouths, an historical anecdote…
On January 22, 1961, Del Shannon, Max Crook and their wives, drove a ’57 Plymouth from Battle Creek to NYC to record “Runaway.”
Max’s wife, Joann, described the car as “old” and noted the heater had broken, the windows all wouldn’t roll up and the floors had rusted out.
Now I think most of us understand that Northern winters could be hard on a car’s body, and that most vehicles didn’t last nearly as long as today.
But as has been well-documented here and elsewhere, like allpar.com, quality issues which included rusting on the showroom floor pretty much rendered most ’57 Mopars – but especially the Plymouths – as doomed from the start.
And the ’57 Fords weren’t much better. The look of both was more modern to many 1957 eyes than their Chevy counterparts, but Chevy showed itself as the far-better-built car and as such, found redemption in Pop Culture as a used car.
The popularity of 57 Chevys (and 56 and 55) wasn’t because of “build quality.” They were the Fox Mustangs of their day: The right size car with a great engine, and as common as chips.
These pics are of a time shortly before I started noticing cars as a child, which for me would have been about 1968 or 1969, when I lived in the gritty steel town of Lackawanna, NY. By that time there were essentially zero 50s era cars still on the local roads then. My parents’s first car in my memory was a ‘65 BelAir they purchased in 1970 for $800. While riding around one day, I distinctly remember making the comment to dad that it appeared nearly every car more than about five years old was damaged in some sort of way. He didn’t quite agree, but said the lack of hubcaps, rust, and filth may have made it appear that way. Looking at these pictures just reinforces my opinion regarding my observations as an eight year old boy.
Last car is a 39 Buick.
What a great collection of pictures, and kudos to the Newark Public Library for making this resource available to the public.
One car that particularly sticks out to me is the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser — I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a street scene photo with a Turnpike Cruiser in it before. For some reason, it’s a car that I have a hard time envisioning real people actually driving.
Great collection of period photos, a window into a time now long gone, thanks for bringing them to our attention.
The ’55 Chrysler hardtop appears to be a C300. The oldest car in the last photo is a B-body ’39 Buick, probably a Special. The general condition of the cars look as I remember them in daily use, only rarely polished and beautiful, but worn, dirty, rusty and battered.
Link to collection:
https://cdm17229.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p17229coll6/search/page/1
The Studebaker is a late-series 1955 model. For no good reason, Studebaker changed the A-pillars on some of the mid-year ’55 models from slanted to more vertical, which also necessitated a new windshield. Even stranger, the Champion sedans kept the old A-pillars.
The sales people were screaming for a wraparound windshield. So instead of waiting for the new car in 1956 they added it mid year in 55, thus completing the tricky task of making nobody notice in 55 and then making the 56 look like a low-buck restyle of last year’s car.
The screaming stopped just a couple of short years later as the wraparound windshield fell out of fashion faster than disco music!
Stude’s wraparound was modest and tasteful, not a freaky reverse slant or curlicue. By any standard, it was an improvement over the original 1953 sedan windshield and it aged very well.
If the Commander is supposed to be an upgrade (other than the V8), why not give it an exclusive feature?
There’s some thought that all Commander sedans should have been the LWB Y-body, not just the Land Cruiser. It would have made them less stubby looking and more competitive with Big 3 cars.
Wow! That looks like Newark!!!
Thank you Dr Berg for preserving this piece of history. I wonder what was going on in picture #5 with all the Cadillacs?
Looks like a flashback scene from the Sopranos
I was thinking that as well especially with all the Cadillacs and such sitting around. I can picture a young junior and Johnny Boy
The Cadillac picture appears to have the the newest car of the group. The 67 or 68 Cougar driving down the street dates this one as no earlier than late 1966.
Thank you for sharing these. What a project he undertook in the ’60’s! It would be interesting to have some of these colorized as well.
“It would be interesting to have some of these colorized as well.”
My family didn’t get color TV until ’68; and it was a big deal–all the neighborhood kids came over to see it. I remember “black and white”; I know that some value it for “artistic reasons”, but I don’t see the attraction at all.
“Black and white” makes everything dreary and depressing, which I guess was the whole reason for filming the beginning and ending of The Wizard of Oz in monochrome. “Dreary and depressing” is exactly my impression of Newark in ’67; based on nothing more than these photos. It’s a messed-up impression and I know it.
I’d love to see these in color. Newark may have had “widespread poverty” but there’s more Cadillacs in these photos than I remember from my home-town at about that same time. We had nothin’ but Fords and Chevys, a Pontiac or Oldsmobile was a luxury car, and no-one I knew had a Buick or Cadillac except for the (1950? Not certain, but pretty sure) “Battlewagon” of Dear Old Dad’s; retired in favor of a ’66 Chevy Biscayne Wagon, 283 two-barrel, Three-on-the-Tree.
Wow so many great pics of a bygone time! Parts of Newark look like the older parts of Toronto, but much of TO has been gentrified and those old houses renovated, and they are now million dollar homes!
So many Caddys, and lots of ’60 models too which seem much rarer these days than the iconic ’59s. If only they had known back then how much these would be worth today! In that pic of the ’57 Lincoln, what’s that oddball car sandwiched between the two wagons across the street?
Looks like a 53-54 Plymouth
The first picture you asked if the old Buick was roadable. If it was like this part of Ontario at that time the answer is probably.
There were no safety inspections and if it moved it was roadable. I remember going to Sunday school in a neighbours country squire that had 2×4 s for you to rest your feet on because there were no floorboards left.
That Buick has coil springs in the rear. The bent rear part of the frame wouldn’t especially affect the rear suspension.
In 1956-57 the family car was a 48 Plymouth wagon. I remember leaning forward while riding in the rear seat and watching the road rush by through the big hole in the floor. My parents were generally colossal worry-warts, I can’t remember them ever cautioning us kids about sticking our feet through the hole. The car also had grass sprouting from all the seams in the back from hauling landscaping material.
Two door Morris Minor in front of the Plymouth and thats either a Simca Aronde or E’toile depending on engine size and trim level
This is a treasure trove of pix from back in the day. I love these “slice of life” candids; showing everything frozen in time and the sometimes odd juxtapositions of objects.
For as downtrodden as the area may be described, there seems to be a bit of decent looking iron on the streets, many of the pix show cars 3-4 years old. OTOH, cars were usually pretty much finished after three years of daily use…
Very nice pics. Thanks for posting. I enjoy watching period photos of cars in actual use. Would be nice if you can post more.
Maybe the Cadillacs belonged to tin men working the neighborhood?
this might take a while….
Here’s the link to view the full Berg Collection – 2,788 photos:
https://cdm17229.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/search/searchterm/berg%2C%20samuel%2C%20dr.%2C%20ca.%201898-1990!berg/field/subjec!all/mode/exact!all/conn/and!all/order/nosort/ad/asc
(copy and paste link to browser)
My dad grew up in Newark, NJ during the 1920s and 1930s. When I was a kid in the ’60s, he used to drive us through the old neighborhoods where he used to live.
They were used-up by then. Unlike the brownstone sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn, the houses were made of wood and could not be restored because they had been neglected for so many years. And they were mixed in with gritty factories, garages and other industrial establishments that detracted from whatever visual appeal the streets may have had. After the 1967 riots, the flight to the suburbs accelerated, leaving the city destitute for so many years.
However, there are architectural gems throughout the city. The Sacred Heart Cathedral is magnificent as well as several other churches. Shown here is a picture of the Peddie Memorial First Baptist Church on Broad Street. A great example of the Romanesque style.
First time I’ve seen a ’57 Packard Clipper in a contemporary street shot:
N side Montgomery looking E from SW cor West St., Newark NJ, July 4th 1960.
(You may have to zoom in close to see it.)
Click on this link for sharper quality:
https://cdm17229.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p17229coll6/id/492/rec/6
The pic with all the Caddies….are “The Guys” having a meeting somewhere?
This was my very first Curbside Classic article. Has it really been 6 years?
The links to Dr. Berg’s photo collection have expired; now you can click on Myles Zhang’s “Interactive Map” and zero in on locations. Modern Google Street View images are included so you can see what these places look like now.
Newark was such a visually interesting city; most of the old buildings are gone now.
https://newarkchanging.org/map/
Thanks for sharing, now if only others people from Detroit, Chicago, NYC, LA, Montreal, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, London, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Beirut, etc… had followed the path of Dr. Berg…
There were a few, perhaps not as prolific as Dr. Berg. If you search you can find them . . .
Looking outside the cars, the church in picture #16 has a roof garden! “Green roofs” aren’t such a new thing.
This is how I remember the East Coast in the ate 50’s ~ mid 60’s .
You had to be there to understand, five year old car could be worth less than$500 and most 50’s cars had rust out above the headlights .
-Nate
Looking at these photos. I thought I could hear
‘The boss’ but it wasn’t ‘born to run’