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Dear Reader,

In the run-up to Newark’s 350th anniversary in 2016, I decided that my major contribution to the milestone’s celebration would be publishing a book about people of note who had made the city their home at some point in their lives.

It was entitled The Famous, The Familiar and The Forgotten: 350 Notable Newarkers, first published in 2014 and revised in 2015.

On this, the book’s tenth anniversary, I thought it would be worthwhile to update my research, this time publishing the results online. That is the purpose of this website.

I spent two years researching and writing The Famous, The Familiar and The Forgotten. A lot of the heavy lifting was done at the Newark Public Library’s main branch on Washington Street where the resources and staff are superb.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to spend 10, 12 or even 14 hours a day doing everything I could to give me as broad a base of knowledge to put the book together. Bottom line: It was hard work — often tedious, always intense — but also educational and fun.

As I wrote in the book’s introduction, I knew I didn’t include everyone in the book who might warrant being listed.

I also said the main list of 350 Newark residents I selected for biographical sketches was completely subjective and that I stood ready to be corrected should new or better information come forward or if someone had a more informed opinion for me to consider.

In essence, I didn’t claim to be a genealogical wunderkind. I was simply someone with a bit of curiosity and a strong desire to get something down in black and white.

But I was also someone who had lived and worked in Newark for many years, had a family history in the city going back more than a century and who had studied and written about Newark’s history for a long, long time, both during and after my reporting career at The Star-Ledger.

I noted in the book that I expected the list to change over time as new data became available (census records, for example), as history evolved and as names faded in and out of prominence.

Certainly the list I compiled in 2014 wasn’t going to be someone else’s list or surely the same list that anyone would come up with in 10, 25 or 50 years, not even me were I to be around all that time.

I also admit I was guilty of an error of omission or two in compiling the first list. Would I have substituted Russell Baker and Lonnie Bunch III for a couple of others among the 350 I picked? Of course.

Simply put, this has always been a work in progress and one I’m hoping other researchers will pursue in the years to come.

This website primarily contains two things: A list of new notable Newark residents who were not mentioned in the 2014 book (Baker and Bunch among them) and updates on the lives or legacies of many of the 350 notables who were chosen for the book in 2014.

This was the least I felt I could do to mark the book’s anniversary in 2024, and I can’t tell you how much joy and satisfaction I’ve also derived from doing this round of research.

I intend to update the information on both lists as often as there is something new and substantial to add.

In that task, I would ask for your assistance.

If you have something for me to consider, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact me at this link, and I look forward to those messages.

The goal is to make the list as comprehensive as possible.

But for publication purposes, please remember that dates of births and deaths as accurate as possible are necessary, while verifiable Newark addresses are an absolute requirement.

Over the course of all the time I’ve put into this project, there remain people I would still love to include but don’t have verifiable addresses for them.

My work will continue, however, and my to-do list is as long as my arm.

That said, I hope you find the information contained here both interesting and thought-provoking.

I know I do, and I know I can say the same for the efforts of all the other researchers out there who dig into Newark’s long and glorious past from a variety of perspectives every day. I salute them and may their important work carry on long into the future.

In ending, I want to express my profound thanks to you for checking out this page and its contents. Now let’s get knowledgeable about some Newark notables.

                                                                                                                        March 2024

Website design by Myles Zhang