Next to Newark: Irish & Italian Immigration to Suburbs

From the soccer fields of Waterlands Park, the noon bells of Our Lady of Sorrows and the chug of the westbound train are equally audible even today. A century ago, both the bells of St. Mary’s (which preceded OLS in the same location) and the roar of locomotives signaled home and work, especially for the Irish and Italian immigrants of South Orange. Our community’s two dominant immigrant groups lived just blocks apart, and came together around the train station and freight yards that became soccer fields, and at church. Their long, shared and often acrimonious history is a significant and lasting part of South Orange’s past.

On Thursday, June 2, the South Orange Public Library’s 1 pm discussion group presents “Next to Newark: The Irish and the Italians of South Orange.” The presentation, which includes dozens of family photos of old South Orange, will be led by this Patch editor.

South Orange (and the other Oranges) defined itself against an increasing industrial Newark at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Montrose Park was planned, and the great houses we know today were built. Social doings of the community were chronicled almost daily in The New York Times, but it’s also possible to read success in the real estate transactions of the time, The Social Blue Book of the Oranges, and the business pages, where residents’ names figure prominently.

The big houses needed builders, then staff. The train tracks needed laying and repair. Immigrants, first the Irish then the Italians, did those jobs. Many came to South Orange after brief stops in Newark; others followed family and came straight from harbor to here.

Thursday’s presentation – with lots of input from the audience – will look at how the familiar urban immigrant experience is changed when the story is set in the suburbs.  If you have a story to tell, please come or email: marciaw@patch.com

Tomorrow: The Irish Arrive

Wednesday: The Italian Neighborhood

Thursday: The Next Generations