Lower Broadway, Newark

Lower Broadway Neighborhood is a neighborhood located on the northern edge of Newark, New Jersey's central business district.

Lower Broadway’s is marked by the immigrant populations who have passed through the community throughout Newark’s history. As the Italian community moved to the suburbs in the 1960s, the neighborhood became home to recent Puerto Rican arrivals. In the late 1960s, the African-American community assumed leadership positions and members of Newark’s Hispanic community began to organize as well. They came together to address their challenges and formed Familias Unidas, which created New Jersey’s first bi-lingual daycare center. This organization later laid the groundwork for what is now one of Lower Broadway’s anchoring institutions, La Casa de Don Pedro.

Today, Lower Broadway is a 1.2 square mile neighborhood located on the northern fringe of Newark’s central business district. Boundaries of the neighborhood are Interstate 280 to the south, the Passaic River to the east, 4th and Bloomfield Avenues to the north, and Branch Brook Park and the Newark Light Rail to the west.

With over 14,000 residents, Lower Broadway is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. It remains a largely Hispanic community (51% vs 32% in Newark), however it now has a wide mix of residents from Puerto Rico, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. The Black population has also increased steadily and includes African Americans as well as a growing West African population.

One quarter of the residents are under the age of 18, and one out of every five households is headed by a female with children under the age of 18. The unemployment rate hovers around 14% (American Community Survey, 2009.)

Lower Broadway is primarily a residential neighborhood characterized in the north by smaller lots with single- and two-family homes (many of which have been converted into two- and three-family units) and in the south by higher density residential development, particularly in the vicinity of 7th Avenue.

Residential uses are clustered in the heart of the neighborhood, although nearly one third of the population lives in the two Mies van der Rohe designed towers on the southern edge of the neighborhood, The Colonnade and Pavilion apartment complexes. The rest of the community is primarily three story homes and small-scale apartment buildings. The average home in Lower Broadway is over 80 years old.

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