Orange, New Jersey

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Orange, New Jersey
Map of City of Orange in Essex County. Inset: Location of Essex County highlighted in the State of New Jersey.
Map of City of Orange in Essex County. Inset: Location of Essex County highlighted in the State of New Jersey.
Census Bureau map of Orange, New Jersey
Census Bureau map of Orange, New Jersey
Coordinates: 40°45′57″N 74°12′43″W / 40.76583, -74.21194
Country United States
State New Jersey
County Essex
Incorporated November 27, 1806
Government
 - Type Faulkner Act Mayor-Council
 - Mayor Mims Hackett, Jr.
Area
 - Total 2.2 sq mi (5.7 km²)
 - Land 2.2 sq mi (5.7 km²)
 - Water 0.0 sq mi (0.0 km²)
Elevation [1] 164 ft (50 m)
Population (2006)[2]
 - Total 31,858
 - Density 14,903.7/sq mi (5,754.3/km²)
Time zone Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
 - Summer (DST) EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP codes 07050-07051
Area code(s) 973
FIPS code 34-55020[3]
GNIS feature ID 0885200[4]
Website: http://www.ci.orange.nj.us

The City of Orange is a Township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 32,868. Orange is often joined with neighboring East Orange, South Orange and West Orange and referred to as part of "the Oranges."

Orange was originally incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on November 27, 1806, from portions of Newark Township. Portions of the township were taken on April 14, 1834, to form the now-defunct Clinton Township. On January 31, 1860, Orange was reincorporated as a town. Portions of the town were taken to form South Orange Township (April 1, 1861, now known as Maplewood), Fairmount (March 11, 1862, now part of West Orange), East Orange Township (March 4, 1863) and West Orange Township (April 10, 1863). On April 3, 1872, Orange was reincorporated as a city.[5]

Contents

[edit] Geography

Orange is located at 40°46′6″N, 74°14′10″W (40.768300, -74.236031)[6].

According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 2.2 square miles (5.7 km²), all of it land.

[edit] Demographics

Historical populations
Census Pop.  %±
1860 8,877
—
1870 9,348 5.3%
1880 13,207 41.3%
1890 18,844 42.7%
1900 24,141 28.1%
1910 29,630 22.7%
1920 33,268 12.3%
1930 35,399 6.4%
1940 35,717 0.9%
1950 38,037 6.5%
1960 35,789 -5.9%
1970 32,566 -9.0%
1980 31,136 -4.4%
1990 29,925 -3.9%
2000 32,868 9.8%
Est. 2006 31,858 [2] -3.1%
Population 1930 - 1990.[7][8]

As of the census[3] of 2000, there were 32,868 people, 11,885 households, and 7,642 families residing in the township. The population density was 14,903.7 people per square mile (5,742.3/km²). There were 12,665 housing units at an average density of 5,742.8/sq mi (2,212.7/km²). The racial makeup of the township was 13.20% White, 75.10% African American, 0.34% Native American, 1.26% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 5.21% from other races, and 4.79% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.47% of the population.

There were 11,885 households out of which 33.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.7% were married couples living together, 26.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.7% were non-families. 30.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.73 and the average family size was 3.38.

In the township the population was spread out with 27.7% under the age of 18, 10.0% from 18 to 24, 32.2% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to 64, and 10.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 86.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 79.1 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $35,759, and the median income for a family was $40,852. Males had a median income of $33,442 versus $29,520 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $16,861. About 15.4% of families and 18.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.6% of those under age 18 and 16.7% of those age 65 or over.

As part of the 2000 Census, 75.10% of Orange's residents identified themselves as being African American. This was one of the highest percentages of African American people in the United States, and the fourth-highest in New Jersey (behind Lawnside at 93.6%, East Orange at 89.46%, and Irvington at 81.66%) of all places with 1,000 or more residents identifying their ancestry.[9]

Although still a small percentage of total residents, Orange and East Orange have the largest concentrations of Guyanese Americans in the country. In the 2000 Census, 2.9% of Orange residents identified as being of Guyanese ancestry. While Queens and Brooklyn had larger populations in terms of raw numbers, Orange and East Orange (with 2.5%) had the highest percentages of people of Guyanese ancestry as a portion of the total population of all places in the United States.[10]

[edit] Government

[edit] Local government

Orange is governed under the Faulkner Act (Mayor-Council) form of municipal government, with a directly-elected mayor and a City Council consisting of four ward representatives and three at-large representatives. Councilmembers serve four-year terms of office on a staggered basis, and are elcted on a non-partisan basis.[11]

The Mayor of Orange is Mims Hackett, Jr.[12]

Members of the City Council are:[13] North Ward: Tency A. Eason, (2008) At-Large: Donald Page, Council Vice President (2008) West Ward: Hassan Abdul-Rasheed (2010) At-Large: Vivian M. Gaunt (2008) South Ward: Edward B. Marable, Jr. (2010) East Ward: Council President, Lisa Y. Perkins (2010) At-Large: Coram J. Rimes (2008)

[edit] Federal, state and county representation

Orange is in the Tenth Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 27th Legislative District.[14]

New Jersey's Tenth Congressional District, covering portions of Essex County, Hudson County, and Union County, is represented by Donald M. Payne (D, Newark). New Jersey is represented in the Senate by Frank Lautenberg (D, Cliffside Park) and Bob Menendez (D, Hoboken).

For the 2008-2009 Legislative Session, the 27th District of the New Jersey Legislature is represented in the State Senate by Richard Codey (D, West Orange) and in the Assembly by Mila Jasey (D, South Orange) and John F. McKeon (D, West Orange).[15] The Governor of New Jersey is Jon Corzine (D, Hoboken).[16]

Essex County's County Executive is Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. The executive, along with the Board of Chosen Freeholders administer all county business. Essex County's Freeholders are Freeholder President Blonnie R. Watson, Freeholder Vice President Ralph R. Caputo, Freeholders-At-Large Johnny Jones, Donald M. Payne, Jr., and Patricia Sebold, Freeholder District 1 Samuel Gonzalez, Freeholder District 2 D. Bilal Beasley, Freeholder District 3 Carol Y. Clark, Freeholder District 4 Linda Lordi Cavanaugh and Freeholder District 5 Ralph R. Caputo.

[edit] Politics

On the national level, Orange leans strongly toward the Democratic Party. In 2004, Democrat John Kerry received 90% of the vote here, defeating Republican George W. Bush, who received around 9%.

[edit] History

Orange had its origins in Connecticut's New Haven Colony. In 1666, barely three decades after settling there, 30 of New Haven's families took the perilous journey by water to found "a town on the Passayak" River. They arrived on territory now encompassing Newark, the Oranges, and several other municipalities. The area was situated in the northeast portion of a land grant conveyed by King Charles II of England to his brother James, Duke of York. In 1664, James conveyed the land to two proprietors, Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Since Carteret had been Royal Governor of the Isle of Jersey, the territory became known as "New Jersey."

Orange was initially a part of the city of Newark, and remained such until November 27, 1806, when the territory now encompassing all of the Oranges was detached. On April 13, 1807, the first government was elected, but not until March 13, 1860 was Orange officially incorporated as a city. Immediately, the new city began fragmenting into smaller communities, primarily because of local disputes about the costs of establishing paid police, fire, and street departments. South Orange was organized on January 26, 1861; Fairmount (later to become part of West Orange) on March 11, 1862; East Orange on March 4, 1863; and West Orange (including Fairmount) on March 14, 1863.

Orange lay on the Newark and Mount-Pleasant Turnpike, the main road from Newark to Morristown, and ultimately to Easton, Pennsylvania. The town became a busy thoroughfare for travelers, and hotels abounded. Initially, the stagecoach was the primary method of transportation. Omnibuses of the Eclipse and the Morris & Newark Lines serviced Orange. The Morris and Essex Railroad arrived in Orange in November 1836, its first cars drawn by horses. On October 2, 1837, the first steam locomotive appeared, and the horses were, with minor exception, relegated to pasture. The "M&E" later became a vital part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W), and survives today as New Jersey Transit's busy Morristown Line. Trolley cars appeared much later, with the Orange and Newark Horse Car Railroad Company running its first car up Main Street in May 1862. The Orange Crosstown Line, eventually extending from Morris Street, Orange, to Bloomfield, was started in June 1888. (The first electric trolley in the State of New Jersey operated over a section of this line.) Eventually, all of the trolleys, and the buses that replaced them, became part of the sprawling Public Service Coordinated Transport System.

Orange was an industrial city from the outset. Early settlers found a profuse growth of hemlock trees, an ideal supply of tannic acid for the tanning industry, and boot and shoemaking factories soon flourished.

Hatmaking was the essential industry, and can be traced to 1792. By 1892, 21 firms were engaged in that trade, employing over 3,700 people in plants valued at nearly $1.1 million. Nearly 4.8 million hats left Orange that year alone, bound for all four corners of the globe. By 1921, however, only five firms were left, and by 1960, all had departed for places such as Norwalk and Danbury, Connecticut.

Beer was a major revenue producer in Orange beginning in the early 1900s, when the three Winter Brothers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, arrived in the city and built the first brewery. The Orange Brewery was constructed in 1901 at a reported cost of $350,000. The production of beer ceased with prohibition in 1920, and after the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933, the brewery was sold to John F. Trommers of Philadelphia. Trommers brewed beer under that label until 1950, when the concern was again sold to Liebmann Breweries, Incorporated, which bottled Rheingold Beer. Eventually, after several additional owners, the plant was closed permanently in 1977.

Other notable firms located in Orange were the Monroe Calculating Company, manufacturers of the patented adding machines of the same name, and the Bates Manufacturing Company, producers of office accessories such as staplers and stampers. The United States Radium Corporation was a notorious resident of Orange. This firm refined ore and extracted the radium used to make luminous paint for dials and hands of watches and other indicators. It was only years later that the terrible carcinogenic effects of this material became known, and the polluted site of the factory became a thorn in the side of the city.[17]

Orange has produced such notables as baseball's Monte Irvin and Heavyweight Boxer Tony Galento. Actor William Bendix lived and worked here for a short while. It was once the barmaking capital of the United States, as several brothers founded the "No-Name Hat Company," before one of them moved on to make fedoras in Philadelphia under the family name, "Stetson." Presidents, presidential candidates, and governors visited. Orange threw a grand party on its 100th anniversary, and another when it turned 150.

Once a multiethnic, economically diverse city, Orange suffered indirectly from the 1967 riots in Newark (even though Newark and Orange do not share a border) and directly from the construction of Interstate 280 through the heart of the downtown area, triggering middle-class "white flight" from aging industrial towns to the new automobile suburbs being built in western Essex County and elsewhere. By the end of the 1970s, Orange had many of the urban ills normally associated with larger cities.

In 1982, citizens voted overwhelmingly to change the designation of Orange from a city to a township, thereby making it eligible for National Revenue Sharing funds as well as eliminating the stigma of having a city designation. In 1985, the State of New Jersey named Orange as a State Urban Enterprise Zone, creating tax breaks and investment incentives.

Source: City of Orange Township History

[edit] Education

The Orange Board of Education serves public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The district is one of 31 Abbott Districts statewide.[18] Schools in the district (with 2005-06 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics[19]) are eight elementary schools serving grades K-6 — Central School (316 students), Cleveland Street School (307), Forest Street School (244), Heywood Avenue School (390), Lincoln Avenue School (541), Main Street School (543), Oakwood Avenue School (312) and Park Avenue School (303) — Orange Middle School for grades 7&8 (566) and Orange High School for grades 9-12 (1,095).

[edit] Transportation

The Orange and Highland Avenue stations provide New Jersey Transit train service along the Morris & Essex Lines (formerly Erie Lackawanna Railway). Service is available via the Kearny Connection to Secaucus Junction and Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan and to Hoboken Terminal. Passengers can transfer at Newark Broad Street or Summit to reach the other destination if necessary.

[edit] Noted residents

Notable current and former residents of Orange include:

[edit] Points of interest

[edit] See also

Radium Girls, the name given to a group of women who were harmed, and ultimately died, from radiation exposure at a factory in Orange.

[edit] References

  1. ^ USGS GNIS: City of East Orange, Geographic Names Information System, accessed January 4, 2008.
  2. ^ a b Census data for City of Orange township, United States Census Bureau. Accessed August 9, 2007.
  3. ^ a b American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  4. ^ US Board on Geographic Names. United States Geological Survey (2007-10-25). Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  5. ^ "The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968", John P. Snyder, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. pp. 130-131.
  6. ^ US Gazetteer files: 2000 and 1990. United States Census Bureau (2005-05-03). Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  7. ^ New Jersey Resident Population by Municipality: 1930 - 1990, Workforce New Jersey Public Information Network. Accessed March 1, 2007.
  8. ^ Wm. C. Hunt, Chief Statistician for Population. Fourteenth Census of The United States: 1920; Population: New Jersey; Number of inhabitants, by counties and minor civil divisions (ZIP). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  9. ^ African American Communities, Epodunk. Accessed August 25, 2007.
  10. ^ Guyanese Communities, at Epodunk. Accessed August 21, 2006.
  11. ^ 2005 New Jersey Legislative District Data Book, Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, April 2005, p. 125.
  12. ^ City of Orange Township Office of the Mayor, City of Orange Township. Accessed February 24, 2008.
  13. ^ City of Orange City Council, City of Orange. Accessed August 10, 2007.
  14. ^ 2006 New Jersey Citizen's Guide to Government, New Jersey League of Women Voters, p. 62. Accessed August 30, 2006.
  15. ^ Legislative Roster: 2008-2009 Session, New Jersey Legislature. Accessed June 6, 2008.
  16. ^ About the Governor, New Jersey. Accessed June 6, 2008.
  17. ^ Frame, Paul. Radioluminescent Paint, Oak Ridge Associated Universities. Accessed September 17, 2007.
  18. ^ Abbott Districts, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed March 31, 2008.
  19. ^ Data for the Orange Board of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed April 13, 2008.
  20. ^ Giants Select Penn State DT Jay Alford in Third Round, New York Giants, April 28, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2007.
  21. ^ John Lauris Blake, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 13, 2007.
  22. ^ Cory Boyd profile, South Carolina Gamecocks. Accessed October 30, 2007.
  23. ^ John Condit, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 21, 2007.
  24. ^ Silas Condit, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 23, 2007.
  25. ^ John Crotty, Basketball-Reference.com. Accessed December 6, 2007.
  26. ^ Charles Newell Fowler, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 9, 2007.
  27. ^ "Beer Punch", Time (magazine), May 23, 1938. Accessed August 14, 2007. "In the Stone Age a fight was simply a fight. A throwback to Stone-Age man is potbellied Tony Galento, Orange, N. J. bartender, who shrugs his chubby shoulders at the fancy art of boxing, scoffs at the modern mode of training."
  28. ^ "Al Harrington traded for Stephen Jackson", Inside Hoops, July 15, 2004. Accessed June 4, 2008. "A 6-9 forward from Orange, New Jersey, Harrington prepped at St. Patrick's High in Elizabeth, NJ and he was the first player ever drafted from the high school ranks by the Pacers."
  29. ^ Beatrice Alice Hicks, 1919–1979, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Accessed December 18, 2007. "Born in Orange, New Jersey in 1919, Beatrice Hicks displayed an affinity for and aptitude in math, science, and engineering from an early age."
  30. ^ "Seen on the Screen", News & Observer, August 10, 2007. Accessed January 17, 2008. "Hill, 32, was born Karim Dule Hill in Orange, N.J. and raised in nearby Sayreville."
  31. ^ Astronaut Bio: Mark Kelly, NASA. Accessed February 24, 2008.
  32. ^ Daniel F. Minahan, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed July 16, 2007.
  33. ^ Kehr, Dave. "Roy Scheider, Actor in ‘Jaws,’ Dies at 75", The New York Times, February 11, 2008. Accessed February 24, 2008. "Born in 1932 in Orange, N.J., Mr. Scheider earned his distinctive broken nose in the New Jersey Diamond Gloves Competition."

[edit] External links

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Municipalities and communities of
Essex County, New Jersey
County seat: Newark
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