When my grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe, it was to Newark, N.J. that they came. My parents were born and raised in the Newark. For most of my life, I have lived within five miles of the city limits, as I do today. I fly from the city’s airport, take trains from the Amtrak station downtown, attend concerts in its music halls, eat in its restaurants, and watch sporting events in its arena and stadium. I cheer Newark’s triumphs, and despair in the seemingly endless cycle of violence that grips the city.

It was, therefore, with great interest that I watched Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin’s five-part documentary series “Brick City,” which begins its run on the Sundance Channel tonight. The Executive Producer of the series is the Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker.

The city got its nickname, Brick City, from the number of beautiful old brick structures that remain there, but Newark’s young activist mayor, Cory Booker, suspects that the nickname may have more to do with the toughness of the people who reside there. Although Booker is the central figure in the drama, which takes us from late spring of 2008 to the early fall, the series follows other residents of Newark as they struggle to make their city a safer place to live.

Police Director Garry McCarthy is the point man in the war on crime. His fight is not only with gangs and drugs, but also with the deeply ingrained internal politics of the Newark Police Department. Ras Baraka is the principal of the city’s Central High School, and Todd Warren its Vice-Principal. Central is about to occupy a new building after a ten-year, 100 million dollar construction project that has been rife with delays and cost overruns. Perhaps the most dramatic story in Brick City is the latter-day Romeo and Juliet saga of Jayda, a member of the Bloods, and her boyfriend Creep, who is Crip. It is the intertwining of these lives, and others, that gives Brick City its indelible drama. (more…)