When the first tower opened in downtown Newark in 2019, the city’s mayor stood at the podium and described, in plain terms, what it had taken to get there. “Not so long ago,” Mayor Ras Baraka said, “Newark was a city where developers feared to come and invest, where the entire city had a heavy red line around it.” He was not speaking generally. He named a specific history of institutional disinvestment that had defined the Brick City for decades. What the mayor did not say, but what was already public knowledge, was that the person who changed that dynamic did not do it because of a business plan. He did it because of his mother’s tears.
In a conversation with the New York Post, four-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal revealed the moment that set his $230 million Newark investment in motion.
“It was part of my vision because one day, me and my mom came back and it was kind of beat up, and she kind of had a tear in her eye, and was like, ‘I remember when this city was beautiful. Somebody needs to do something,” O’Neal said…