Bob Thomas’ love of Newark history and his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s past traced back to his days growing up on Cleveland Avenue.
His father, Olan Thomas, was a longtime city councilman, and young Bob would listen as Newarkers of all sorts would stop by to visit his father, and he would hang on every word of the stories being told and soak up every tidbit of history.
“People would come to our house all the time with all kinds of problems. I’d just sit by and listen and learn as the citizens, many of them long-time Newarkers, talked with my father,” Thomas once recalled in an interview…