The Newark theater is one vestige of the city’s better days. (
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The mean streets of Newark, NJ, are the relentless focus of the Sundance Channel series “Brick City.”
Already the winner of a prestigious Peabody award, the six-part show plays out like a real-life version of “The Wire,” with an American city coming apart at the seams. Paragons of law enforcement clash with ministers of anarchy and a metropolis hangs on by its fingernails. A charismatic leader, Mayor Cory Booker, declares he can turn the city around; the numbers — the municipal deficit and the murder rate — say otherwise.
Of course, the decline and near-death of Newark is nothing new; the city has been a national eyesore since savage riots broke out in the mid-1960s. But its proximity to New York City makes it seem salvageable, to filmmakers Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin.
“I don’t want to sound like a Don Quixote, but I think Newark has a shot,” says Levin, who grew up in nearby Elizabeth.
“In 20 years, you will see a Newark,” says Benjamin. “It’s too close to Manhattan not to succeed.”
The Hudson River has never seemed so wide. While Booker gives pep talks about the city’s resurgence, he tells his staff to slash the budget, stopping short of services designed to ensure public safety. Police Director Garry McCarthy battles crime and a 14-year-old boy is murdered. Facing 81 years behind bars on an attempted murder charge, former gang member DaShaun Morris huddles with his lawyer, Brooke Barnett.
Living through these challenges test their mettle of all parties, but from a storytelling standpoint “Brick City” is rich.
“If you went to a network and said you wanted to do a show that covers a city, they would tell you to go to C-Span,” says Levin.
Levin and Benjamin had their crews ready, shooting 1,000 hours of film and covering the mayor as well as the Bloods and the Crips. Neither faction has seen what the other is up to or what they say, a necessary risk.
“There will be folks in Newark who will be screaming no matter what we do. I hope they’ve learned to respect us We are there to capture and chronicle what’s happening,” says Levin.
The first episode unfolds well before Mark Zuckerberg made his $100 million donation to the Newark school system. What we see are the last days of Jon Corzine’s tenure, which will send chills down the spine of any Jersey-ite, considering the fiscal bloodbath that’s occurred under Corzine’s successor, Christopher Christie. We see Booker buying a house in Newark that he describes as a “diamond-in-the-rough” when the term extreme fixer-upper would be more apt. And we see ex-gang member Morris, who has published a memoir of his experiences called “War of the Bloods in My Veins: A Street Soldier’s March to Redemption.”
After seeing an arrest bring an end to his own professional athletic career, he decided to get the word out to kids about gang life. In one strong scene, he talks to high school football players after the murder of a fellow team member.
Does he think he got through to them? “I think it opened their eyes,” says Morris, 30. “They’re not used to someone from the neighborhood talking about that. It paints a picture in the back of their mind. I think my message hit home.”