For the last 20 years, the grand entrance of the Newark Museum on Washington Street has been shuttered, forcing patrons to enter through a more prosaic entrance along Central Avenue.

But today, the front doors of the Newark Museum were thrown open, signaling another symbolic step in the city's ongoing revival.

"When the entrance on Washington Street was open, it felt free. But then when it closed because of fear and other factors, the museum lost some of its panache," said Junius Williams, the recently-retired director of the Abbott Leadership Institute at Rutgers-Newark and a longtime city resident. "Now, with spring coming, it's the perfect day to start something new."

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The Bamberger Entrance of the museum, named after the great Newark businessman and philanthropist Louis Bamberger, was installed in 1926, at a time when Newark was a becoming a commercial and cultural hub.

The Bamberger family played a central role in Newark's early 20th Century rise to commercial and cultural prominence as a major Northeastern city. The Bamberger's flagship department store, the center of a regional retail empire founded by Louis Bamberger in 1893, was a colossal 14-story building that covered an entire city block, bordered by Market, Washington, Bank and Halsey Streets. Louis' sister, Caroline Bamberger Fuld, donated the cherry blossom trees to Newark's Branch Brook Park in the 1920s that still explode with color every spring.

Newark's downtown is now exploding with renewed retail, restaurant and residential development. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, whose parents took him to the museum as a child, remarked on the city's uptick over the past decade.

"When this door was closed, the city was at another stage of its life. We had to push to get to this day," said Baraka, flanked by representatives of several nonprofit philanthropic foundations, including the Sagner Family Foundation, the FJC Foundation and the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, among others, whose donations made the entrance reopening possible. "This is a great example of the direction the city is going in."

It was Louis Bamberger's gift of his department store magnate money that built the current Washington Street location of the museum in the 1920s. Sarah Bing, Bamberger's great-great-great niece, reflected on her family's role in Newark's cultural heritage.





"This entrance is the type of grand entrance when I think of a city's museum," said Bing. "Having this open to Washington Park across the street is more welcoming to the community."

Bamberger was known to be a shy man who didn't like to speak in public. Ulysses Grant Dietz, interim co-director of the Newark Museum, noted that Bamberger probably would have been "mortified" by all of the entrance reopening hubbub. But Dietz feels that the name of Bamberger, who gave so much to the city he loved, belongs above the entrance.

"The psychological impact of this is huge. It tells everybody who walks past here that we have an open face to the public," Dietz said. "Mr. Bamberger played a unique role in this city and for this institution. So even through he'd be embarrassed, his name belongs up there. And he'd be thrilled to see this happening."

Perhaps Bamberger, a vaunted part of Newark's past, would be most happy to hear the words of one the students of the city's Lafayette Street School, a part of the city's future, as they paraded through the reborn door.

"For my first experience here, and all the fun activities we did, I really did enjoy it," said fourth-grader Abby Morais, aged 10. "This door is really fancy. Instead of hiding in the shadows, now everybody can see how to come in."