By Lawrence P. Goldman

For many New Jerseyans, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center is simply a fact of life. A fine place to go for music, dance, theater, debates, dinner, events. As if it were never not there.

But it wasn't always like this.

"Lincoln Center west" in Newark? In a city whose very name had become hard-wired to the word "riot"? Gov. Tom Kean's late 1980s idea for a major performing arts center in the state's largest city was seriously questioned from all directions.

Most suburbanites reacted to the governor's proposal with disbelief: "Sure we'd love a great arts center in New Jersey, but who will go to Newark?"

On the other side, at least a few Newarkers saw NJPAC as another suburban rip-off of their city. What's in it for us? Kean himself recently asserted that it was the only one of his big ideas that neither Republicans nor Democrats supported.

But fortunately a coterie of brave, resourceful Davids were willing to take on the Goliaths of doubt and anti-urbanism -- anti-urbanism that too often resembled racism.

Chief among these heroes were Ray Chambers, a hugely successful businessman who never forgot his Newark roots; Mayor Sharpe James who singularly devoted himself to ensuring that Kean's dream was realized in Newark and not somewhere else in the state; and Mort Pye, the crusading editor of The Star-Ledger, who championed this underdog dream relentlessly.

As the strategies for moving ahead in the early 1990s began to emerge, two overarching imperatives became clear.

First, NJPAC had to operate beyond reproach, financially and ethically. This private-public partnership promised to be complex and expensive. Too many previous New Jersey projects had been poisoned by patronage politics and financial malfeasance.

The primary strategy was to have the NJPAC board pass a resolution disqualifying anyone who contacted a board member or public official in an effort to influence hiring or contracting decisions. Simply stated, don't mess with NJPAC.

It worked. More than $600 million has been raised and spent and hundreds of employees hired without so much as a hint of impropriety.

The second imperative was more subtle: how to attract the reluctant yet crucial suburban audience, while creating a center that was not just in Newark, but of Newark.

The key was to incorporate the concept of "the people's art center" into every aspect of decision-making. Neither the urban planning nor the architecture could submit to a paranoid fortress mentality. No insulated campus. Newark's streets would run right through the NJPAC site. No monumental marble edifice. NJPAC would be, like Newark, brick, steel and glass.

Even more important than the design was the human side. As a result of the most aggressive affirmative-action program in state history, 46 percent of 3,000 construction jobs went to minorities and women.

The stagehands union, which didn't have a single African-American member before NJPAC, complied with NJPAC's insistence on integration. Now 40 percent of the stagehands are nonwhite. This diversity extends to middle management, the executive offices and all other areas of the center.

The result? Eight million people have attended performances and events over 20 years. And NJPAC can proudly brag that it has the most heterogeneous audience of any arts center in the world.

Finally, and most important, NJPAC gave Newark a success story. After too many broken development promises (world's tallest building, Renaissance Mall), NJPAC delivered what Kean, Chambers, James and Pye pledged.

The center's success was contagious, paving the way for the Prudential Center, IDT, Audible, a new Prudential tower, Panasonic, Teacher's Village, the repurposing of the Hahne's department store as housing, retail and community space, dozens of restaurants, Rutgers and NJIT expansion, a beautifully revivified Military Park (complete with carousel) and even a Whole Foods.

Across from NJPAC's entrance, a glistening 21-story residential and retail tower called One Theater Square is well into construction. Co-developed by NJPAC, it will be the first new luxury high-rise in Newark in over 50 years and will accelerate the growing middle class living downtown.

Yet, even more than the economic development spawned and the astounding attendance, NJPAC's highest calling has been its profound impact on the lives of ordinary people.

Bernice Williams, an NJPAC usher and a retired Newark teacher, took the microphone at an all-staff meeting at the end of the first season 20 years ago. Here is what Bernice said:

"I have lived in this city my whole life, but I stopped coming downtown. When people asked where I lived, I said northern New Jersey. Now I have a reason to come downtown again and I'm proud again to say I'm from Newark."

This was the mission. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Lawrence P. Goldman was founding president of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and stepped down as CEO after 22 years in 2011. NJPAC opened on Oct. 18, 1997.

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