Brick storefronts signed in Portuguese and Spanish along Ferry Street, and the church corner where War of the Worlds staged its alien attack.
What Ironbound looks like
runs as the Ironbound's commercial spine, three and four storey brick buildings with storefronts signed in Portuguese and Spanish. Jewelers and travel agents share the block with import shops under striped awnings, and one corner building still has an orange tiled mansard roof over the sidewalk below its sign.
Behind the strip the blocks are mostly two and three family houses, close to sixty percent of the buildings here, continuing into the East Ward along streets like . Tile details are set into the brick fronts on many of them, with aluminum siding over the upper floors. Railroad tracks ring the grid on most sides. A few former factory buildings, brick with round headed windows, still stand among the blocks.
Corner buildings along Ferry Street keep their original brick and stone, bay windows and fire escapes still standing above the storefronts below. The occupies one such corner, its dark green trim over the shop signage. Farther west the strip opens onto a view of downtown Newark's high rises past the last of the storefronts.
stands where Ferry Street meets Wilson Avenue, a red brick Romanesque front with a rose window and a white steeple over an open lantern. The junction is known locally as Five Corners. The Andros Diner keeps its counter open on the corner across from the church.
Shot in Ironbound
For War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg filmed the tripod's first attack in front of St. Stephan's Church at Ferry Street and Wilson Avenue. The finished film shows the machine destroying the steeple as it emerges, and the crew took their coffee at the Andros Diner across the street.
War of the Worlds, 2005
St. Stephan's Church
The alien tripod rises from the ground in front of the church, and the finished film shows the steeple destroyed as the machine emerges. The real church stands intact at the same corner today.
What Ironbound can double for
Elizabeth Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth Avenue runs through downtown Elizabeth as a similar corridor of two and three storey brick buildings, its storefronts signed in Portuguese, Brazilian and other Latin American languages a few miles from the Ironbound itself. Restaurants and travel agencies sit under awnings much the same way they do on Ferry Street. Wider modern signage and newer glass storefronts toward the avenue's western end give away which city it is, so tighter blocks read best. Try searching Portuguese storefronts Elizabeth Avenue now.
East Main Street Historic District in Bridgeport, Connecticut
The East Main Street Historic District in Bridgeport is a similar run of two to four storey masonry storefronts built in the late nineteenth century, close to the sidewalk the way Ferry Street is. Its tenement blocks behind the strip hold the same East Coast immigrant neighborhood scale as the Ironbound. The signage here reads mostly in English rather than Portuguese, so storefronts would need dressing. The building fronts also run a shade more ornate, with Victorian detailing. Try searching masonry storefronts East Main Street now.
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