"Southeast of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and limited on two other sides by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania freight line, is the Ironbound district, a triangular section of lowland solidly built with workers' frame houses, and blackened by the city's most important industrial plants. Because the shape of the land resembles the neck of a bottle it is also called Down Neck.
Once a most desirable residential section, it is now a strange mixture of century-old Newark families and European immigrants. The street names of Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and London attest World War changes from old German names rather than the rich variety of nationalities. Berlin Street was left unscathed because its two unfinished blocks had not been recorded on the books of the municipal bureau of streets.
The Ironbound district is even more a separate part of the city than its steel-railed boundaries would indicate. Scores of small independent retail shops serve a population which seldom visits the other portions of Newark. A lower middle-income area rather than a slum, Down Neck was chosen as the site of the Chellis-Austin apartments, built in 1931 by the Prudential Insurance Company as an experiment in medium-cost housing for residents of moderate income. Few Newarkers from other sections see the district frequently except from the Pulaski Skyway along its eastern edge; many know only by hearsay of its existence."
From New Jersey, A Guide To Its Present and Past, a 1939 WPA book, p.315
