Have You Met Newark Tours Uncovers the Jewels of Brick City

Taped on campus of NJIT, Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Emily Manz, Founder of Have You Met Newark Tours, an experience that highlights the jewels of Brick City, such as small businesses and local eateries.

9/26/17 #2078

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome Emily Manz, who is the President of EMI Strategy, and Founder of - what a great name - Have You Met Newark Tours. How you doing? I'm doing good. Describe these tours. Sure. They're walking tours primarily. We also do bus tours on request. But we do tours of Downtown Newark, the Ironbound, we do bar crawls, we do food tours... Hold on. Go back. [laughter] Bar crawls of? Four different bars we choose in Newark. And you just walk from bar to bar? Mm hmm. And people don't realize Newark has a great bar scene? It does. Yes. And tell them the Ironbound. People don't know the Ironbound. They think they know. Mm hmm. What is it? The Ironbound is a neighborhood that is primarily ethnically Portuguese in the past. It's kind of become a really hot spot for a lot of different Latin American cuisine and people. Right below Penn Station? Right below Penn Station. Mm hmm. Okay. And who are the folks who go on these tours? Sure. So people that come on our tours are all different people. About 50 percent of people I would say live in Newark. So they may be existing residents. But just want to rediscover what's happening in Downtown, some of the changes, meet some new people, probably some people are brand new people that want to learn what's new in their hometown. Their new hometown and become part of the community. Then we do tours for children. So student groups. And then I would say about... Go back to the students. Oh sure. Yeah. Newark Museum? We talk with the Newark Museum. Yup. From the outside, we... yup. Do they see...? What else do those children see? So we actually have a focus on small business owners on our tour. Yeah. Really? So we introduce them to a lot of the small business owners, many of whom are from Newark that are on Halsey Street, or Branford Place and speak... have them speak with the students about becoming a business owner. That's great! Mm hmm. That's great. How did you get into this? Oh, so I have an urban planning and economic development background, and I thought that a big piece of, you know, kinda helping Newark develop in an inclusive way would get people comfortable shopping at local businesses, knowing the people that run these businesses, knowing the people that run the art galleries, so I wanted to kinda introduce people to some of the people that I was meeting as a new person living in Newark. So you had this idea? Mm hmm. And you have the entrepreneurial spirit to kick this in around Newark? Yes. But..."