Carlos Oliveira, a Brazuca I met in Newark, N.J. in 2000

I have visited (or lived) in the USA in the Fall of 1971, Summer of 1975 and Spring of 1989. Eleven years later, in May of 2000, I took a Japan Airlines jet from Sydney, Australia to Tokyo, Japan, where I stayed overnight; and from Narita, a non-stop flight to New York City, on the other side of the globe. This time I intended to stay in Newark for a few weeks mainly to go down Memory Lane and revisit all those places that meant so much to me in my youth. 

When I arrived in Newark, N.J., on a Sunday, 28 May 2000, I left my luggage at Newark's Penn Station's luggage storage and went out on Ferry Street and vicinities to suss out the area after so many years abroad and see if I'd meet any Brazilian bloke I could ask about accomodation. 

Newark hadn't changed much in 30 years. Especially the Ironbound section seemed little changed. Brazilians were everywhere, I mean, there were many more Brazilians men and especially women living there in 2000 than in the 1970s. 'Tia' Eugênia was the person I most missed in this 2000 Newark. Her newsagency on 112 Ferry Street was no more.

It didn't take long for me to get directions to a house where I could rent myself a room to stay. I can't recall what street exactly I ended up staying. It probably was some place near Columbia Street where I had stayed in 1972 and 1975. 

There were a few Brazilian stores around Ferry Street and I ended up entering an imports-outlet called 'Vem Q Tem', on Merchant Street, the same street where the  Newark's Post Office used to be in the 1970s. The shop manager was very friendly and soon we were talking to each other like there was no tomorrow. We became friends almost instantly. 

José Carlos Oliveira was his name. He dropped José, though, and was called simply Carlos. He had been born at Penha, São Paulo on 20 September 1958. 

Carlos migrated to the USA in 1979, when he was 21 years old, settling in Newark, N.J. After a couple of years he sent for his wife and son to join him there. The couple had a daughter in the US and soon moved to Miami, FL, where he started working as a taxi driver and never looked back. When their kids were older, Carlos divorced his wife and moved back up North and worked mainly as a taxi driver in the New York-New Jersey area.

There were quite a few coincidental biographical similarities between my trip to the USA in October 1971, when I was 22 years old and Carlos' same trip to Newark, N.J. 8 years later in 1979, when he was 21 y.o. 

Carlos at Avenida Ipiranga on his visit to São Paulo, Brazil in May 2002.

Luiz Amorim at Ironbound's Brazilian store 'Vem Q Tem' on Merchant Street as photographed by Carlos Oliveira who worked as a shop manager there. It was the Spring of 2000. I used to linger in the shop for hours talking to him. 

Now, let me tell you the story of how I met Carlos Oliveira at Vem-Q-Tem store on Merchant Street. It was owned by a Brazilian old man named simply Coutinho who I never had the chance to meet. The shop catered for Brazilian migrants who lived around in and around the Ironbound like Elizabeth, Kerney, Paterson etc. They sold things Brazilians couldn't easily find in the USA, simple pain-killer pills like Melhoral, contraceptive pills used by Brazilian women - they usually stuck to the old brand-names and weren't comfortable switching over to an American product. It's funny how Brazilians are conservative in small measures. 

Coutinho also had a thriving business of hiring out VHS tapes with pre-recorded Brazilian novela-chapters taped out of TV sets in Brazil and sent to him by air weekly. Patron migrants felt better at night when they arrived home from work and could watch a novela they understood, instead of watching news or sit-coms in English. Brazilians lived in a make-believe world imagining they were still living in Brazil. 

Brazilians are a very sentimental people. Chá-mate & cachaça (sugar-cane spirits) were also popular items but patrons returning their VHS tapes and getting new ones was the bulk of the business. At least that was my impression after hanging around in the store for some time.  

Carlos and I became fast friends. Soon, Carlos introduced me to his friends. Wilson, a Black man from São Paulo in his 40s, had been in the USA for more than 10 years and was now on sick-leave for he had been the victim of an accident while working at a demolishing firm in Manhattan. Apparently he was working in the demolition of an old cinema house when a wall caved in and fell on top of him. He had many fingers broken and other injuries. Wilson had a lot of time on his hands so he usually hang around the store and often had coffee or tea at Portuguese cafeterias. I was also introduced to Tito, a young men in his 20s who always told stories about his latest romances and his failure to establish a lasting relationship with anyone. 

Carlos also introduced me to an acquaintance of his - an old Chilean lady called Rubmelia Sobarzo who was in her 70s. Nelly lived on the first floor of a three-story-house on 251 New York Avenue #5 which she sub-let to other single migrants. Carlos had previously sublet a room from her but now he lived on 181 New York Avenue, on the same side of the street.  

It was a strange & pleasant feeling to be able to be living in the Ironbound again after 23 years. Especially after all those years in Brazil and Sydney, Australia. It was almost like travelling back in a time machine. Besides, it felt good to realize my English was so much better than in the 1970s. I used to walk all over the Ironbound catching up with the past at every street corner I turned. 

Since I arrived in Newark on in Newark, N.J., on a Sunday, 28 May 2000, I made a point of going places I had never been before like walking up Wilson Avenue past the Go-go Bar on Barbara Street, where I had lived in 1971. Believe it or not, I had never been to Newark International Airport except once, in April 1972, when I flew over to San Francisco. I must have taken a cab from the Ironbound to get there. 

I turned right from Ferry Street into Jackson Street and walked crossed the bridge over the Passaic River to Harrison-Kerney, N.J. I even made a point of getting as far as the Harrison PATH station and got onto the train bound to 33rd Street in Manhattan. I felt a strange feeling in my gut when I saw the train arriving from Newark. It reminded me of the times I and Damazio used to take that same train in February 1972 to go to 9th Street to take an English course at New York University. The ground was covered with snow then...

I soon found out the Newark Public Library at Military Park, had computers that could be used free-of-charge so I made a habit of spending a couple of hours there every morning sending emails everywhere and researching local content. 

I moved into a bedroom next to Rubmelia's. That's where she spent most of her time. She was probably a pensioner. She shared her room with a man many years younger than her named Gordon who she had met in Alaska where she lived a long while. In Alaska, Rubmelia ran the same sort of scheme - she sublet rooms for males who worked in the oil industry. 

Despite having lived in the USA for many decades, Rubmela spoke little English and used to talk to her lover in Spanish even though he was a big American man of Anglo extraction who had to learn Spanish in order to speak to his mistress. He worked as a security guard in some large company in Newark. Nelly addressed him as 'Gordo' (Fatso) for she couldn't be bothered to pronounce his English name properly. Rubmela had a ginger cat called Safiro who had been surgically declawed for she had a diabetis condition and could not afford to be scratched for it would take too long to heal. I thought that was a heartless thing to do but Rubmelia was not a bad person though. 

Whenever she needed to go to the kitchen where there was a microwave oven she crossed my room which I shared with a Hispanic man who worked night-shift. I never saw his face for he slept during the day and worked at night. My bed was on one side of this room and his bed was on the opposite side there was a makeshift 'partition' in the middle of the room: a long bed sheet stretched diagonally across. It would be hilarious if it weren't ridiculous for it didn't provide any privacy or security to anyone. 

Unfortunately I didn't stay there more than a couple of weeks for the next time I rang home, my sister Sandra said my Mother had taken ill and I felt I should return. At that time, 2000, Americans were on the verge of the digital era. Smart phones were still uncommon. There was an Equatorian business on Ferry Street - past Saint Stephen's church where one could get into a booth and dial overseas numbers and talk. There was a person sitting behind a counter who monitored the calls and one would pay for the call after the service had been rendered. It was much better than in the 70s when one would only make an overseas call in case of death or great alarm. 

Postcard of New York sent to me by Carlos on 31st July 2000. He was living at 127 Polk Street in the Ironbound section of Newark, N.J. by then.

While I was staying at 251 New York Avenue in Newark, N.J. I got this post card from Lidia Piccolo Schmitz mark posted 17 June 2000. We used to teach English-as-a-foreign-language at Fisk Schools on Avenida Rebouças in the late 1970s. She married a German national and was living in Illinois. We were supposed to meet up but just like in 1975, we never managed to do it. I don't think I ever saw Lidia again. 

This is a letter Carlos wrote to me: 

Newark, 25 July 2002.

Cherry Louis!

Recebi sua carta hoje com todos os detalhes dos uniformes das garotas e também dos voos Tam-R.Sul. Obrigado, mercy! Espero que nesse inverno, a Paulicéia não esteja tão garoenta, e que as paulistas possam caminhar pelas ruas da cidade sentindo apenas um ventinho frio vindo do sul. 

Dear, você sabe que não tenho o dom de escrever, por isso excusa-me os erros e gafes no transcorrer da tal. Hoje estou de dia 'off'. Só que no final de semana resolvi dar uma arrumação no 'bangalô'; pintei todas as paredes de cor pastel e o teto de branco gelo. Troquei todos os pisos. Fiquei muito tempo agaixado de coque e outras posições que há muito tempo não praticava. Resultado: estou todo dolorido; só que hoje fiz a 'laundry', fui ao mercado Seabras, e agora, 3:01 pm estou lhe dando, ou seja, escrevendo e contando 'all the news'! 

Wilson, como sempre, um ótimo amigo, o Godfather das maravilhosas. João Carlos foi condecorado com medalha de prata pelas cias. Panair, PanAm, TWA pelos 50 anos de serviços prestados como flight attendant. Veteraníssima!!!

José Tito Teixeira até hoje não apareceu aqui p'ra apanhar seu cartão. Está de caso com um centro-americano. Diga-se de passagem que os casos dele não são duradouros. Qualquer dia desses aqui ele virá em prantos ou em sorrisos. As outras gatinhas seguem por ai tentando almejar o American Dream! Por muitos sonhados e por poucos logrados! Well... 

O verão de 2002 está terrível; 90 - 92 - 96 e até 105 G. Insuportável! Sobre meu trabalho, sigo dirigindo a limo azul turquesa Ferry acima, Ferry abaixo, tratando de ver 'cositas' interessantes dos lados do Algarve ou Aveiro, mas a safra não está lá dessas coisas.

OK padrissimo! Sobre minha ida ao Brazil, está a acontecer o seguinte: como tu sabes, meu velho pai não está bem de saúde desde quando eu aí estive. Então, meu irmão e eu estamos indo no dia 18 de Setembro para ir com meu pai para a cidade onde ele nasceu, 'Sul de Minas', para passar uns 3 ou 4 dias; ou seja, meu 'big forty-four' (9-20) comemorarei em solo mineiro. Voltando a São Paulo, então meu vôo triunfal a Uberlandia será dia 26 ou 27 de Setembro. Será apenas de ida. Ainda tenho que ligar p'ro José Geraldo p'ra ver se realmente ele irá esperar a Prometida no aeroporto em Uberlandia.

De qualquer forma tenho todas as informações, vou resolver os outros detalhes e te ligo um dia à noite numa sexta, sábado ou domingo, ok? Espero que gostes das fotos e dos recortes. Espero resposta! Um abraço forte do amigo Carlos Oliveira. Viva la vie et l'amour! 

Carlos at Av. Ipiranga, looking away towards Rua da Consolação past Rua 7 de Abril. 

Carlos on the corner of Av. Ipiranga & Rua 7 de Abril in May 2002.

Carlos Oliveira & blogger Luiz Amorim at Praça Dom José Gaspar, May 2002.

Luiz aka Carlus Maximus photographed by Carlos Oliveira in May 2002.

Carlus Maximus at Praça da Sé, photographed by Carlos Oliveira. 

Carlos Oliveira had a special fondness for the Portuguese people.

Carlos' other allegiance was for Corinthians' Football Club.

Carlos next to Theatro Municipal and at Mark Zero at Praça da Sé.

Newark's Ferry Street as photographed by me in 2000 or 2001.

251 New York Avenue just a few paces from the Independence Park aka Mosquito Park by Brazilian migrants. Rubmelia lived on the 2nd floor of that 3-story pink house. This is a 2021 photo.

251 New York Avenue seen from another angle. We entered the house through the kitchen door using that little gate on the right hand-side to get there. 

Under the 1st floor one can see the cellars on both sides of the house. 

'Princesa', a coffee shop owned by a Portuguese family on the corner of Van Buren St. and Walnut St. looking at Independence Park. Carlos used to have his morning coffee there. 

Van Buren St. corner Walnut St. coffee shop.

Newark Public Library (on the right) in Washington Street. 

Newark Public Library (the smaller bldg in the centre) at 5 Washington Street on Harriet Taubman Park seen from another angle. The 16-story building on the left housed the American Insurance Company which was built in 1930 and now is part of Rutgers University's graduate student housing. 

Newark, 15 July 2002.

Cherry Louis!

Recebi sua carta hoje com todos os detalhes dos uniformes das garotas e também dos vôos TAM-R.Sul. Obrigado, mercy!

Espero que nesse inverno a Paulicéia não esteja tão garoenta e que as paulistas possam caminhar pelas ruas da cidade sentindo apenas um ventinho frio vindo do sul. 

Dear, você sabe que eu não tenho o dom de escrever, por isso, excusa me os erros e gafes no transcorrer da tal. Hoje estou de dia 'off'. Só que no final de semana resolvi dar uma arrumação no 'bangalô'. Pintei todas as paredes de cor pastel e o teto de branco gelo. Troquei todos os pisos; fiquei muito tempo agaxado de coque e outras posições que há muito não as praticava. Resultado: estou todo dolorido. Só que hoje fiz a 'laundry', fui ao mercado Seabras, e agora, 3:01 estou lhe escrevendo e contando all these news! 

Wilson, como sempre um ótimo amigo, o Godfather das maravilhosas. João Carlos foi condecorado com medalha-de-prata pelas companhias PanAir, PanAm e TWA pelos 50 anos de serviços prestados como 'flight-attendant'. VETERANÍSSIMA!!! 

O José Tito Teixeira, até hoje não apareceu aqui p'ra apanhar seu cartão; está de caso com um centro-americano. Diga-se de passagem que os casos dele não são duradouros. Qualquer dia desses aqui ele vira em prantos ou em sorrisos. As outras gatinhas seguem por aí tentando almejar o 'American dream', por muitos sonhado e por poucos logrado! Well... 

O verão está terrível, 90 - 92 - 96 e até 105 Farenheit. Insuportável! Sobre meu trabalho sigo dirigindo o Limo azul turquêsa, Ferry acima, Ferry abaixo tentando ver cositas interessantes do lado do Algarve ou Aveiro, mas a safra não está lá essas coisas. OK padrissimo! Minha ida ao Brasil está a acontecer o seguinte: como tu sabes, meu velho pai não está bem de saúde desde quando eu aí estive. Então, meu irmão e eu estamos indo no dia 18-19 de Julho, para ir com nosso pai à cidade onde ele nasceu no sul de Minas Gerais, por uns 3 ou 4 dias, ou seja, meu big forty-four (20 September 1958), comemorarei em solo mineiro. 

Devemos volta à São Paulo em 3 ou 4 dias, como disse. Então meu vôo triunfal à Uberlândia será pro dia 26 ou 27 de Setembro, e será apenas de ida. Ainda tenho que ligar p'ro José Geraldo para ver se realmente ele irá esperar a Prometida no aeroporto em Uberlândia. De qualquer forma tenho todas as informações. Vou resolver os outros detalhes e te ligo um dia à noite numa sexta, sábado ou domingo, OK? Espero que goste das fotos e recortes. Espero resposta! Um abraço forte do amigo Carlos Oliveira. Viva la vie et l'amour!

I stayed with Carlos Oliveira in Newark, N.J. three times altogether. The very 1st time was in May 2000, when I flew from Sydney, Australia to Tokyo's Narita Airport, in Japan, staying overnight in a hotel near, then flew from Tokyo to New York City, non-stop. 

When I arrived in Newark, N.J., on a Sunday, 28 May 2000, I left my luggage at Newark's Penn Station's luggage storage and went out on Ferry Street and vicinities to suss out the area after so many years abroad and see if I met any Brazilian I could ask about accomodation. It didn't take long for me to get me directions to a house where I  rented myself a room to stay. 

I ended up staying in Newark, N.J. for 43 days - from 28 May to 10 July 2000 when I flew back Japan Airlines to Gurulhos from New York. 

I returned to the USA later in that year, on Thursday, 19 October 2000. Marcelo rang me in São Paulo and said I would be welcome if I went to Plymouth, Massachusetts where there was employment waiting for me. This time I went from JFK straight to Plymouth without stopping in Newark. I ended up staying up with Marcelo and John Kelly in Plymouth working the night shift at the local Kmart until 10 December 2000. when Christmas merchandise had already been displayed on the shelves and and a stint in a room of a house in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

I flew back to Brazil on business class on a Continental flight to São Paulo, Guarulhos on 26 December 2000.