Have you met Newark?
Have you seen the new downtown galleries and eateries?
Have you met the resident artists and restaurant owners?
Do you know the early history, from Robert Treat's founding to George Washington's retreat.
Or the inventing genius of Seth Boyden?
Do you know the literary elite: Stephen Crane, Phillip Roth and Amiri Baraka?
Or the music stars: Sarah Vaughan, Frankie Valli and Whitney Houston, to name a few?
Have you been in the plush and ornate Ballantine House, built by the brewing family and now a showpiece of the Newark Museum?
Have you seen Gutzon Borglum's "Wars of America" sculpture at Military Park or his "Seated Lincoln" outside the Essex County Historic Courthouse -- both created long before the famed sculptor took on Mount Rushmore?
And did you know that the courthouse was designed by Cass Gilbert, who also was the architect for The Woolworth Building in New York and the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington?
Have you met Newark?
Really met Newark?
These facts, and many more, grabbed the attention of two young transplanted urban planners a few years ago, and they began to show off their adopted to city friends and family.
"I realized the negative dialogue about Newark wasn't driven by the people in the social and business scene of the city," said Emily Manz. "Much of it came from people who probably hadn't stepped foot in the city in years."
After swapping stories about how Newark surprised their visitors, Manz and partner Antonio Valla started a tour business in 2012 called "Have You Met Newark?"
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It has since expanded to include Nom Nom Newark, a restaurant tour, and Brick City Bar Crawl, a night-life gallivant through town.
There's a downtown tour and an Ironbound tour. There are church tours. Or almost anything else a booking group wants.
"We had the Brandeis University Club of Middlesex County call, and they wanted to see the Newark murals," Manz said. "So we put together a tour for them."
Other alumni groups, such as Harvard and the University of Chicago, have taken tours. Students and teachers from some of the Newark charter schools, too, have gotten to know the city better.
"It's a labor of love," said Manz, who also runs a "boutique consulting firm" for economic development and tourism called EMI Strategies.
The audio literature and entertain giant Audible, headquartered in Newark since 2007, sends all of its new employees on a "Have You Met Newark Tour?"
"We always tried to do a mixture of things, especially for people new to Newark," Valla said. "There is always something new to discover, to learn or experience."
For instance, the just several hundred feet from where Audible is building a hi-tech center in the old Second Presbyterian Church on Washington Street, glass artist Richard Paz has a studio where he practices a craft that dates back to the Roman Empire.
Paz's shop, GlassRoots, is a stop on the tour of small businesses and restaurants in the Halsey Street area.
Last Monday, Manz led a group of about 20 new Audible employees into Paz's shop. They watched as he fired up a glass-blowing tube and created an ornamental bead.
"These tours are great for us," Paz said. "They find out about us. We've had people come back to take our workshops or buy our jewelry or home goods."
For Manz and Valla, that is part of their mission: to marry the burgeoning corporate presence in the city to home-grown culture.
As far as Audible is concerned, that's a good goal.
"We get new employees on a tour within the first one or two weeks of being hired," said Kamian Allen, vice president of communication and public relations at the Amazon-owned company. "Newark has always been a hub of innovation and we want our employees, many of whom come from hi-tech and creative backgrounds, to be inspired by the city."
That is certainly true of the "Have You Met Newark?" founders.
Manz, 29, was from the small Connecticut town of Woodstock, and went to college in Hungary. She met Newark while doing her graduate work in urban planning at Rutgers.
She got her first tour from one of her professors, the late Robert Curvin, who wrote "Inside Newark," a profile of the city since 1950 as it declined toward the 1967 riots/rebellion, to the modern days of hope and rebuilding.
Valla, 35, grew up in Fullerton, Cal., went to school "back East" at Dartmouth, then Harvard's School of Urban Planning.
His Newark connection was Toni Griffin, a professor at Harvard who had been the city's director of community development under Mayor Cory Booker.
Valla is employed by the RBH Group, the developers of the city's Teacher's Village, and the yet-to-be-built Four Corners Millennium project, which will transform the intersection of Broad and Market Streets.
Once Manz and Valla found themselves in Newark, they never left.
"I quickly recognized the positive aspects of the city," Valla said. "Everybody wants the city to do well."
"We wanted to change that 'underdog' narrative," Manz said. "We certainly don't feel that way."
In fact, they feel the opposite. They believe Newark no longer needs to exist in the shadow of New York City.
"Newark was - and is - New Jersey's downtown," Valla said. "This was the center of a major metropolis and we feel it is positioned to become that again."
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"Have You Met Newark?" tours cost $250 for groups and $10 for individuals. For more information, visit haveyoumetnewark.com or call (646) 856-9076.
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at [email protected]. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.