The Ironbound is a neighborhood in the city of Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a large working-class multi-ethnic community, covering approximately of well maintained streets and homes. Historically, the area was called "Dutch Neck," "Down Neck," or simply "the Neck," due to the appearance of the curve of the Passaic River. The Ironbound is part of Newark's East Ward and is directly east of Newark Penn Station and Downtown Newark, and south and west of the river, over which passes the Jackson Street Bridge, connecting to Harrison and Kearny. The area became a major transmission "hotspot" of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020. Early history The name "The Ironbound" is said to derive from the large metalworking industry in the area or from the network of railroad tracks that surrounded the neighborhood. The Ironbound was mostly farmland until the 1830s, when industry and immigration began increasing at a rapid pace. Industry The Ironbound was an industrial neighborhood in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The neighborhood was home to Hensler's Beer Brewery, P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company (in 1954 Newark's largest employer) and the Feigenspan Brewery. Balbach Smelting & Refining Company, now the location of Riverbank Park, was the second largest metal processing enterprise in the United States until its closure in the 1920s. Other large industrial buildings included Murphy Varnish Works,. Immigration The Ironbound has experienced several waves of immigration. The first wave, starting in the 1830s, came from the German states. Wrote historian Charles Cummings, "Overnight, whole sections of the Ironbound became Irish and German". Polish and Italian immigrants arrived in the latter half of the 19th century, followed by Portuguese and Spanish starting in the 1910s. By 1921 there was a large enough Portuguese population to found Sport Club Portuguese, the first of over twenty Portuguese social clubs that would call the Ironbound home. Historical landmarks The following sites in the Ironbound are on the National Register of Historic Places: Murphy Varnish Works Pennsylvania Station (Newark) Riverbank Park St. Casimir's Roman Catholic Church (Newark, New Jersey) St. Stephan's Church (Ironbound, Newark, New Jersey) Culture and festivals In 2017, the New York Times described the neighborhood as:Four square miles populated in large part by Portuguese, Spanish and Latin American immigrants and their descendants, the Ironbound has the intimacy and hustle of a European market town. “We walk to the bakery, the fishmonger,