Flowers and a card are seen at a makeshift memorial in front of The New Hope Baptist Church in Newark
Flowers and a card are seen at a makeshift memorial in front of The New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang in the choir, to mourn the death of the singer in Newark, New Jersey February 12, 2012. Houston, whose soaring voice lifted her to the top of the pop music world but whose personal decline was fueled by years of drug use, died on Saturday afternoon in a Beverly Hills hotel room. She was 48. Reuters

Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, and her family asked the city of Newark, N.J., to cancel the public funeral originally planned for the singer.

The news comes by way of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, whose representative told TMZ Tuesday that the memorial originally planned for the massive Prudential Center in Newark was cancelled at the request of the Houston family.

The Houston family has no plans to set up a public viewing at the Prudential Center this Friday, the Booker representative told TMZ, adding the following: In compliance with the family's wishes the city is not moving forward with any public ceremony.

A number of news reports initially said that there was going to be a public ceremony at the 18,500-seat Prudential Center, as well as a private wake on Thursday at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, led the music program and Whitney Houston sang as a child.

But the new plan is just to host a private ceremony at the church on Saturday (there has been no specific mention of whether or not the Thursday event is still on.)

The singer's body arrived in New Jersey Monday night at Teterboro airport via a plane owned by actor-producer, Tyler Perry. A golden hearse and police escorts awaited to transport the body to the Wingham Funeral Home in Newark, the singer's home town, according to the UK Telegraph.

Whitney Houston was pronounced dead on Saturday at 3:55 p.m. PST. The newest news reports state that the singer died of a combination of drugs and alcohol. Initially, her cause of death was rumored to be drowning, as the singer was found in the bathtub of her Beverly Hilton Hotel room. However, there was reportedly not enough water in the tub for the singer to drown.

A toxicology report and official autopsy may not be available for the next six to eight weeks. Houston's last meal included of champagne and Heineken. Empty medicine bottles were found her hotel room, along with pills like Xanax and ibuprofen.

New Jersey