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History Archives | New Jersey Monthly
[caption id="attachment_341202" align="alignleft" width="350"] At the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, Fannie Lou Hamer gave shocking televised testimony about racial violence. Photo: Alamy/Warren K. Leffler[/caption]In recent decades, political conventions have become little more than pep rallies.But 60 years ago, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, a dramatic showdown between civil rights activists and party leaders paved the way for the passage of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed voter discrimination in the South.Prior to the convention, civil rights leaders, distressed that Blacks were barred from participating in the Mississippi Democratic Party, had formed an alternative, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. At Convention Hall (now Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall), Fannie Lou Hamer, daughter of sharecroppers, gave shocking televised testimony about racial violence against Mississippi Blacks, and John Lewis, the activist and, later, congressman from Georgia, spoke at a rally on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.As letters and calls flooded the White House, President Lyndon Johnson offered a compromise that would give two non-voting seats to the alternate party, and a promise that all future Democratic delegations would be desegregated.Among those who mulled the proposal at Union Temple Church were civil rights heavyweights John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Moses. Ultimately, they rejected the proposal, insisting that the entire delegation be allowed to vote.Although many saw the showdown as a setback for civil rights, the activists’ efforts in Atlantic City compelled the Democratic party to adopt a civil rights plank reflecting a commitment to racial justice. One year later, the Voting Rights Act was passed.[RELATED: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Career Began at a Modest NJ Café]
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[caption id="attachment_334676" align="alignnone" width="778"] Musician Bobby Bandiera (right) ahead of his band’s 1985 benefit show, with Steve Mannion of Hazlet, vice president for Make-A-Wish, outside the Stone Pony. Photo: Asbury Park Press/USA Today Network/Jim Connolly[/caption]He never intended to open a rock club, let alone one of the most hallowed in music history.It was late 1973, a quiet weekend at the Jersey Shore, and Jack Roig says he was just “killing time.”A computer-programming consultant in Manhattan, Roig had worked many summer weekends on the floor of what he refers to as a “rambunctious” boardwalk bar in Point Pleasant called the Rip Tide. He harbored dreams of opening a small, unremarkable bar of his own, akin to the “gin mills” that dotted every block of his native Washington Heights neighborhood.One thing Roig knew for certain: Asbury Park was off the table. The once-lively resort town was only a few years out from the 1970 race riots, spurred by post-segregation economic and social tensions. Residents had fled; businesses were boarded up. Springwood Avenue, on the city’s west side—previously home to a vibrant Black community and a rich jazz and blues culture—was in ruins. Although the east side of Asbury remained a refuge of sorts for a free-spirited community of young musicians—among them, Southside Johnny, Steven Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen, who’d been luxuriating in a heady, jam-until-sunrise scene since the late ’60s—the town, on the whole, was still a shell of its former self, especially in the off-season.Roig phoned a real estate agent about an ad he’d seen in the paper. “I told him, ‘I don’t want anything to do with Asbury,’” Roig, 82, recalls. “He said, ‘Well, I have a place I can show you up in Deal, but I just got this [other] listing. I don’t even have keys for it yet. You mind if we stop there? It’s on the way.’”They never made it to Deal. Roig purchased the future Pony—then an abandoned disco called the Magic Touch—on the spot, without so much as stepping inside. “It was impulsive,” he says, recalling Asbury’s barren beachfront. “Not really a very good business decision.” (On the plus side, he points out, there was unlimited parking.)The venue’s layout was conducive to a bar with a band—so “that’s what happened,” Roig says matter-of-factly. As for the name? “I woke up one morning with some young lady, and…she had little horses on her T-shirt, and something clicked,” he recounts.Opening night at the Stone Pony on February 8, 1974—half a century ago this year—was bleak; portending, perhaps, the various storms the venue would weather over the next several decades. Snow piled on Asbury Park. The heat went out; the ice machines died. “Thank God it snowed,” Roig muses, “because the band couldn’t show up, and I didn’t have the money to pay ’em anyway.” Exactly one patron, an acquaintance, materialized and insisted on paying for his beer. The night’s take: $1.Despite that ill-fated first evening, the Pony actually “did all right” until Labor Day, Roig says. He was running the venue with manager Butch Pielka, a former fellow bouncer from Point Pleasant’s recently shuttered Rip Tide, whose regulars began frequenting the Stone Pony. Locals still in Asbury, plus residents from nearby towns, followed suit. So did local bands, Roig says.Once the summer waned, however, so did the customers. In December, part of the Pony’s roof ripped off during a nor’easter. Their insurance company went bankrupt. Foreclosure loomed.It was around that time that the local Blackberry Booze Band, featuring future Asbury Jukes frontman Southside Johnny Lyon, began performing at the Pony. “We played the kind of music we wanted to play…so we got the worst nights,” Lyon says, recalling that a cover band, Colony, known for playing strictly Top 40 radio hits, held the Pony’s coveted weekend slots. But after a few slow Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, the Blackberry Booze Band began attracting crowds. One snowy winter evening, the place was suddenly packed. “I think that’s when people started to realize that this was a real venue to see bands,” Lyon says. “And Bruce would come down to play....It became kind of a place for real musicians.”The Blackberry Booze Band morphed into Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, cofounded by soon-to-be E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, in 1975 (the same year Springsteen released Born to Run). The Jukes’ horn-heavy melding of rock ’n’ roll, soul, blues and R&B would become, for local fans and faraway listeners alike, a kind of sonic shorthand for the Pony—though Roig emphasizes that every band who played there, unique in its own way, “made the place.”[caption id="attachment_334655" align="alignnone" width="778"] Southside Johnny Lyon, Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt perform at the Stone Pony during the Asbury Jukes’ famed radio-broadcast show on Memorial Day weekend in 1976. Photo: Asbury Park Press-USA Today Network[/caption]On Memorial Day weekend in 1976, a live national radio debut of the Jukes’ first album, I Don’t Want to Go Home—broadcast on nine stations, Lyon says—gave the rest of the country a taste of the sweaty spontaneity emanating from this little corner of the Jersey Shore. Springsteen showed up to perform. So did Ronnie Spector and Lee Dorsey. That night “really broke [the Pony] open,” Lyon says. “It became a famous club to play....Asbury Park became a small nexus for new bands, and it was very exciting.”Pielka (who died in 2018) and Roig were “hardcore” guys, Lyon fondly recalls. “I used to get into arguments with them all the time about pay for the band, how much can you charge at the door...and I’m not a big guy, but I would take ’em on. Because I knew they needed me, and I knew I needed them.”Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, an increasingly famous Springsteen continued to make frequent surprise appearances, imbuing the Pony with an unmistakably mythic quality. Groupies flocked there, hoping to glimpse him performing, dancing in the audience, or sneaking behind the bar to pour drinks. Tourists came by the busload. Letters addressed simply to “Bruce Springsteen, U.S.A.” arrived in the mail, Roig remembers.Under this spotlight, the Pony began drawing national acts: Elvis Costello, the Ramones, Cyndi Lauper. But no amount of recognition could cushion the Pony from the city outside its dark doors, bogged down by rising crime and corruption, or from the financial and legal woes that would soon put an end to its first act. When the Pony shuttered in September 1991, it wouldn’t be the last time.Deal businessman Steven Nasar reopened the Pony in 1992. He hired local concert promoter (and former Asbury Juke) Tony Pallagrosi to cater to a younger crowd amid a burgeoning punk-music movement. The New Brunswick-born Bouncing Souls opened for Green Day there in 1994. A tent in the adjacent lot for outdoor concerts was an early incarnation of the future Summer Stage scene. Still, Asbury continued to deteriorate through the ’90s, and Nasar closed the Pony in 1998—though not before turning it into a short-lived dance club, Vinyl, and painting it, to the horror of many locals, completely pink.The venue sat untouched until 2000, when Jersey City entrepreneur Domenic Santana purchased it. He didn’t have personal ties to Asbury Park, but had scoped out the city as a potential investment site and been struck by a big group of tourists taking pictures outside the ghostly Pony. Santana brought in Eileen Chapman, an Asbury Park resident since the Pony’s 1974 opening and a stalwart supporter of the city and its music scene, as manager. (Chapman, now an Asbury Park councilwoman and director of the Bruce Springsteen Archives at Monmouth University, had previously managed Mrs. Jay’s, a beer garden next door to the Pony.) Santana renovated the space to return it to its original glory days, recreating lacquer tables and sourcing photos and memorabilia for the walls. Chapman provided a few personal items she’d saved. As they worked to revive the venue, Chapman often put herself in the shoes of the original owners. “I would just think about Jack and Butch....What would they be deciding?” she says. “Carrying on that legacy was really, really important to me. Making sure that everyone who used to come there felt comfortable coming back.”In 2001, Chapman purchased the venue’s first outdoor stage, a major component of the Pony’s revitalization in recent years, from friend Carl “Tinker” West (and Springsteen’s first manager), with money her husband had given her to buy a new car. “After he got over his shock,” Chapman jokes, he ended up building the first outdoor bar to accompany the stage.When developers initially approached Asbury Park with talk of taking over the waterfront, “it seemed they wanted to…create huge condominiums and apartment complexes, and really change what Asbury Park would look like,” Chapman recalls. “They were thinking more Miami. And we were thinking, We need to keep our music here.” She organized a Save the Stone Pony campaign—faxing musicians and record agents all over the world, creating signs, and leading a parade down Ocean Avenue. “It was absolutely important to keep the club there, and to create an entertainment district,” she says. “Opportunities for people to visit…for music to thrive, for musicians to have a place to hone their craft.”The Pony’s current general manager, Caroline O’Toole, came on in 2003. Keeping the venue alive as Asbury Park continued to struggle was not for the faint of heart. Times were often “very dark,” she says, and the Pony’s future remained “unsecure.” Her first Memorial Day, she recalls, “there was not a soul in sight.” The tide turned dramatically in 2008, when corporate developer Madison Marquette purchased the Pony and began putting millions into revitalizing Asbury, transforming it into the city we know now.[caption id="attachment_334654" align="alignnone" width="778"] Asbury Park native FLETCHER performs at the Stone Pony Summer Stage. Photo: David Zeck[/caption]These days, the Pony proudly honors its legendary rock ’n’ roll roots while booking broad, eclectic lineups—bands of all ages and genres, from Gaslight Anthem to Carly Rae Jepsen. There are disco nights and dance parties. Passionate crowds pack the intimate venue year-round and gather at the outdoor Summer Stage May through October. Shows this month include FLETCHER & FRIENDS (June 1–2) and the North to Shore Festival’s Asbury Park leg (June 10–16), featuring Gary Clark Jr., Band of Horses and others. “The Stone Pony represents this intersection of my hometown roots and this wild musical journey I’ve been on over the years,” says singer FLETCHER, 30, an Asbury Park native. “It’s a reminder of where I came from. You can never take the Jersey out of the girl.”Echoes Chapman: “It feels like home....It’s a local place to gather.”The day after E Street Band saxophonist Clarence “the Big Man” Clemons passed away in 2011, the Pony opened its doors as a sort of makeshift memorial site. “We knew people would just want to come and be together and remember him,” O’Toole says. At some point, the house DJ put on a live version of Springsteen’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” When the words “...and the Big Man joined the band” played, she says, “I swear: I have never felt an electricity like that in the room before. It was unbelievable. To this day, I’ve yet to experience it….It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.”[RELATED: E Street Band’s Jake Clemons Talks Stone Pony, Pre-Show Rituals and the Supernatural]
In 2015, Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff launched his inaugural Shadow of the City music festival at the Summer Stage (this year’s is June 15). “I always wanted to have a place where [our audience] could be like, ‘OK, I’ll meet you there’…our place where we can all [reunite],” he told NJM earlier this year.In 2018, rock photographer Danny Clinch cofounded Sea Hear Now, a beloved annual music, arts and surf festival on Asbury’s beach that draws some 35,000 fans (September 14-15 this year; Noah Kahan and Springsteen are headlining). Nick Corasaniti, a Jersey native and longtime Pony-goer, especially relishes Sea Hear Now’s Saturday-night super jams at the Pony, which stretch late and raucous into the early morning. “I wasn’t around in the ’70s, so I missed those epic, till-the-sun-rises, close-the-doors, stop-serving-the-alcohol-but-keep-the-music-going-until-the-band-can’t-go-any-longer [sessions],” he says. “I think the closest we get now are those Sea Hear Now super jams. All of them are magical.”Corasaniti, a political correspondent for the New York Times, has authored an oral history of the Stone Pony, I Don’t Want to Go Home (out June 4 from HarperCollins), an engrossing, comprehensive chronicle of the venue’s ups and downs, told in the voices of the colorful characters closest to it. A book-release party at the Pony is slated for June 8.This past winter, on the anniversary of the Pony’s 1974 opening, New Jersey officials proclaimed February 8 Stone Pony Day. “Not many businesses get something like that, you know?” O’Toole says. “Governor Murphy called me and congratulated me.…It just speaks volumes of what the Stone Pony means not only to Asbury Park and to the Jersey Shore, but to the state. It’s a landmark.” The Pony also hosted a panel that week with the team from the Springsteen Archives; local musicians, employees, community members and founding owner Roig shared memories.“I’m proud of the people that I work with, and that we have been able to keep this legacy going for the next generation,” O’Toole says. “At the end of the day, it’s about the music.”
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Visitors to the East Greenwich Township home of the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Ralph don’t have to worry about finding a place to sit.The longtime baseball fan, historian and collector has taken his interest in the sport to another level, with more than 250 seats from 45 major and minor league ballparks displayed throughout his home. With seats from classic fields, such as the original Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field, to current stadiums, including Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, the residence serves as a journey through the past of the national pastime.That becomes evident after descending the steps to the basement, which could serve as a South Jersey annex of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Seats are carefully arranged by team, with framed newspaper articles on the walls and baseball memorabilia displayed throughout. A “We Win!” headline from the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News of October 22, 1980, celebrates the first time the Phillies won the World Series. A photo with the number 2131 marks the September 6, 1995, game when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s record of most consecutive games played.Not surprisingly, Ralph says, “I bought this home because it had a large basement.” What led the local pastor to collect seats? His answer comes as quickly as a fastball on the outside corner of the plate: “I like old stuff. It’s the history of the game.”[caption id="attachment_334223" align="alignnone" width="778"] Ralph has been restoring ballpark seats in his basement workshop since 1997. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin[/caption]“It takes a lot of time to decide how to set everything up,” notes Ralph, who has served as pastor of New Brooklyn United Methodist Church in Williamstown since 2011. “I got a lot of stuff, more than you should be allowed to have,” he adds with a smile.The seats reflect an evolution in ballpark seating. There are seats made of wood and plastic, with and without armrests; folding chairs; seats with a straight back or a curved back; and those with cupholders.Some seats are more than a century old. One, from the Palace of the Fans, a Cincinnati stadium, is a rare example from a ballpark named for its team’s supporters. He also owns a seat from Exposition Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the early years of the 20th century.Ralph’s collection is diverse. He owns a Rockford Peaches pennant from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943-1954), which was featured in the 1992 film A League of Their Own. He also has turnstiles from Municipal Stadium in Kansas City and the Polo Grounds in New York.New Jersey baseball history is represented by seats and a home plate from Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium, the home of the Jersey City Giants from 1937 to 1950; the Brooklyn Dodgers played 15 games there during the 1956 and 1957 seasons. He also has a scorecard from the Newark Peppers, a team that played one season in the short-lived Federal League in 1915, and a pennant for the Jersey City Jerseys, who played two years in the International League in the early 1960s.[caption id="attachment_334222" align="alignnone" width="778"] A Jersey City Giants program Photo: Rebecca McAlpin[/caption]A basement workshop allows Ralph to refurbish and repaint seats. “Some need the wood repaired; sometimes they need welding,” says Ralph, who has been fixing up seats since 1997.One recent project involved the painting of 12 seats from Fenway Park in Boston. Ralph follows a standard procedure.“First, I clean the seats and apply three coats of oil-based paint,” he says. He waits three days between each coat for the best results.The New Jersey native’s longtime love of baseball can be traced to his family. “My grandmother was a big Dodgers fan,” says Ralph, 75, who was born in Princeton and grew up in Hightstown and Point Pleasant Borough.“I’m a baseball purist,” says Ralph. He remains opposed to the designated hitter, more than a half century after it was first introduced in the American League.His favorite era is from the end of World War II through the 1960s. “To me, that was the golden era of baseball,” he notes. “The players were accessible to the fans.” Nevertheless, he still enjoys the sport and has seen games played at all 30 Major League Baseball parks.Ralph took an early interest in items associated with the sport. “As a boy, I’d walk around the ballpark to pick up ticket stubs,” he recalls.“I always loved collecting baseball cards and memorabilia,” he says. More importantly, he adds, “my mom made sure my stuff was saved.”[caption id="attachment_334218" align="alignnone" width="778"] Raincheck tickets for Newark International Baseball Club Photo: Rebecca McAlpin[/caption]In the early 1990s, his interest in ballpark seats started while working on the grounds crew of the Bowie Baysox in Maryland. The club, which played at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore in 1993, gave him three seats from the park.He made his first purchase—three seats from Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia—a year later. That kick-started his interest in collecting.Steve Archer, the owner of Archer Seating in Vineland, has bought and sold seats since 1995. He calls Ralph the Seat Doctor, a reference to his baseball knowledge and doctorate in education.“He’s an expert, for sure,” Archer says of Ralph. “He’s put a lot of effort into the field.”Archer and Ralph even worked with the producers of 42, the 2013 film about Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball. Archer’s company provided 1,500 seats for the movie.“Bob provided filmmakers with information on what type of advertising was on the outfield walls of ballparks [in the 1940s],” Archer says, to ensure it was historically accurate.Seats are popular collectibles for fans, according to Archer, whose seat prices range from $235 to almost $1,000.“It’s the one physical thing from a ballpark that has utility,” he points out. “It’s something that can be used in your home. In some cases, you can buy the seat that you sat in.”Archer and Ralph take steps to determine the authenticity of seats, particularly older ones.“Ballpark seats are unique in terms of design and structure,” says Archer. The paint and font of a seat number are also distinguishing characteristics that link a seat to a particular ballpark.In 2001, Major League Baseball launched a memorabilia-authentication initiative to certify autographs and game-used sports items, such as baseballs.[caption id="attachment_334217" align="alignnone" width="778"] A 1947 program from the Trenton Giants[/caption]As a man of the cloth and a baseball fan, Ralph has combined his twin pursuits. The desk where he does church work features an autograph of baseball broadcaster Bob Uecker and patches honoring longtime announcers Harry Caray and Harry Kalas.Ralph says religion and baseball overlap. “There are a lot of Christian athletes in the major leagues,” he notes. “There’s also a book called Green Cathedrals,” a history of ballparks, he adds. Both baseball and religion feature gatherings of the faithful, the former in ballparks and the latter in houses of worship.For now, Ralph will continue to serve as pastor and baseball aficionado and preservationist. His collecting, he says, “is a nice break from my regular job.”Like most collectors, his quest for that hard-to-find item continues. “You’re always looking for something,” Ralph says. “The most difficult item for me to find has been a Shea Stadium seat with the original wood.”For now, there’s work to be done in his basement workshop. “I’m going to run out of time before I run out of seats to restore,” he says.Contributing writer Tom Wilk has rooted for the Philadelphia Phillies since the early 1960s. He saw his first Major League game at Connie Mack Stadium in July 1962.
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Walt Whitman, one of America’s most important literary figures, spent the final 19 years of his life as an esteemed resident of Camden. The internationally acclaimed poet of the body and soul famously and unashamedly declared, “I celebrate myself,” and, “I am an acme of things accomplished.” This month, the people of New Jersey will celebrate him. Whitman’s 205th birthday (he was born on May 31, 1819) is being observed with festivities at two Camden County venues directly associated with his South Jersey residency: Laurel Springs is sponsoring WaltFest on Saturday, May 18, and the Walt Whitman House on Mickle Street in Camden is hosting a birthday poetry event on Wednesday, May 29.May also marks the 151st anniversary of Whitman’s arrival in Camden, where he revised his most famous work, Leaves of Grass, putting the city on the literary map of the United States. “Making Camden his home meant Whitman could be connected to everything he liked about city living, yet be close to the rural environment he loved—an environment that abounded in late-19th-century southern New Jersey,” Leo Blake, curator of the historic Walt Whitman House, wrote in a 2019 essay. As Whitman put it himself, “Camden was originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden. It has brought me blessed returns.”[caption id="attachment_334459" align="alignnone" width="778"] Poet Walt Whitman at his Camden home in 1891. Photo: Public domain[/caption]In 1873, the poet, then 53 years old, suffered a paralytic stroke shortly before traveling from Washington, DC, to Camden to visit his ill mother, who died three days later. He stayed, living with his brother George and his sister-in-law on Stevens Street until 1884, when he purchased his first and only home on Mickle Street. Upon his death in 1892, he was buried at Harleigh Cemetery, less than two miles from his residence.By early 1876, the Good Gray Poet, as Whitman came to be known, had met Harry Stafford, who was 18 years old and worked at a local print shop. The two developed an intimate bond; it seems to have been the last serious romantic liaison of the poet’s life. In a letter dating from 1882, Whitman assured Stafford, “I think I understand you better than anyone—(& like you more too).” In a recent email, Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote that he suspects their friendship had “a little hanky panky on the side.” Intriguingly, Whitman presented a ring to Harry, who wrote to the poet, “When you put it on there, was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death.”Soon after they met, Stafford introduced Whitman to his family in Laurel Springs (then called Kirkwood). Over various seasons, the poet relished his numerous visits to the Stafford farmhouse on East Maple Avenue, which was only about 12 miles from Camden. The unpretentious, six-room home played critical roles in Whitman’s life.The Song of Myself author enjoyed the family’s hospitality, including meals prepared by Susan Stafford, Harry’s mother, maintaining, “There is not a nobler woman in Jersey.” The poet especially liked her curry-glazed chicken breast. He slept in one of two upstairs bedrooms or the barn, where he may have also done some writing.While in Laurel Springs, Whitman was drawn to nearby Timber Creek. Like Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, Whitman kept copious notes of his communion with nature, writing, “Nothing can exceed the quiet splendor and freshness around me.” Looking like a prophet from the Old Testament, but cavorting like a flower child of the 1960s, Whitman relished his “Adamic air-bath,” romping naked amid the trees, birds and wildflowers; he even covered his body with mud from the marlpit. In the autobiographical Specimen Days, he reminisced, “Never before did I get so close to Nature.”For the ailing, middle-aged author, it was a regenerative experience. The poet, in a letter dated February 28, 1881, confided to Stafford: “If it hadn’t been for you & our friendship & the kindness of your mother...I believe I should not be a living man to-day.” As an indication of gratitude, Whitman bequeathed his silver watch to Harry Stafford and a small sum of money to Susan Stafford.In 1884, Whitman bought his “little old house” for $1,750 (approximately $54,770 today) at 328 Mickle Street, in a neighborhood of Camden with a mix of social classes, not far from the ferry to Philadelphia. Although he referred to it as “the shanty of my own,” the two-story, wood-frame residence comprised approximately 1,700 square feet, with two parlors, a dining room, a kitchen and three bedrooms. Whitman added an upstairs bathroom with a copper tub. The Greek Revival townhouse has been open to the public since 1923.“Visitors have a window into the past and a look into the life of one of America’s truly great poets...living in 19th-century America—a time of change, challenges and triumphs for a young nation growing towards maturity,” Blake, curator of the the carefully restored property, tells New Jersey Monthly.On a recent tour, the home gave the impression Whitman might still have been in residence. The rooms had a homey feel, with most furnishings having originally been brought in by Mary Davis, Whitman’s housekeeper. Her needlepoint still hung in the kitchen. At this address, the poet entertained admirers like Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde.On the second floor was Whitman’s bedroom, where he spent considerable time by the window after his second paralytic stroke in 1888. The approximately 360-square-foot space served as a commodious office/bedroom setting. Today, the floor is still strewn with papers. The poet was often photographed in his rocking chair, which is still there, along with its animal-skin throw, his boots, and the cage for his feathered pet, named Canary Bird.In 1890, just a few years after Harleigh Cemetery was founded, Whitman personally selected and was gifted a prominent hillside burial site, measuring 20 by 30 feet, just west of the entrance gate. It was clever marketing to capitalize on his celebrity status to promote the new garden cemetery. (Some years ago, Whitman’s free verse and voice, which had been recorded by Thomas Edison, was posthumously used to sell Levi’s 501 jeans!)At the age of 72, Whitman died in bed at his Mickle Street home. His body was carried down to the back parlor on the main floor, where an autopsy was performed. “The end came peacefully,” announced the original death notice posted on the front door; it was written by Dr. Alex McAlister and remains on view in the house.On March 30, 1892, there was an open-casket viewing at the poet’s residence before the coffin was driven by carriage for the short ride to Harleigh Cemetery, where a graveside funeral service was held. Upwards of 5,000 people were reported to have attended. Several dignitaries served as pallbearers, including Thomas Eakins, the noted Philadelphia-based painter.Inspired by a William Blake illustration, Whitman designed his own rough-hewn granite mausoleum. Its massive stone door is still left ajar so visitors can peer through the original iron gate and see a marble-walled chamber, where the poet is placed between his mother and father. The 15-foot-tall masonry tomb, with his name prominently on its pediment, is a formidable shrine to a luminary who had proclaimed, “My foothold is...mortis’d in granite. “To honor the birth of Whitman, Laurel Springs hosts WaltFest on May 18 from 11 am to 3 pm at the historic Stafford farmhouse. Walt Whitman (played by David Scott Taylor) will receive admirers. A trolley will shuttle visitors to Crystal Springs Park, a spot along Timber Creek that Whitman enjoyed. There is now a half-mile boardwalk to stroll amidst the natural setting. The celebration at the park is also set to feature the 12th New Jersey Infantry Regiment Civil War Reenactors.At the poet’s historic residence in Camden, the 205th Walt Whitman Birthday Celebration is being held on May 29 at 5 pm, just two days before his actual birthday. Winners of the Walt Whitman Association’s High School Poetry Contest are set to read, and professor Edward Whitley of Lehigh University is the special guest speaker.The Pope of Mickle Street continues to inspire Whitmaniacs.As Blake describes it, “Whitman is many things to many people.” And, back in 1889, the New York Tribune proclaimed, “If Camden has a patron saint, it certainly is the ‘good, gray poet.’”Fred B. Adelson, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Art History, Department of Art, at Rowan University.
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George Washington was in a fix. The British had chased Washington and his ragged Continental Army off Manhattan Island and across the Hudson River to what is now Fort Lee. Enlistments were ending, and there was little money to feed and clothe what remained of Washington’s fighting force.Washington needed a victory, and he needed it fast. For that, he looked to New Jersey.On the night of Christmas Day, 1776, Washington, who had retreated all the way to Pennsylvania, led his troops on their fateful crossing of the Delaware River, landing on the Jersey side just south of Lambertville. What followed were what historians call the Ten Crucial Days. Without Washington’s surprising series of successful engagements with the British and their Hessian mercenaries during those 10 days, we might all still be English subjects.[caption id="attachment_332695" align="alignnone" width="778"] Artist John Cameron’s 1876 painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. Painting: Library of Congress/John Cameron[/caption]Washington’s men traveled mostly on foot—some with feet wrapped in rags—for those 10 frigid days. Today, you can tour the key locations on their trek in the comfort of your family car in less than a day, including stops at three museums, two impressive monuments and several battle sites. You can use this story as your guide or join a tour.Our journey starts at Washington Crossing State Park (along Route 29 in Titusville). From the parking lot alongside the Delaware, you can sense the heroic effort required for Washington to float 2,400 troops across the rushing waters in the dead of night. Now, factor in the ice floes that pocked the river that Christmas and the brutal nor’easter that roiled the waters, driving rain, sleet and snow into the faces of the ill-clad soldiers. (The same night, two other planned crossings of 3,000 additional troops farther down the river failed.)MORE ROAD TRIPS*:New Jersey Road Trips for the Animal LoverRetro Road Trips to Take Through New JerseyNew Jersey’s Top Pizza ToursWhy You Must Wine and Dine in Hammonton*
After viewing the riverfront, drive up the hill to the visitor center museum (open daily, 9-11:30 am and 12:30-4 pm; admission free; 609-737-0623). The museum has two rooms of period artifacts, including an original letter from Washington to Colonel Richard Humpton directing him to gather the sturdy Durham boats the army needed for the crossing. You can also watch a 27-minute film on the Ten Crucial Days (admission $1). If you care to linger, visit the 18th-century Johnson Ferry House (open Wednesday-Sunday) or stretch your legs on one of the park’s many walking trails.From the state park, we head east on Washington Crossing-Pennington Road and south on Bear Tavern Road (Route 579), following Washington’s actual march toward Trenton, 9.5 miles away. (Watch for the Victory Trail signs.) For Washington’s men, this was a brutal slog along a rocky, rutted, icy trail. The troops struggled with ropes to haul heavy artillery pieces up and down the steep ravines.Turn left at Upper Ferry Road onto Route 634 (watch for the Dunkin’ Donuts). This is the very intersection where Washington divided his army for a two-pronged attack on the force of about 1,500 Hessians (paid soldiers from Germany) encamped in Trenton. According to local historian and volunteer tour guide Roger Williams (our guide for this day), it was here, just before sunrise, that Washington told his generals, “Synchronize your watches.” His goal: to ensure that the two divisions reached the initial Hessian outposts at the same time.[caption id="attachment_332719" align="alignright" width="350"] Buy our May 2024 issue here. Cover illustration: Mary Kate McDevitt[/caption]Follow Route 634 (Parkway Avenue) all the way to Route 31 (Pennington Avenue). Turn right (there’s yet another Dunkin’ Donuts) and you’ll reach the Trenton Battle Monument, which towers above the busy confluence of five main streets. There’s no dedicated parking here, but you can park a few blocks away at the Greater Mount Zion AMA Church (42 Pennington Avenue) or pull into the gravel lot on your left as you reach the monument.When it opened in 1893, visitors could enter the base of the 150-foot-tall monument—constructed at a cost of $60,000—and ride to the top in the world’s first Otis elevator. These days, the interior is closed, so the best visitors can do is gaze up at the monument and imagine the scene that unfolded at this spot in 1776.That’s Washington in bronze signaling the attack atop the fluted column, but he wasn’t the only historically significant figure on the scene. Picture, to your left, a battery commanded by Alexander Hamilton firing on the Hessian positions along King Street (now Warren Street). Several hundred feet down King Street, a young lieutenant (and future president) named James Monroe led his third Virginia Regiment against the Hessians. In a moment that could have changed history, Monroe suffered a near-fatal neck wound in close combat with the enemy.Much as Washington envisioned, the Continentals engaged the Hessians from multiple directions that morning of December 26, 1776—a mere 4.5 hours after crossing the Delaware. The street fighting was chaotic. Outmanned by about 2-to-1, the surprised Hessians fell back. Washington’s army captured 900 prisoners and, satisfied that they had won the day, slipped back across the river to regroup.For your next stop, head down Warren Street to West Front Street for a visit to one of NJM's favorite museums, Old Barracks Museum (101 Barrack Street; open 10 am-5 pm, Wednesday-Saturday; adults, $10; students and seniors, $8; children under 5 and active military, free; 609-396-1776).Built in 1758 to shelter British soldiers during the French and Indian War, the Old Barracks housed British and Hessian troops at the time Washington captured Trenton. Having taken Trenton, the Continentals used the barracks as a prison and, later, as a military hospital. Today, the Old Barracks serves as a museum of Colonial times, with a collection of around 2,000 objects.From the museum, head about three blocks south to Mill Hill Park (at the corner of East Front and South Broad streets), which commemorates the Battle of Assunpink Creek (aka the Second Battle of Trenton). It was here, on January 2, 1777, that Washington’s troops held off three assaults by a larger British and Hessian force, which had just marched from Princeton. These were fresh troops under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis, who was bent on reclaiming Trenton for the Crown.Washington had stationed his troops on the high ground south of the creek. Today, you can stand astride the creek on Mill Hill Park’s black-iron footbridge and visualize Washington’s forces on the neighboring hillside, repelling the British and Hessians as they repeatedly attempted to cross the nearby Queen Street Bridge (now the Broad Street Bridge).At the far end of the park stands the yellow clapboard Alexander Douglas House, where Washington held a council of war with his regimental commanders to determine his next move. (At the time of the battle, the house was on the south side of the creek, where Washington’s troops held sway.)Rather than engage the enemy again the next day, Washington, content with his pair of morale-boosting triumphs at Trenton, slipped away in the night, leading his army to Princeton on today’s Quaker Bridge Road. To confound Cornwallis, Washington left behind a small detachment to lob shells across the river and keep fires burning, as if the full army were encamped for the night. By morning, as the British prepared to attack, all of Washington’s troops were gone.On today’s Quaker Bridge Road, 12 small, granite obelisks (placed in 1914 by the Sons of the Revolution) represent Washington’s 12-mile march to Princeton. You can follow that road, or take the more direct Route 1 north to the Province Line Road exit onto Route 533 north. Cross the bridge over the Delaware & Raritan Canal and turn right. Just ahead, you can spot obelisk number 11 at the edge of a broad field. Your next stop is the Princeton Battlefield (500 Mercer Road).[caption id="attachment_332684" align="alignnone" width="778"] A reenactment at Princeton Battlefield State Park. Photo: Al Pochek[/caption]Approaching Princeton, Washington and his army of about 6,000 men finally had the advantage of a larger force. Cornwallis had taken most of his troops to Trenton, leaving behind only about 1,200 soldiers to defend Princeton. Again, Washington divided his forces for a multipronged attack.Things did not go as planned. Early on January 3, as Washington’s force marched toward Princeton, a small brigade led by Brigadier General Hugh Mercer (namesake of Mercer County) encountered a British column. The Battle of Princeton was on.Before touring the battlefield, drive up the adjacent road to the Thomas Clarke House, the only remaining structure from the era. Inside the white clapboard farmhouse museum, two rooms display artifacts of Colonial times (open 10 am-4 pm, Wednesday-Saturday; 1-4 pm Sunday; admission and battlefield tours free; 609-921-0074).The battle actually broke out down the hill. The opposing forces faced off less than 50 yards apart. As musket balls whizzed through the air, the British fixed bayonets and charged. As the fighting intensified, Mercer’s horse was shot out from under him. The general drew his sword, but fell to multiple bayonet wounds.The fight was raging when Washington arrived at the scene, ordering his troops to attack the British left flank. As the battlefield filled with blinding smoke, the seemingly invincible Washington, tall in the saddle, rode between the lines and rallied the Americans, famously calling out, “Parade with me, my brave fellows.”It was an iconic, death-defying moment, which, says battlefield interpreter Will Krakower, “catapulted George Washington to mythical status.” Indeed, it was the turning point of the battle. The Americans counterattacked and overwhelmed the British, capturing more than 250 enemy soldiers. Washington’s army proceeded into Princeton, where the last of the British troops had barricaded themselves in Nassau Hall. An American artillery barrage forced their surrender.The Battle of Princeton lasted less than two hours, but turned the tide of the war. After the battle, Washington led his tired army to Morristown, where it would encamp for the rest of the winter.After touring the battlefield, you can continue into downtown Princeton and stroll among the town’s numerous Revolutionan-era sites, including Nassau Hall (on the university campus); Morven Museum & Garden (home to Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence); the 50-foot-tall Princeton Battle Monument (which depicts Washington on horseback and the death of Mercer); and the Princeton Cemetery (final resting place for many key figures from the Colonial era).The Battle of Princeton marked the climactic end of the Ten Crucial Days. At the start of that span, Washington’s army had been on the run. His earlier force of 20,000 men had been reduced to fewer than 8,000. What’s more, he was losing the support of the citizenry and the Continental Congress. But the swift succession of victories at Trenton and Princeton were game-changers. Enlistments rose, Congress changed its tune, and the British never fully occupied New Jersey again. Overseas, the French responded to the good news by opening discussions on an alliance with the Americans that proved indispensable.The war dragged on for six more years, but few battles were as pivotal as those frigid engagements in central New Jersey. “If we lose, that’s it,” says Krakower. “If we win, the sky’s the limit. And we win.”Ken Schlager is the former editor of New Jersey Monthly and a frequent contributor.
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A new exhibit at the New Jersey State Museum introduces the work of a prolific photographer more than 100 years after he documented ordinary people and places in the state. “Discovering Grant Castner” showcases the amateur photographer’s perceptive eye, appreciation for everyday life, and restless curiosity.
“He didn’t just take pictures of his family members,” says Nicholas Ciotala, the museum’s curator of cultural history. “He went out into the community, traveling by train to Belvidere, Camden, Mercer County, Atlantic City, Cape May and Toms River.”
[RELATED: The Best Things to Do in NJ This Month]
Born in Belvidere in 1863, Castner spent his adult life in Trenton. His art reveals an interest in turn-of-the-century transportation and infrastructure, such as the Delaware’s covered bridges. His portraits of working-class New Jerseyans, including African Americans, are reminiscent of those by Jacob Riis, candid and unvarnished: A woman rests with a baby on her lap; a shoeshine man gives a faint smile; a woman sits mending a garment. Castner also depicted New Jerseyans at leisure: men at a campsite, and Victorian men and women as they picnic on a riverbank.
In 2019, a private collector’s estate donated more than 1,000 glass plate negatives to the museum. “To have a whole collection attributed to the same photographer is rare,” Ciotala says. “And it’s especially rare to come across someone totally unknown.” On display with Castner’s images are rarely displayed related objects from the museum’s collection, such as shad-fishing equipment.
"Discovering Grant Castner" is at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton from February 3 to September 15; admission is free.
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[caption id="attachment_327738" align="alignnone" width="778"] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is seen at the March on Washington in August of 1963. Photo: Alamy Stock Photo/Pictorial Press LTD[/caption]February is Black History Month, and there is no better time to think about one of the most essential African American leaders in the history of our nation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968 at just 39 years old.Many people remember King for his electrifying “I Have a Dream” speech, which played an important role in helping pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Less known are his significant New Jersey years. King lived in Camden from 1948 to 1951 while serving as a seminarian in Philadelphia. It was in that house where, historians say, his initial fight for civil rights began, after he and some friends were denied service at a tavern in Maple Shade.To a student of leadership, King is a case study in servant leadership, as he focused on the well-being of others with dignity and respect for all, and he used public communication to move people to act. Recently, I interviewed Jonathan Eig, author of the much-acclaimed book King: A Life, who told me, “One of the miraculous things about King is that he had an ability to speak across lines: Black and white, North and South, left and right. His appeal was based on the fact that he was calling out to our principles as Americans and our belief in God, and he was able to unite that. ...People found something in his message that resonated, even if they weren’t necessarily on board with the Civil Rights movement. And I think that gives us hope that there may still be things that unite us.”I also spoke with Reverend Forrest M. Pritchett, director of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Program at Seton Hall University. (Full disclosure: Seton Hall University is an underwriter of the public-policy programming I anchor on public broadcasting.) Pritchett says that, beyond the “I Have a Dream” speech, King’s most important contribution was “to appeal to the moral consciousness of America.”Pritchett is a longtime civil rights activist and mentor of minority students. During his more than 40-year tenure at Seton Hall, he has coordinated the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Symposium, which provides perspectives on racism, privilege and justice while educating students and schoolteachers on King’s principles as a civil rights leader. The university’s Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Program started in 1970 and provided full scholarships to African American students; today, says Pritchett, “we offer scholarships to students from around the world who have a vested interest, whether they’re from Africa, Venezuela, or from Newark, and who can articulate strategies and plans for very specific action and social justice projects.”It is important that we recognize King, a courageous and impactful leader who gave his life for the cause of civil rights. Says Pritchett of honoring him, “It is important because the issue of race and the issue of systemic racism is not going away. It’s almost cyclical.”Pritchett is absolutely right. The struggle for civil rights and the fight against institutional racism goes on, yet King’s contributions continue to be felt.I often wonder, if King were alive today, how he would impact our often contentious race relations, and help us more honestly and empathetically talk about both our differences and similarities—regardless of race. He is missed now more than ever.Steve Adubato, PhD, is the author of six books, including his newest, Lessons in Leadership 2.0: The Tough Stuff. He is an Emmy Award–winning anchor with programs airing on Thirteen/WNET (PBS) and NJ PBS. He has also appeared on CNN, CBS News and NBC’s Today show. Steve Adubato's Lessons in Leadership video podcast, with cohost Mary Gamba, airs Sundays at 10 am on News 12+. For more information, visit stand-deliver.com.
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Garden State history buffs have two reasons to pick up Duel in the Deep (Naval Institute Press). The new book by David Sears vividly portrays real-life military events, and those battles depended upon the bravery of New Jersey’s finest Navy sailors.Bob Maher hailed from Kearny, and Jim Allegri and Eddie Johnson were from nearby Nutley, says Sears. In December 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor, Bob, Jim, Eddie and dozens of other Jersey boys from Hoboken, Jersey City, Lyndhurst, Montclair, North Arlington, Rutherford and Verona stepped aboard Borie, an aging, outmoded U.S. Navy destroyer whose thin hull and deck plates revealed why destroyers were jokingly reviled as “tin cans,” he says.[RELATED: Point Pleasant Veteran’s D-Day Efforts Lauded as Crucial to U.S. Military History]
In this, his fifth book, Sears describes how these Greatest Generation heroes volunteered for the U.S. Navy ahead of the prewar draft, but few received proper uniforms, basic training or seagoing know-how. But, beginning in January 1942, Nazi submarines—U-boats—prowled off Garden State shores, savaging merchant ships and crews.With the Eastern Seaboard unexpectedly thrust into the Battle of the Atlantic, World War II’s longest and fiercest sea campaign, these Jersey boys saw battle in October 1943 in a high-seas fight to the finish against U-boat submariners in the deepest waters of the Atlantic Ocean.A decorated naval officer and Vietnam veteran, Sears has appeared on the History Channel.
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[caption id="attachment_321761" align="alignnone" width="778"] Beverly Lee (far left) and the Shirelles were Passaic classmates. Photo: Pictorial Press Limited/Alamy Stock Photo[/caption]In many ways, the girl groups that ruled the airwaves six decades ago—from the Shirelles and the Angels to the Ronettes and the Crystals—remain “in everyone’s minds and around them all the time,” says Laura Flam, coauthor with Emily Sieu Liebowitz of But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, a recently released oral history of several ’60s girl groups (Hachette Books). They serenade us “in movies...and in the background: in a taxi, in the grocery store—everywhere,” Flam says. And yet, Sieu Liebowitz laments, most of the women behind these songs are not household names.
[caption id="attachment_321770" align="alignright" width="350"] An oral-history format lets the women of the girl groups “speak for themselves,” coauthor Laura Flam says.[/caption]In part a response to this injustice, the duo’s book is a treasure trove of illuminating accounts directly from the girl-group members themselves, who were trailblazers not only in their recordings—reminiscent of summer nights, teenage-tinged yearning, and transistor radios tucked into pockets or under pillows—but also in their songwriting, performing, touring and, in the case of the many Black girl groups, “desegregating [of] pop music and culture,” the authors write. Even as they endured rampant sexism, racism and mistreatment, “these girls created a space for being women in public,” Sieu Liebowitz says. We spoke to two of these artists with deep Jersey roots.
Beverly Lee • The ShirellesLee was born and raised in Passaic, where she met the other founding members of the Shirelles—Shirley Owens, Doris Coley and Addie “Micki” Harris—by junior high. In 1961, their hit single “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” became the first number 1 song by a Black girl group. Regarded as rock ’n’ roll’s first female supergroup, the Shirelles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. The city of Passaic renamed a portion of Paulison Avenue, near Passaic High School, Shirelles Boulevard in 2008. Lee, 82, currently lives in Passaic, where she enjoys walks in the park, still sometimes takes the bus, and serves as an usher/deaconess at St. Paul Baptist Church “any Sunday I’m home.”
What do you recall about Jersey’s music scene in the late ’50s and early ’60s?Well, it was male dominated, and you heard mainly male groups. After [the Shirelles] were introduced to show business, we broke that cycle. We were [later] universally credited as the creator of the girl-group sound.
You and the other founding members of the Shirelles were teenagers when you wrote what would later become your first single, “I Met Him on a Sunday,” on the fly at your Passaic apartment in 1957. How did you come to record it?We were fooling around in gym at Passaic High, and the teacher said, “There’s gonna be a show. Do the show or fail gym.” Quite naturally, we opted to do the show. We brought “I Met Him on a Sunday,” [about having] your first date, your first kiss and the whole nine yards, and you don’t know what you’re doing, and everybody’s nervous. The kids went berserk. One of my classmates said, “They stomped so hard that the ceiling was cracked.”
As a result of that show, we discovered that we had a classmate, Mary Jane Greenberg, whose mother, Florence Greenberg, owned a record company, which we had no knowledge of. Mary Jane asked us to let her mother hear the song, and she pursued us constantly. We got tired of her chasing us, and we finally said, “Okay, we’ll let your mother hear the song.”We went and sang the song in Florence’s living room, and she fell in love with it and wanted to record it. We were teenagers and knew nothing about show business, but we were excited. And we all told a white lie—telling our parents, “You’re the only one who won’t sign [the contract].”
The first time we heard the song was in Passaic High, on the intercom. Florence had arranged for the principal to [play it]. We were in the classroom, and...it was quite an experience.
In August 1963, the Shirelles performed at the first integrated fundraising show held in Birmingham, Alabama. In the book, you recall that you were “a part of the civil rights movement and didn’t know it.” What is it like to realize, in hindsight, the kinds of barriers you broke?Well, at the time, we were young, and we were having fun, and we didn’t know the dangers of what we might encounter. I’d never been [down] South before; [I’d only been] as far as Washington, D.C. We went on a chartered plane. When the plane landed, we heard that the Ku Klux Klan had marched before we got there. [The National Guard] had to guard our plane. Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.], we were told, led the caravan of cars to the hotel, like the leader he was. [At the hotel,] we could not leave. Everything was guarded. It was frightening, but we had praying parents, and we knew that God was on our side and we would be all right. We still didn’t know at the time that we were making history. When I saw Dr. King sitting to my left, I said, “Oh, dear God.” Words couldn’t describe it.
When “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” was initially introduced to the Shirelles, you actually didn’t want to sing it; you thought it was too country-esque. It ended up becoming your biggest hit, and the new book describes it as “an anthem for a generation and for a nation coming into its own adulthood.” How do you feel about the song now?It’s true that we didn’t like the song when we [first] heard it, because Carole [King, who wrote the music,] did the demo, and it was very, very twangy. It sounded like a country-and-western song. [But producer] Luther Dixon said, “You’re gonna do this song.” [Then] when we went to the studio, we heard a lush arrangement with strings and violas. As a matter of fact, I believe Carole played the kettledrums [on the record] ’cause she didn’t like the way [the other] guy was playing [them]. That’s girl power. We had girl power in that song. Because we had the right—a female has every right—to ask that question: Will you still love me tomorrow?
Peggy Santiglia Ricker • The Delicates, the Angels[caption id="attachment_321759" align="alignnone" width="778"] The Angels’ Peggy Santiglia Ricker (far right) hails from Belleville. Photo: Pictorial Press Limited/Alamy Stock Photo[/caption]Santiglia Ricker grew up in Belleville, across the street from Branch Brook Park. She formed her first girl group, the Delicates, with two elementary-school classmates. (In 2013, part of Belleville’s Union Avenue was renamed The Delicates Drive.) In high school, she joined the Angels and sang lead on their 1963 number 1 hit single “My Boyfriend’s Back.” The Angels were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2005. Santiglia Ricker, 79, now resides in Maryland but returns to New Jersey often to visit family. “It’s a special place,” she says.What was your musical upbringing like in Belleville?My sister sang opera. My dad played clarinet, saxophone, mandolin...and guitar. And I started singing and recording as early as elementary school, actually. I met my two original partners [in the Delicates], Denise Ferri and Arleen Lanzotti, in second and third grade. By seventh grade, we were recording. We wrote theme songs for an extremely popular New York DJ at the time, Murray the K. And that’s how we started as the Delicates, not because we were—well, we were innocent—but because Denise’s parents owned a delicatessen on Union Avenue.
It was rare for girls, especially of such a young age, to be writing their own material back then. What do you recall about those early songwriting days?Well, at that time, we wrote about our two favorite subjects: boys and cars. In that order. And then probably boys again. It’s funny—we didn’t even think of it as writing; we thought of it as making up songs. About friends and [such]. So some, of course, were [written] at the deli, or in back of the deli, where [Denise’s family] lived; some were [written] in my house; sometimes at school, when we would have a break, and an idea would come to us. ...Now, maybe at the time, we were just trying to impress our friends. We certainly weren’t thinking about making money. We did love to perform. But that is how it started—with friends that had natural musical ability.
You were a senior at Belleville High when sisters and Orange natives Barbara “Bibs” and Phyllis “Jiggs” Allbut asked you to join the Angels. You sang lead on “My Boyfriend’s Back.” Fast-forward to the summer of 1963: You were at the Jersey Shore with your family when Bibs and Jiggs called and said, “Peggy, come home! We have a hit record!”“It’s climbing the charts!” It was a very exciting time. Of course, at that time, we didn’t have Sirius radio, or even FM [stations in cars]. I can remember riding around in a convertible...with Jiggs and Bibs. Every major station that you turned to, we would hear “My Boyfriend’s Back.”
And in the late ’60s, under a pseudonym, Peggy Farina, you wrote, with Bob Gaudio, the lyrics to “Beggin’,” which became a Four Seasons hit.Yes...and at the time...it did get on the charts, number [16] in the country, which I was very happy about. Then, a number of years later, “Beggin’” was also in the [2005] Broadway show version of Jersey Boys, which I’m very thankful for; that was just fabulous. Then, [in 2007,] a group called Madcon did [the first modern cover of it]. And then when Måneskin recorded [another cover in 2022], I didn’t even know about it until I was with a few of my step-grandchildren, who were quite young at the time. And we’re in the car, and they had their phones, and they’re playing Måneskin’s version. And they said, “Oh, this is a big hit.” And I’m listening, and I’m saying, Could it be possible? ...Oh, my God, what is going on here? But it became a huge global hit all over the world, which I am so grateful for. And I kind of joked: If people only knew that someone who wrote those lyrics could be their grandmother!
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There are a lot of iconic towns here in the Garden State, each with its own allure. Asbury Park has the Boss and New Brunswick’s got the Big Ten. Trenton honors history, while Atlantic City’s all about sand and sin. The Devils are in Newark, the Great Falls in Paterson, and Bedminster lays claim to you-know-who.
But when it comes to having it all, to being a place where young professionals want to be, few places beat Hoboken—which is a real trip for me, because when I grew up there in the 1960s and early ’70s, everyone was intent on leaving.
Sinatra aside, these are boom times for the quirky place where I was born, where both my parents lived their entire lives, and where my grandparents planted the DePalma flag in the New World way back in 1909. But when I visit Hoboken now, I barely recognize the place I once knew as well as my Baltimore Catechism.
[caption id="attachment_318138" align="alignnone" width="778"] Hoboken's Pier C Park. Photo: Laura Moss[/caption]The pencil factory where my grandfather got his start is gone. So are the piers where my father worked, and the Italian-ice factory where I earned my first dime (literally, a dime) helping a guy named Tex push his wagon to a park a few blocks away. In place of the city I once knew is a dazzling array of chic condos, high-end restaurants and popular bars. The Hoboken waterfront that was imprisoned behind iron gates when I was a kid is now a stunning urban oasis with a view of the Manhattan skyline that even Manhattanites envy.
With its ferries, buses, light-rail and PATH trains to Manhattan, Hoboken so closely aligns with today’s walkable-suburbs ideal that it may soon be within striking distance of its all-time population high of 70,000—last reached back in 1910, when my grandparents lived in a cold-water flat on Willow Avenue jammed with relatives. Incredibly, a one-bedroom condo on that same crowded block recently sold for $542,000.
[caption id="attachment_318137" align="alignnone" width="778"] The Hoboken waterfront is a vibrant urban oasis for residents and visitors. Photo: Laura Moss[/caption]The old city is now young, with an average age of 32, which means that none of those people had even been born when the city went through the darkest periods of its long history. It can seem that the whole city has tried to simply forget the sorrowful cycle of destruction, displacement and rebirth that led to the new Hoboken.
But a few residents have recently challenged the city to own up to its past as thoroughly as it embraces its future, in the process opening old wounds and tearing new ones into the fabric of the community as it confronts how Hoboken got to be what it is today.
[caption id="attachment_318136" align="alignnone" width="778"] The Hudson Tea Buildings offer high-end, one-to-three-bedroom condos for $515,000-$3.9 million. Photo: Laura Moss[/caption]Here’s what we know: From 1978 to 1983, just as Hoboken’s transformation was taking off, ten suspicious fires left 56 people dead—many of them women and children, many of Puerto Rican and Guyanese descent. In 1992, a sensational film called Delivered Vacant offered a sinister narrative too sensational to pass up, claiming the fires had been set by greedy landlords to push out old tenants and bring in new ones who were younger, richer and whiter. Local newspapers weighed in with sensational headlines like “Hell on 14th St.” after a deadly 1982 fire at the Pinter Hotel in the city’s north end killed 12 people.
That newspaper clipping is one of many included in a multimedia exhibition that runs until the end of the year at the Hoboken Historical Museum, which, since 1986, has lovingly uncovered and preserved a record of what the city and its people were like before gentrification. But it has never addressed gentrification itself until now. With powerful photographs, artifacts and recorded interviews with fire survivors, the exhibition outlines in grim detail a campaign of terror that altered the city forever.
But is it an accurate accounting of what took place?
The guest curator of the exhibit is North Jersey resident Christopher López, a 38-year-old photographer who works in documentary histories. In 2021, quarantined by Covid-19, López was doing internet research for a project. “I had the topic of gentrification on my mind, so I Googled the definition,” he says. Having lived for a time in the Bronx, he was familiar with gentrification in New York. He didn’t know Hoboken well, but he knew the city had changed.
He returned to Google and this time found a provocative academic article in the Journal of American History titled “Hoboken Is Burning: Yuppies, Arson and Displacement in the Postindustrial City.” That led him to newspaper accounts of the fires, but something didn’t seem right. “I became kind of angry about some of the things that I was reading. People casting the blame on tenants, you know, things like kids playing with matches and lovers’ quarrels, things like that,” he says.
The articles quoted the mayor, fire chief, county prosecutor and other officials, laying out theories about how the fires had started, but López didn’t believe any of it, saying, “It’s not a cosmic coincidence that the city is burning and changing at the same time.”
In June 2022, López and the museum received a grant from the NJ Council for the Humanities. Earlier this year, "The Fires: Hoboken 1978-1982" opened. It is a damning presentation that accuses Hoboken landlords of committing arson for profit.
[caption id="attachment_318135" align="alignnone" width="778"] Robert Foster is the executive director of the Hoboken Historical Museum. Photo: Laura Moss[/caption]Robert Foster, the museum’s executive director, says that, for some people who lived through the fires, talking about such a bleak period has been a kind of catharsis, while for those new to Hoboken, it was a sobering discovery. “But a few people,” Foster says, “have asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’”
In the decades since the fires, there’s never been a comprehensive accounting of what happened. In the absence of an official record, the most aggrieved members of the community have devised their own. Survivors told López their emotional recollections of the tragic fires and claimed that officials were covering up the arsons to protect the city’s image.
Their feelings are legitimate, their tragedies real. But as a journalist for more than 50 years, I know how complicated history can be. I try always to remember that feelings aren’t facts, the truth is not negotiable, and questions like “what else could it be?” can have many answers, or none at all.
The record shows that the local fire and police departments, backed by federal and state agencies, did investigate the fatal fires. Two in particular caught their attention because both buildings were owned by the same person, whose tenants reported that she’d threatened them. The arson squad at the Hudson County prosecutor’s office, which was then run by Harold Ruvoldt Jr., prepared several cases to present to a grand jury, but without enough evidence for anyone to be indicted. (Ruvoldt died as this story went to press.)
“We aggressively did everything we could to find the person who struck the match” in several cases, Ruvoldt said in a telephone interview conducted in May. “We were never able to make that critical connection.”
Across the country, only about 20 percent of all arson cases are ever resolved, with the arsonist identified and convicted. There is no statute of limitations for murder, so fatal arsons are never closed. In Hoboken, 28 remain open.
In the Pinter Hotel fire, Ruvoldt said, investigators checked conflicting evidence: there had been a violent argument that night, some kind of accelerant had been present, there were signs of an electrical short. Nothing was conclusive. “Prosecutors and police are bound by some fairly strict standards of evidence,” Ruvoldt said. “It’s not enough to prove you profited from a fire that caused the death of people.”
Without offering additional evidence or acknowledging the lack of proof, the museum’s exhibit repeats as fact the same arson-for-profit account that has hung over the city for decades.
“I don’t have any,” López said when I asked him about proof. “But what I do have is testimony.” Survivors told him their landlords had threatened to torch their buildings to get them out. But sometimes, inconvenient facts get left out of the narrative. On the day of the Pinter Hotel fire, tenants reported that they had smelled kerosene, and investigators found a suspicious 5-gallon metal can. But later that same day, a state police lab test showed no sign of kerosene, and fire officials said the can was likely used for garbage.
The exhibit preceded another conflict over the same local history. In March, a documentary play by Hoboken playwright Joseph Gallo, Yuppies Invade My House at Dinnertime, premiered. Gallo, the playwright-in-residence at Hoboken’s Mile Square Theater, says his piece was inspired by a 1987 book of the same name that spotlighted the clash between old-timers and young professionals in Hoboken.
In his play, Gallo links gentrification to the fires and says the city has tried to forget they ever happened. “Hoboken clearly is a community that does not know its story,” Gallo, as narrator of his own play, says early on in the staged readings. He then explains that he took on the task of telling that story by interviewing people who had lived through the fires.
Among them was Joe Barry, a critical figure in Hoboken’s revival. His company, Applied Housing, rehabbed about 1,500 worn-out apartments in the city, then rented many to the same people who had lived there before at subsidized rates. Applied later built high-end housing. Barry also started a string of newspapers, including the Hoboken Reporter, which published many of the letters that became the book Gallo used in his play.
“I thought it was going to be some kind of a comedy,” Barry said a few weeks after he attended a performance. In the first act, the horrors of the fires are recounted by four actors as they denounce the money-hungry landlords burning people out of their homes.
Barry, sitting in the audience, could not contain himself. “That’s bullshit,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard on stage. “It’s all lies.”
During an interview, Barry—who was not accused of any arson—argued that it is unfair, even slanderous, to say without proof that landlords, many of them small owners in Hoboken, willingly committed arson, and by extension murder, in order to turn a profit.
Barry says he told Gallo just that, and some of what he said ended up being used in the play, but not the way he intended. He says he watched as Gallo repeated those comments and then, in apparent disgust, threw down his copy of the Yuppies book, which lists Barry as one of the authors.
“He said, ‘Joe Barry says,’ like I was defending the arsonists,” Barry recounts. “So that really infuriated me. And what I really wanted to do was go up and slap him in the face really hard. I wasn’t going to beat him up. I just wanted to slap him in the face and then say something to the people. I never got there.”
He rushed onto the stage but was restrained before he reached Gallo, and then escorted from the theater.
Barry is a major benefactor of the Hoboken Historical Museum, which has a 100-year lease on its space in the old Bethlehem Steel Shipyard that Barry’s company redeveloped. Now 83, Barry says that he originally supported the idea of taking a hard look at the fires when the museum proposed it, but was wary of how the narrative would be presented.
Some other developers and former city officials who had served at the time of the fires also privately objected to the exhibit and the play, but it has become so controversial to even question the standard version of Hoboken’s history that they are reluctant to do so. But for Barry, the demonization of landlords is an attack on his legacy.
A lawyer by training, he started Applied Housing with his father, Walter, to take advantage of federal housing and redevelopment programs begun in the 1970s. He continues to work in Hoboken, although Applied devolved into new companies with different names after he was convicted of making payments to a Hudson County executive who had supported grants for the shipyard project. He was sentenced to 25 months in a federal penitentiary in Maryland.
Barry believes that many fires resulted from poor maintenance and aging electrical and heating systems, not arson. He insists there was no conspiracy to drive the poor out of Hoboken; the market did that as Hoboken drew in people willing to pay more. In his view, every one of those newcomers shares some degree of responsibility for the darker consequences of the city’s metamorphosis.
In March, a small group of residents, tired of waiting for the city to officially acknowledge this dark chapter, did it themselves, dedicating a plaque to the fire victims that was paid for with private donations. The plaque, at a playground on Willow Avenue, reads, “In memory of our Hoboken neighbors who died in the intentional fires of 1978-1983, and the thousands who were displaced and all who bear emotional and physical scars.”
[caption id="attachment_318140" align="alignnone" width="778"] The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas is an organizer of the Hoboken Fire Victims Memorial Project. Photo: Laura Moss[/caption]The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas, one of the organizers, says the plaque isn’t at any of the fire sites because they are privately owned. The playground was considered a suitable substitute because it is named for the late tenants’ rights advocate Teofilo Olivieri.
The droopy branches of locust trees growing in Olivieri Park now shade the plaque. One warm May afternoon, I surveyed passersby and found that most hadn’t seen the plaque or known what it was about. But when I read the words to 19-year-old Damian Santiago, his eyes grew wide.
“Whoa,” he said. “Intentional, that’s means on purpose, right?”
Santiago grew up on that same block, in an apartment that his parents rented from Applied Housing, but he had never heard about the fires. “Most definitely it’s a good thing,” to have a plaque there, he said.
A few minutes later, Brennan Hagale entered the park with her two-year-old son, Sullivan, all curls and post-nap energy. While he climbed the playground equipment, she said she was only vaguely familiar with the history the plaque referred to.
She and her husband moved to Hoboken about nine years ago, long after the rash of fires. She worked in production at ABC News, and her husband is a financial consultant. Together, they are a model of the young professionals who have propelled Hoboken’s gentrification. When I told her what Barry had said about newcomers driving the darker side of gentrification, she agreed. “I guess we’re all guilty, in a way, if we live in the new condo buildings,” she said.
She planned to take in the museum exhibit to better understand what the plaque means to Hoboken. “It’s incredibly important to know the history of the town you call home,” she said.
Whoever’s version of its history that may be.
Anthony DePalma, a former New York Times journalist and author of several books, has been contributing to New Jersey Monthly since 1978.
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The Ellis Island hospital is only a few steps from the main immigration building, a magnificent brick-and-limestone structure bustling with tourists. Built by the same architect at the same time, the hospital building was once equally grand, a mirror image of its French Renaissance twin, which it faces across a small inlet. But today, 69 years after the last immigrant left the island, the main hospital building is dark and decrepit, a ghost of its former self, as are 28 other hospital structures. Abandoned to time and the salt air, roofs are leaking, windows broken, walls collapsing. The buildings, along with the stories of the 1.2 million immigrants who were treated there, are in danger of crumbling into the sea. It’s hard to process the efficiency of the Ellis Island medical operation between 1892 and 1954, when more than 12 million immigrants arrived on the island. Between 5,000 and 10,000 were examined daily and many treated in the 750-bed hospital for chronic conditions and contagious diseases contracted aboard long ocean voyages on crowded ships. The dining hall served 1,000 meals at a time, including kosher meals, and the dormitories slept close to that number each night. There was indoor plumbing, central heat and electricity. The first-rate medical care brought doctors from all over the country to study disease. Yet these buildings, so central to the country’s history and countless personal histories, are in danger of slipping away. The National Park Service, responsible for maintaining the 27-acre island, has designated the hospital buildings “surplus,” meaning there is no money in the budget for their repair or maintenance. The task of saving the hospital complex has fallen to a New Jersey nonprofit formed in 1999, Save Ellis Island.[caption id="attachment_316567" align="alignnone" width="778"] Through grimy, cracked windows, visitors can see the same inspiring view of the Statue of Liberty as Ellis Island's new immigrants, many of whom arrived penniless, petrified, and unable to speak the language. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]A DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSEUMDespite the monumental nature of her task, Janis Calella, the president of Save Ellis Island, brims with enthusiasm for the place. “People forget about the south side of the island, but it has this incredible history,” she says. “It’s a museum, but a different kind of museum. These buildings tell the story of a melting pot of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds who traveled this tremendous distance because they thought the streets were paved with gold. We had to figure out how to make them eligible to come in and make them comfortable. It’s a crazy story and an incredible place to learn about people, culture and medicine.” On the surface, the challenges and funding model of the hospital complex are little different than that of the building houseing the Great Hall, which was also abandoned and crumbling when renovation work, began in the 1980s. But the hospital center is much larger, comprising two-thirds of the island, and has been neglected for longer. And the Great Hall renovation was high-profile, led by Chrysler Corporation chairman Lee Iacocca with the backing of President Ronald Reagan, and the entire country got swept up in the cause.[caption id="attachment_316570" align="alignnone" width="778"] “The walls tell a story, and as you walk through, you hear whispers and your imagination goes wild,” Calella says. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]The Great Hall building also has the distinction of being the only one on the island located in New York, while the hospital complex lies completely in New Jersey, a mere 1,300 feet from Jersey City’s Liberty State Park. Originally, Ellis Island consisted only of the land under the Great Hall building on the New York side of the Hudson. But it grew bigger as landfill was dumped on the Jersey side of the river from ship ballast and the excavation of the New York subways. In 1998, after more than a century of lawsuits between the two states, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the natural land on Ellis Island under the Great Hall building was New York’s, and the manmade south side, upon which the hospital complex was built, was New Jersey’s. What Save Ellis Island lacks in star power and New York cachet, it makes up for in Jersey grit; the group has raised more than $70 million for the rehabilitation and restoration of the buildings on the south side. Its most pressing mission is stabilizing them to keep them from deteriorating past the point where they can be saved. Once a building is in “arrested decay,” Calella says, it’s safe and stable—its roofs watertight, walls shored up, peeling lead paint sealed over. Then, not only is it no longer in immediate danger of becoming a ruin, but it can generate revenue. For example, the second floor of the laundry building is completely renovated and rented as offices to the ferry company that brings tourists to Ellis Island; the first floor, in arrested decay, is on the Hard Hat tour of the hospital, whose receipts go to shore up yet more buildings.[caption id="attachment_316566" align="alignnone" width="778"] In an exhibit by French artist JR, the somber faces of bearded men in dark coats, women in long dresses and kerchiefs, and children with bandaged heads stare, ghostlike, from deep in the past. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]The nonprofit has also fully renovated the ferry building, which houses Save Ellis Island’s offices, as well as the passageway from the Great Hall to the hospital, and it has removed the asbestos from all the buildings. Next in line for rehabilitation is the contagious-diseases hospital, where a leaky roof is “decaying the building from the inside out,” Calella explains. On her long-term wish list is the recreation building, with its large stage and intact tile floor. Once restored, it could bring in more revenue as a special-events space. Another dream is the restoration of the “magnificent” doctors’ residence, she says.In addition to funds from individuals, corporations and foundations, Save Ellis Island receives support from other nonprofits in the state. The NJ Historic Trust, for example, has given more than $1.4 million, contingent on Save Ellis Island matching that amount, to jumpstart the $2.5 million rehab of the contagious-diseases hospital.Save Ellis Island also hosts school groups, kindergarten through college and beyond, for programs in preservation, immigration history, art, literature and science.Hard Hat tours, begun in 2014, give visitors a fascinating peek into what was then a state-of-the-art medical operation: the contagion wards, where beds were placed under enormous windows open year-round to the sea air; the operating room, where tuberculosis patients were reportedly treated with an innovative lung-deflating procedure; the morgue, where visiting doctors came to learn about disease; the prison-like psychiatric ward, and a building for those then known as "the feebleminded."[caption id="attachment_316569" align="alignnone" width="778"] Ironically, the woeful condition of the abandoned buildings is a draw for visitors, evoking emotions “you don’t get in a museum when everything is clean and pure,” Calella says. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]PASSING THE EXAMThe hospital complex was a remarkable, well-oiled machine, designed to provide the manpower to fuel the factories of the nascent industrial revolution and inspire immigrants to write home and convince others to come to America.Only third-class and steerage passengers were treated on Ellis Island; the upper classes hired their own physicians. On arrival, they received a six-minute medical exam after walking up a flight of stairs; those with suspected ailments were marked in one of 17 different color-coded chalks and given more extensive exams as needed. They were then sent through the passageway from the Great Hall to the hospital complex, which forks to separate those suspected of “loathsome or contagious diseases” from those with other ailments. Many had contracted measles, tuberculosis and the flu in the crowded lower levels of the ocean liners. Some had never seen a doctor before.The quickest way to get deported was to show signs of mental illness, a limp or other disability. These conditions raised doubts about an immigrant’s ability to support themselves. Even these immigrants, though, were given a chance to prove that a family member would support them. Otherwise, those with serious, incurable diseases were sent back home. The most common diseases stabilized or cured on Ellis Island were tuberculosis, diphtheria, trachoma (a disease of the eyelid) and favus (an infection of the hair follicles). [caption id="attachment_316571" align="alignnone" width="778"] Visitors on the Hard Hat tour get a peek into what was formerly a state-of-the-art medical facility. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]Though the medical complex saw much pain and heartbreak, overall, immigrants were treated well, Calella says. Only 1 percent were sent home for medical reasons, and only 3,500 died there. Some 350 babies were born on the island.The popularity of the Hard Hat tours, which depart the visitor center six times a day, 363 days a year, goes beyond a fascination with history. Ironically, their woeful condition is a draw, evoking emotions “you don’t get in a museum when everything is clean and pure,” Calella says. Through grimy, cracked windows, participants see the same inspiring view of the Statue of Liberty as the new immigrants, many of whom arrived penniless, petrified, and unable to speak the language. “The walls tell a story, and as you walk through, you hear whispers and your imagination goes wild,” she says. “I’ve seen grown men cry and kids go 90 minutes without once looking at their phones.” DISTRESSED BEAUTY[caption id="attachment_316568" align="alignnone" width="778"] A photo mounted on the back of a door by artist JR depicts a Swedish girl in native dress, the way she arrived on Ellis Island. Photo: Colin Miller[/caption]Adding to the haunting atmosphere on Hard Hat tours is an exhibit of enlarged vintage photographs mounted on the buildings’ cracked windows and walls of peeling paint. In the exhibit by French artist JR, titled Unframed, Ellis Island, which was completed in 2014, the somber faces of bearded men in dark coats, women in long dresses and kerchiefs, and children with bandaged heads stare, ghostlike, from deep in the past.The hospital buildings have become a mecca for nurses, doctors and public health officials, some of whom have held sessions there on global medicine. Religious groups come to host prayer circles, and photographers bring groups eager to capture the classic, distressed architecture framed by harbor vistas. When he arrived on Ellis Island, JR became “obsessed” with the raw beauty of the abandoned hospital buildings, learning the details of each room and corridor and the stories of the immigrants treated there, Calella writes in the forward of The Ghosts of Ellis Island, a book about JR's art project. JR says, “I can feel the history and also the meaning of such a place, and also the fact that we’re lucky to be able to see it today. We don’t know if we’ll see it tomorrow. I want to protect it as much as possible.”
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[caption id="attachment_310167" align="alignnone" width="778"] Masaru Nakawatase, 79, came to Seabrook Farms at three years old. Photo: Dave Moser[/caption]
In 1944, a farm in a quiet corner of South Jersey was looking for more workers to help with its crops. Seabrook Farms, a 57-acre farm located in Cumberland County, was a major supplier of vegetables to the military, but it faced a labor shortage due to World War II. To fill that void, Charles Franklin Seabrook began hiring Japanese Americans who were being held in internment camps during the war. By 1947, nearly 2,700 Japanese Americans were living and working on the site—the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country at the time.
Masaru Nakawatase, 79, was born in an internment camp in Arizona and came to Seabrook at three years old. He and his family lived in dormitories on the farm property.
“The hours were crazy. In the growing season, when the crops were coming in, from June until the end of summer, you had to work 12-hour shifts,” he says. The workers picked fruits and vegetables, including beans, corn, peas, strawberries, onions and spinach, then helped to wash and process them. Afterwards, the produce was flash frozen and packaged. “My memory is the work was hard. It was tough because of the seasons. Mostly women packed the fruit and had to be on their feet most of the time,” he remembers. The employees were given one day off every other week and were paid 30 cents an hour.
Nakawatase attended classes in the Seabrook School, located on the farm property. He attended Bridgeton High School and later went to Rutgers University, but he never forgot his time at Seabrook.
Today, the Japanese American population in Cumberland County has dwindled. Reminders of their presence include streets named after prominent figures—like Ichisaka Way off Route 77 in Cumberland County, named after Vernon Ichisaka, the leader of a local citizens’ group. Visit the seabrookeducation.org to learn more.
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In 1831, James Howe was deeded 6 acres and a small house on Claremont Avenue in Montclair. That house still stands. For many years, the worn clapboard house was known locally as the slave house. James Howe was owned by Nathaniel Crane. A member of one of the town’s founding families, Crane left the property to Howe (rumored to be his son) upon his death.
American slavery began in 1619 and eventually spread to all 13 colonies. By the late 1700s, Garden State neighbors like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, followed 20 years later by New York, began adopting policies to abolish legal human bondage.
New Jersey, however, was slow to outlaw the practice and adopted brutal laws restricting rights, including reading, writing, and ownership of firearms and property, for the nearly 12,000 enslaved Africans who lived here at the turn of the 19th century.
After 185 years of slavery in New Jersey, in 1804 the state passed the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. The mandate required enslaved men born after July 4, 1804, to serve 25 years, and enslaved women, 20 years before manumission.
By the start of the Civil War in 1861, records indicate slavery in New Jersey had dwindled, but remained legal. In 1866, the state ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, making it the last Northern state to end slavery.
Today, historically significant properties like the Howe House bear witness to New Jersey’s past. The nonprofit Friends of Howe House (FHH) are seeking historic landmark status and recently rallied support to purchase the building. “We are forming a steering commitee and seeking community input to determine the next steps for Howe House,” says committee member Kimberly Latortue, adding turning it into a house museum is an option.
The town “prides itself on being the epitome of diversity,” says Aminah Toler, a Montclair native and founding member of FHH. “We want to ensure that the Howe House remains to tell the story of the African American history that shaped this town and this country.”
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There is something curious at Chester’s Highlands Ridge Park: nearly 700 abandoned telephone poles standing like trees.
For almost 50 years, the park, often called the telephone pole farm, served as a testing facility for AT&T.
The story of this unusual park begins in 1928, when 15 acres of farmland were rented by the phone company and set up to test the durability of its telephone poles. By 1930, the company purchased an additional 85 acres to expand their research.
The Northeast’s variable weather—from freezing temperatures to intense heat, torrential rain to high winds—was a perfect environment for testing the durability of different types of wood and the chemical treatments used to create weather-resistant telephone poles.
The farm was abandoned in the 1980s as advancements discovered at the testing facility made it continued operation obsolete. Today, there are nearly 150 million wooden telephone poles in the United States, designed in part using the research conducted at the testing facility.
In 2004, the telephone-pole farm was purchased and incorporated into Highlands Ridge Park. The telephone poles remain, some more weathered than others. Often, the park is a quiet and solitary place to visit. Visitors frequent the park to walk through the landmark communications graveyard.
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Woodstock wasn’t the only three-day music festival during August of 1969. The Atlantic City Pop Festival, which was held two weeks before music fans camped out at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel Woods, New York, somehow slipped through the cracks of history despite hosting an incredible array of talent.
Janis Joplin, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane and B.B. King were just some of the legends who performed August 1-3 at the Atlantic City Racecourse in Hamilton Township for more than 100,000 fans. A ticket for the entire weekend was $15, and it was $6 per day.
[caption id="attachment_310151" align="alignnone" width="778"] An original program from the three-day Atlantic City Pop Festival in 1969. Photo: Erik Rank; Program: Collection of Ken Schlager[/caption]
Joplin and her Kozmic Blues Band impressed with an incendiary set. Little Richard, who filled in for Johnny Winter, invited fans to dance onstage while he delivered his visceral tunes. Joe Cocker mesmerized the crowd with his unique version of “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
Joni Mitchell walked offstage in tears after delivering just one song, complaining about the audience’s indifference.
The crowd embraced Santana, introduced by Joplin and the Mamas and the Papas’ Mama Cass, during their initial East Coast appearance. Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Moody Blues were notable no-shows. Still, the AC Pop Festival was arguably the greatest assemblage of recording artists to ever perform at the Shore.
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Even lifelong New Jerseyans can still be surprised by our state: the beauty of a sunset at the Shore, the sight of sea life off the coast, the architecture of a building. Then there are the interesting pieces of forgotten history, the shocking factoids and the attractions you wouldn’t expect to find here.
Here you’ll find New Jersey Monthly’s extensive list of things that even the most seasoned and knowledgeable New Jerseyans might not know about our home. It’s a must-read for Garden State newbies and longtime residents alike.
SURF SCENE, USA [caption id="attachment_310149" align="alignnone" width="778"] 34-year-old Ben Graeff, better known as Ben Gravy, is one of New Jersey's most famous surfers. Photo: Dave Moser[/caption]
Maybe you’ve seen someone trying to ride waves on a summer afternoon at the Shore, attempting to stand on small, poorly formed Atlantic chop. You might get the impression that real surfing only happens in Hawaii or California. But you didn’t witness an October day with a hurricane offshore, or the frosty barrels from a February blizzard, or even a warm August morning with perfect little peeling waves. Very few Jerseyans know our state has a thriving surf scene. “I think that the average waves in New Jersey aren’t as good as the average waves in California or Florida. And a lot of the time our best conditions are in the off season or very early in the morning, so the general beach-going public doesn’t see it,” says surf industry veteran Kevin Morris, the buyer and manager of Heritage Surf in Margate and a surfer for 43 years. “But when our waves get good, they are world-class. And they can be very technical and powerful.” Read more here. —Jon Coen
BY DESIGN Dating from 1853, Llewellyn Park in West Orange is America’s first planned residential community. Comprising nearly 422 acres, the suburban park has a mountainside setting with the ambience of a country estate, with wooded, communal grounds. Today’s residents, including famous names like Whoopi Goldberg, continue to enjoy easy access to Manhattan. Llewellyn Park established the concept of a commuter suburb. —Fred B. Adelson
WHO'S NEXT DOOR? They’re creepy and they’re kooky, they’re altogether ooky—and have Jersey roots. America’s oddest brood, the Addams Family, is the brainchild of Westfield cartoonist Charles Addams, whose 1940s and ’50s illustrations for the New Yorker became the basis for movies, a Broadway musical and TV shows, including the 2022 Netflix hit Wednesday, where eagle-eyed viewers spied Jersey plates on the family’s hearse. (Past Addams Family works have had New Jersey mentions, too.) Every October, Westfield hosts AddamsFest, with events like a masquerade ball, cemetery tours and a house-decorating contest. —Julie Gordon
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HOME GROWN Abraham Browning of Camden, the former state attorney general, gave the Garden State its nickname. While speaking at the Philadelphia Centennial exhibition on New Jersey Day in 1876, Browning coined the phrase while comparing the state to an immense barrel filled with good things to eat—that are grabbed by New Yorkers at one end and Pennsylvanians at the other. The name stuck. In fact, food and agriculture are the state’s third largest industries. As of 2017, more than 10,000 farms generated over $1 billion in cash receipts from more than 100 different crops. While the state is known for its tomatoes, its most valuable crops are blueberries and cranberries, followed by apples, peaches and strawberries. Salem County has the most farmland in the state, with Hunterdon and Burlington counties close behind. —Jacqueline Mroz
OPEN SPACE If you’ve ever driven down the New Jersey Turnpike, it may be hard to believe that this state has more undeveloped than developed land. As of 2019, around 53 percent of the Garden State’s total land area—some 2.48 million acres—was protected from development, according to New Jersey Future, a nonprofit organization that promotes sensible and equitable development in the state. —JM
CLOTHING OPTIONAL If you’re looking to partake in the nudist or naturist lifestyle, you may be surprised to learn that the state is home to quite a few nudist clubs. The Rock Lodge Club in Stockholm is one of the oldest nudist clubs in the country, founded in 1932. The Goodland Country Club and Spa in Hackettstown and Sky Farm in Basking Ridge have also been around for decades, located on large grounds with multiple recreational activities for members. —Thomas Neira
NOT MOUNT VESUVIUS But, yup, there is a volcano located in New Jersey. Don’t worry—experts estimate that Rutan Hill, in Sussex County’s Beemerville, has been dormant for hundreds of millions of years. Scientists say that erosion following its last eruptions destroyed its volcanic cone, obscuring the typically pointed mound. Though it is located on private, residential property, its rocky remnants are said to be visible from hikes in High Point State Park (which is the highest point in New Jersey). —Jennifer Finn
OUR SUMMER OF LOVE [caption id="attachment_310153" align="alignnone" width="778"] Two weeks before Woodstock, Jersey had its own massive festival in Atlantic City. Photo: David Weitz[/caption]
Woodstock wasn’t the only three-day music festival during August of 1969. The Atlantic City Pop Festival, which was held two weeks before music fans camped out at Max Yasgur’s farm, somehow slipped through the cracks of history despite hosting an incredible array of talent. Janis Joplin, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane and B.B. King were just some of the legends who performed August 1-3 at the Atlantic City Racecourse in Hamilton Township for more than 100,000 fans. A ticket for the entire weekend was $15, and it was $6 per day. Read more here. —Ed Condran
A PIECE OF THE WEST Picture this: You pile into open-air bleachers on a Saturday night to watch bull riding, barrel racing and steer wrestling. Is this Texas? Wyoming? No! It’s Cowtown Rodeo right here in New Jersey—Pilestown to be precise. Even more surprising, Cowtown, which has been in operation since 1929, is believed to be the longest-running professional rodeo in the United States. One of NJM's 52 Things You Must Do in New Jersey, Cowtown is open Saturdays from Memorial Day weekend through September, as well as for special events, so head there this summer. —Olivia Bardo
INDIA TO THE SHORE Some of the earliest Asian American immigrants to New Jersey came from the Bengal region of India in the 1880s. Many settled in Shore destinations such as Asbury Park and Long Branch, where they sold handicrafts to tourists. At the time, there was a craze for trinkets and other goods from India. —JM
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WHITMAN'S LAST DAYS Walt Whitman lived in Camden for the last eight years of his life but spent the summers of 1876-1881 at the farm of his friends, the Staffords. Sometimes he slept in an upstairs bedroom of the farmhouse, at other times in an outbuilding. He spent his days exploring the woods, taking mud baths in the creek, and, not surprisingly, writing. The Whitman Stafford House is now a museum honoring the poet. In 1891, incorrectly assuming that Whitman was dead, workmen constructing the tomb the poet had designed for himself in Camden’s Harleigh Cemetery carved that year above the tomb entrance. Upon discovering the error, Whitman had the number 1 chiseled away. The 1 was replaced with a 2 the following year (1892) after Whitman really did die. Traces of the error can still be seen today. —Barbara Leap
LANDMARKING A LEGACY [caption id="attachment_310160" align="alignnone" width="778"] The Howe House on Claremont Avenue in Montclair is an important part of Garden State history. Photo: Courtesy of Zillow[/caption]
In 1831, James Howe was deeded 6 acres and a small house on Claremont Avenue in Montclair. That house still stands. For many years, the worn clapboard house was known locally as the slave house. James Howe was owned by Nathaniel Crane. A member of one of the town’s founding families, Crane left the property to Howe (rumored to be his son) upon his death. Read more here. —Deborah P. Carter
OUR UNDERWORLD [caption id="attachment_275398" align="alignnone" width="778"] Gregory D. Lattanzi, New Jersey’s state archaeologist, says there’s evidence of humans in the region dating back 11,000 years. Photo: Rebecca McAlpin[/caption]
The majority of drivers speeding past Exit 15X on the New Jersey Turnpike have no idea they’re rolling over a fascinating archaeological site, let alone one that highlights a unique—if macabre—slice of history. When the Turnpike Authority built the interchange in 2002, giving drivers access to the Secaucus Junction train station, dozens of archaeologists were called in to join the massive effort because of what was located deep below: hundreds of bodies from a graveyard dating back to the 1880s. “If you want to go all Sopranos about it, there are bodies everywhere.…Hey, it’s Jersey!” Gregory D. Lattanzi, who is New Jersey’s state archaeologist, told New Jersey Monthly in 2021. “But seriously, you’re always walking or driving on streets built on land used by humans for thousands of years.” Read more here. —Sharon M. Goldman
PANIC IN JERSEY Everyone associates the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast with aliens and sheer panic. But the New Jersey connection to the event is often forgotten. Orson Welles’s radio drama, based on H.G. Wells’s sci-fi novel of the same name, caused alarm when radio listeners heard that Martians had invaded Grovers Mill, a small town located in Mercer County, and thought the fictional story was a real news report. Since the 1980s, a large, bronze monument to the broadcast has stood in Grovers Mill. —JG
HISTORIC REMAINS The Garden State is home to more than 600 battlegrounds, skirmishes and graveyard sites from the Revolutionary War—more than any other state. George Washinton’s famous crossing of the Delaware River occurred as the Continental Army traveled from Pennsylvania to Mercer County, leading to the Ten Crucial Days of important victories for Washington and his troops in Princeton, Trenton and Assunpink Creek. Washington also set up headquarters in Morristown, which history buffs can still visit today. —TN
PILE O’ PASTA A big batch of pasta in New Jersey is no surprise at all. But how about 500 pounds of the starchy stuff mysteriously appearing in the woods? Now that’s unexpected! In late April, a massive amount of spaghetti, elbow macaroni and ziti was spotted (and photographed) in the Middlesex County town of Old Bridge, causing social media users to run amok with theories as to how and why it ended up there. The answer? According to reports, a local man cleaning out his late mother’s home found a stockpile of pasta and, instead of donating or trashing it, dumped it in the woods. —JG
NJ FAULT LINE While not as common as in other states, New Jersey still gets its fair share of earthquakes. This is due to the Ramapo Fault, the longest fault in the northeastern United States. It runs from Pennsylvania to New York, cutting through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties along the way. There is typically at least one earthquake in the state each year, ranging between 1.5 and 3 magnitude on the Richter scale. The largest earthquake in state history happened in 1783, believed to have been about a 5.3 magnitude. —TN
A JAPANESE ENCLAVE [caption id="attachment_310167" align="alignnone" width="778"] Masaru Nakawatase, 79, came to Seabrook Farms at three years old. Photo: Dave Moser[/caption]
In 1944, a farm in a quiet corner of South Jersey was looking for more workers to help with its crops. Seabrook Farms, a 57-acre farm located in Cumberland County, was a major supplier of vegetables to the military, but it faced a labor shortage due to World War II. To fill that void, Charles Franklin Seabrook began hiring Japanese Americans who were being held in internment camps during the war. By 1947, nearly 2,700 Japanese Americans were living and working on the site—the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country at the time. Masaru Nakawatase, 79, was born in an internment camp in Arizona and came to Seabrook at three years old. He and his family lived in dormitories on the farm property. “The hours were crazy. In the growing season, when the crops were coming in, from June until the end of summer, you had to work 12-hour shifts,” he says. Read more here. —JM
SAND GEMS [caption id="attachment_310156" align="alignnone" width="778"] Cape May diamonds are actually polished, faceted quartz. Photo: Jessica Orlowicz[/caption]
At Cape May’s Sunset Beach, water-tumbled quartz stones sparkle when they are wet, earning the name Cape May diamonds. The stones, which are most easily found by beachcombers after, can be faceted into sparkly gems that can be mounted as jewelry. The Sunset Beach gift shop sells ready-made bracelets, necklaces and more featuring the stones. —DPC
CHINESE COMMUNITY [caption id="attachment_310155" align="alignnone" width="778"] This 1876 etching captures one of Belleville’s earliest Chinese New Year celebrations. Illustration: Courtesy of Belleville Historical Society[/caption]
In 1871, Chinese immigrants to the small town of Belleville, in Essex County, celebrated the Chinese New Year—making it the first celebration of its kind and attracting revelers from across the East Coast. Most of the immigrants, who came to Belleville to escape racial violence on the West Coast, worked at Passaic Steam Laundry. They decided to settle there and were welcomed into the town, creating the first Chinese community in the area. —JM
BURIED TREASURES? There are thousands of shipwrecks off the coast of New Jersey just waiting to be explored by certified divers (an activity on NJM's Jersey Shore bucket list). The R.P. Resor, located 120 feet below the surface and 32 miles off Long Beach Island, and the Gulf Trade, which split into two dive sites at Barnegat Inlet, are two examples. Both were oil tankers torpedoed by World War II-era German U-boats. The USS Algol, meanwhile, remains intact beyond Point Pleasant, where it now serves as an artificial reef after sinking in 1991. —Gary Phillips
ELLIS ISLAND, NJ New York isn’t the only state that can claim the historic Ellis Island as its own. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, while the island’s National Museum of Immigration, located in the hall where 12 million immigrants were processed from 1892 to 1954, is located in New York, most additional buildings are actually part of New Jersey. A nonprofit, Save Ellis Island, is working to stabilize, restore and preserve the Ellis Island Hospital Complex on the Jersey side. —JF
NJ, WE DIG IT One of the world’s first nearly complete dinosaur skeletons was discovered in Haddonfield in 1858. The Hadrosaurus foulkii is named after William Parker Foulke, who excavated the fossils after hearing of others being found—and even given away to friends—by unsuspecting farmer John E. Hopkins 20 years prior. Replica bones cast from Foulke’s finds are on view at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. —JF
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DANCE FEVER Anyone down for a do-si-do? The square dance has been New Jersey’s official state dance since 1983. When local dancers attend events like the National Square Dance Convention, they often don green ensembles as a nod to the Garden State. If you’re interested in joining clubs or classes, consult the Northern New Jersey Square Dancers Association, which was founded in 1958 and is comprised of 13 clubs with hundreds of members. —JF
A TOWN COMES TO LIFE [caption id="attachment_310236" align="alignnone" width="778"] Zombie Wedding filmed in Vineland this past fall. Photo: Courtesy of Zombie Wedding/Jeff Harris[/caption]
Vineland, a small city in Cumberland County—once home to the Progresso soup company and the poultry industry—is on the verge of becoming a filmmaking hub in South Jersey. Greg D’Alessandro, a writer and producer who grew up in Franklin Lakes, has opened a 40,000-square-foot production studio in town. His company, Weekly World News Film (yes, that Weekly World News), filmed its new movie, Zombie Wedding, there this past fall. Zombie Wedding is part of a trilogy, and WWN is also producing a documentary about the newspaper. D’Alessandro also plans to rent the studio to other production companies. “We want people to use the building and help Vineland,” he says, noting his crew spent more than $800,000 in town on hotels, restaurants and bars during a recent filming. They also used residents as crew members and extras. Read more here. —JM
PHONEY FARM [caption id="attachment_310295" align="alignnone" width="778"] Highlands Ridge Park in Chester was a testing facility for AT&T. Photo: Courtesy of Terence McKenna[/caption]
There is something curious at Chester’s Highlands Ridge Park: nearly 700 abandoned telephone poles standing like trees. For almost 50 years, the park, often called the telephone pole farm, served as a testing facility for AT&T. The story of this unusual park begins in 1928, when 15 acres of farmland were rented by the phone company and set up to test the durability of its telephone poles. By 1930, the company purchased an additional 85 acres to expand their research. The farm was abandoned in the 1980s as advancements discovered at the testing facility made it continued operation obsolete. Read more here. —OB
ALL ABOUT THE BUZZ [caption id="attachment_310150" align="alignnone" width="778"] Frank Mortimer says he became a beekeeper out of a pure love for being around stinging insects. Photo: Dave Moser[/caption]
New Jersey is the Garden State, but our state insect since 1974, the honeybee, is crucial for us to keep that moniker. “We have some significant crops that are pollinated by honeybees and rely upon the honeybee to maintain [them], specifically, cranberries and blueberries,” explains Frank Mortimer, certified master beekeeper and former president of the Northeast New Jersey Beekeepers Association. Though Ridgewood-based Mortimer makes and sells honey and other products, from beeswax candles to lip balm and hand cream, his interest stems from a desire to simply “be around stinging insects” and the wildlife they inhabit. Read more here. —JF
DRONE SCHOOL The drone craze burst onto the scene as a mainstream trend in the 2010s, but learning how to fly and operate one can prove very challenging. Luckily, there are a number of organizations in the state dedicated to teaching students of all ages the ins and outs of flying a drone. The first Drone Academy opened in 2015. —TN
WE'RE TREE LOVERS The Tree City USA program recognizes cities and towns across the country that work on planting and taking care of their trees, and awards grants to help maintain and further tree growth. Over 160 municipalities in Jersey have been recognized as Tree Cities USA since the program started in 1976. Paramus and Parsippany lead the way for most years recognized by the program at 46, with Kearny and Morris Plains following closely at 45 each. —OB
WATER EVERYWHERE Jutting into the Atlantic, curving around Delaware Bay and up the Delaware River, South Jersey is surrounded by water, which makes New Jersey flanked by more water than any state except Florida. California has a longer coastline, but is exposed to the sea on only one side. —Eric Levin
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TRAILBLAZERS Did you know the Appalachian Trail winds through New Jersey? The 2,190-mile trail, which spans from Maine to Georgia, includes 72 miles of trailway in the northwestern part of the Garden State. Beginner and expert hikers alike can enjoy the trail. Pochuck Boardwalk in Glenwood is a great choice for easy hiking on a scenic pathway. For a bit more of a challenge, give Stairway to Heaven in Vernon a try. The view from the summit makes the scrambles worth it. Whatever your preference, the Appalachian Trail is a great way to escape for a day, and maybe spot Jersey’s state bird, the eastern goldfinch. —OB
WOMEN'S RIGHTS In 1776, New Jersey’s first constitution allowed female property owners to vote (in fact, it allowed all property owners to vote, including African Americans). Sadly, by 1807, that right was revoked, and the right to vote was only granted to free white men. These voting restrictions remained in place until 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving white women the right to vote. —DPC
MYSTERIOUS DEVIL The legendary creature known as the Jersey Devil is said to roam the Pine Barrens at night. While variations of the creature’s origin story have been told for over 250 years, the most popular account claims that the creature is the 13th child of a poor woman called Mother Leeds, who gave birth in 1735. The myth holds that the baby transformed into a beast—said to have a horse’s head, wings, hooves and red eyes—flew up the chimney (or out the window, or to the basement) and headed for the marshy parts of the Pine Barrens. People have reported seeing this curious figure in the Pine Barrens after sundown, some say they have even heard the Jersey Devil screeching. —OB
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Seventy-nine years ago, on D-Day, Leonard G. “Bud” Lomell was speeding across the dark, icy Atlantic Ocean toward the coast of France, hoping to take out a bank of Nazi artillery.
He and a small group of Army Rangers had been ordered to take part in the June 1944 allied invasion of Europe.
“To destroy those guns would save tens of thousands of lives,” recalled the Brooklyn native, who grew up in Point Pleasant. This mission is at the center of a riveting new book by Steven Gillon.
Lomell grew up with immigrant parents during the Great Depression, making ends meet clamming, fishing and caddying at the Manasquan River Golf Club.
Once drafted, he chose to become a Ranger Battalion sergeant.
But as Gillon’s book, Len Lomell: D-Day Hero (Dutton), makes clear, his battlefield exploits were among the most heroic—and important—in U.S. military history.
“His orders were to lead his 22 men up the 100-foot cliffs of Pointe du Hoc and dismantle the…guns pointing down on Omaha and Utah Beaches,” Gillon writes. Amid the chaos of the allied landing, Lomell was forced to complete the mission “almost single-handedly,” earning him a slew of honors, including the Army’s highest medal, the Distinguished Service Cross.
Had Lomell’s mission failed, “it’s possible that Germany’s guns could have wreaked a lethal amount of havoc on the invading Allied forces,” says Gillon.
Lomell later took part in an assault on a German installation, which left him with severe injuries.
After the war, Lomell returned to the Shore to practice law, raise a family, and stay active in veterans affairs. He died in 2011, though his 101-year-old widow still resides in Toms River.
“At a time when we’re so divided,” said Gillon, “Len Lomell represents the best of us…. He’s the American dream.”
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The post Point Pleasant Veteran’s D-Day Efforts Lauded as Crucial to U.S. Military History in New Book appeared first on New Jersey Monthly.
Growing up, Dionne Ford knew from a young age that her family was descended from slaves. But when she discovered the identity of her great-great-grandmother, Tempy, who was enslaved, she realized that she was finally able to begin to heal from the trauma that she’d experienced as a child and young adult.
Ford wrote her new book, Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance and Intergenerational Healing (Bold Type Books), after exploring a wide range of therapies and lifestyle changes to tackle her history of sexual abuse.
“Finding info about my great-great-grandmother, Tempy, was so restorative to me,” says Ford, 53, who lives in Montclair. “In the process of focusing my attention on her life, I realized there were parallels repeated in my own story.”
Tempy had six children with the man who had received her as a wedding gift, a Louisiana cotton broker. His wife was unable to have children of her own.
[RELATED: Discovering My NJ Hometown’s Ties to Slavery—And Freedom]
“I always wanted to find out more about Tempy. Her story was like a guiding light to me. I think it brought me a lot of comfort and courage,” says Ford.
Ford, who is a contributor to New Jersey Monthly, documents her search for her ancestors and how difficult it is to find out about relatives who were enslaved.
Ford says people don’t want to talk about how much sexual violence is rampant in our culture, especially with Black women. But she says that writing about her own sexual assaults helped to alleviate her own shame and guilt about what had happened. “There was a feeling that my abuse was my fault, and I had to shield everyone around me from the pain and discomfort that I experienced.”
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Once upon a time, a king lived in Bordentown.
Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s older brother and the ex-king of Naples and Spain, fled Europe after the Battle of Waterloo and improbably settled in New Jersey, just south of Trenton in Burlington County.
Between 1816 and 1839, the former monarch, known as the Count de Survilliers, built a sumptuous home overlooking the confluence of the Delaware River and Crosswicks Creek at Bordentown. His estate, named Point Breeze, became a center of social life, where he entertained such dignitaries as Henry Clay, the Marquis de Lafayette and Daniel Webster.
After more than 175 years, the Bonaparte property is set to open to the public this spring, bringing renewed interest to a landscape that will now be preserved. There will be public recreational access to the historic site, renamed Delaware and Raritan Canal Park at Point Breeze. The property was purchased in October 2020 by the State Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program, the City of Bordentown, and the Delaware & Raritan Greenway Land Trust.
Unfortunately, Bonaparte’s first residence was destroyed by fire in 1820; however, locals saved most of his personal possessions, including furniture, paintings and jewels. Bonaparte publicly thanked his honest, courageous neighbors. He quickly constructed an imposing second home with grounds modeled on his Mortefontaine chateau and the adjacent park at Ermenonville in France. It was razed around 1850.
Bonaparte (1768-1844) created a picturesque compound that anticipated later 19th-century American landscape design. Winding carriage paths, charming stone bridges, and vestiges of subterranean tunnels still survive. Bonaparte’s residential buildings are long gone, but the gardener’s house and approximately 60 acres of its picturesque park remain, with trees that are remnants of Bonaparte’s design.
The D&R Greenway Land Trust now oversees the gardener’s house. Linda Mead, president and CEO of this land-preservation organization, says the renovated building will open on May 20 as the Discovery Center at Point Breeze. Its mission will be to spotlight the area’s history, and it will include exhibits about Bonaparte and a recreated kitchen garden.
The Bordentown Historical Society is showcasing a special exhibition celebrating the city’s royal resident that will run until the end of the year. On view is an array of artifacts including Bonaparte’s traveling library of miniature books, a gaming table, prints and paintings. Also notable is the rare public display of the ornate gold chalice from Bonaparte’s private chapel at Point Breeze, which he gifted to Mary, Mother of the Church Parish in Bordentown.
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New Jersey is the birthplace of many inventions and innovations that Americans couldn’t imagine living without today.
FIRST BASEBALL GAMEHoboken is the birthplace of modern baseball (about 70 years before it became the birthplace of Frank Sinatra). The country’s first organized game took place in 1846 at Elysian Fields, where the New York Nine beat the Knickerbockers.
FIRST M&M’SThe inaugural batch of the chocolate candies was made in a Newark factory in 1941. Since 1958, the M&M’s factory has been located in Hackettstown; today, it operates as one of three plants in the United States that produces M&M’s (more than 400 million annually). The North American headquarters for Mars Wrigley is also located in Newark (in the Ironside building); it returned to New Jersey from Chicago in 2020.
FIRST PLAY-DOHPlay-Doh is just one of the toys invented here. Jersey is also the birthplace of Colorforms, toy trains, the talking doll and the Flexible Flyer.
FIRST DRIVE-INThe Camden Drive-In opened its doors on June 6, 1933. Sadly, it closed three years later, but not before giving birth to a beloved American tradition.
FIRST READY-TO-EAT-SOUP The Campbell’s factory in Camden put out the first jar of ready-to-eat soup, Beefsteak Tomato, in 1895—a perfect ode to the Jersey tomato. Two years later, the process of condensing soup came along, allowing for smaller packaging in the form of the soup cans we all know and heat today.
FIRST LIGHT BULB Thomas Edison, who had labs in Menlo Park and West Orange, created some of the most important inventions ever, all in New Jersey, including the light bulb, the automatic telegraph, the phonograph and the movie camera.
FIRST MISS AMERICA PAGEANTMiss Washington, DC, Margaret Gorman, won the 1921 pageant in Atlantic City. The pageant’s archives are housed in a secret storage facility in Atlantic County.
FIRST SALTWATER TAFFYThe Shore staple dates back to Atlantic City in the 1880s; John Ross Edmiston invented it.
FIRST BAND-AIDAn employee of Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in Jersey, came up with the idea for the Band-Aid in 1920. It clearly stuck.
FIRST NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARKMorristown National Historical Park encompasses the site of George Washington’s headquarters and Fort Nonsense in Morristown, Jockey Hollow in Morris Township and the NJ Brigade/Cross Estate in Harding.
Want to see more of our state’s biggest, boldest and one-of-a-kind feats and wonders? Check out New Jersey Monthly’s Book of Records.
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The post New Jersey’s Famous Firsts: Baseball Games, M&M’s and More appeared first on New Jersey Monthly.
Working as a naturalist primarily from her Vineland home, Mary Treat was a groundbreaking scientist who discovered new flora and fauna, including three species of ants that were named in her honor, and was praised by Charles Darwin for her work. Treat has also inspired modern-day writers, appearing as a character in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Unsheltered and inspiring a character in The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.
While Treat wrote six books and more than 100 scientific articles, her achievements have mostly receded into the background since her death in 1923—until now. Deborah Boerner Ein takes the trailblazing scientist out of the historical shadows with Mary Treat: A Biography (Lulu), the first book-length account of her life. For Ein, a Hammonton resident who spent four years researching and writing, a Treat biography was overdue.
“So many women who contributed to science, art and other disciplines have gone unnoticed or were not given the recognition they deserve,” says Ein, editor of SNJ Today, a weekly newspaper in Vineland.
Born in 1830, Treat studied botany in school and became an advocate of the sciences. The “study of botany,” she noted in an 1866 article, “raises woman above the frivolities of dress and fashion.”
Treat, who lived in Vineland from 1868 to 1919, specialized in the study of carnivorous plants, such as the Venus flytrap, and branched out into entomology. Charles Darwin praised her findings and acknowledged that “I am much indebted to Mrs. Treat” in one of his books.
“Darwin corresponded with Mary Treat more than any other woman scientist,” Ein says. “There are 15 known letters that passed between the two of them.”
Treat took advantage of the biological diversity in her backyard and surrounding region. “Vineland and South Jersey were a tremendous influence on her,” Ein says, adding that Treat traveled to Batsto and Atsion in the Pine Barrens to complete her studies on carnivorous plants.
Ein hopes her book ensures that Treat’s contributions will be remembered.
“She forged a wider path for women to follow their interests and passions,” Ein notes, “and laid the groundwork for later generations of ecologists to further explore and understand how all living things are interconnected in nature.”
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Illustration by James O’Brien
When I learned last year that there was an artists retreat in Lambertville, I jumped at the opportunity. During the decade I’d spent writing a book about the enslaved women in my family, I’d traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana, and even returned to the town in Brazil founded by U.S. Confederate soldiers at the end of the Civil War, where I’d spent my junior year of high school. I had learned about slavery worldwide, but not about my own hometown’s deep connection to this institution, so fundamental to my family’s story. So to write my final draft, I returned to where my part of the story began, in Burlington County, about a half hour from the MarthaMOCA artists residency.
Perched on a rolling hill that gives the accompanying organic farm its name, MarthaMOCA is bounded by forest, a crane-filled pond, and every kind of fruit tree and vegetable that grows in New Jersey. Its long, narrow driveway reminded me of Range Road, the shortcut behind McGuire Air Force and Fort Dix Army bases that my parents took to get from our house in Browns Mills to my grandparents in Cookstown.
I loved playing in the yard of my grandparents’ rental property near an African Methodist Episcopal church cemetery. The worn gravestones fascinated me. “Colored infantry” was inscribed under the names of men who’d fought in the Civil War. We moved to northern New Jersey when I was 11, but I never forgot those gravestones. When I became a reporter, I confirmed with the local VFW that the headstones belonged to Black Union soldiers. My childhood playground was a part of the rich history of Burlington County, a portal to freedom during slavery.
Burlington was the birthplace of the father of the Underground Railroad, William Still, and where Hannah Craft’s protagonist finds freedom in her book The Bondwoman’s Narrative, thought to be the first novel written by an African American woman and the only one written by a fugitive from slavery. The county is also home to Timbuctoo, a settlement started in 1826 by formerly enslaved and free Black people in a section of Westhampton.
An established stop on the Underground Railroad, Timbuctoo had more than 125 residents at its peak. What remains is the final resting place of many of them.
Seashells were lovingly placed at one gravestone, and pennies lined the front of several markers when my sister and I visited Timbuctoo last fall. It transported me to the Gulf Coast, Mississippi, where I had placed stones at the gravesite of my enslaved great-great-grandmother years before. We didn’t have stones, but we had water, so my sister and I poured it as a libation at the Timbuctoo graves.
My time at MarthaMOCA was a precious reprieve from the demands of my life that also gave me a portal to a past life—my own, my ancestors’—and a once-vibrant Black community in New Jersey.
Dionne Ford is the author of Go Back and Get it: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing, which comes out in April.
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While location is always paramount in real estate, when the owners of this modern Haddonfield home were house shopping, they had more than a nice neighborhood in mind. “Their goal was to be near their grandchildren,” says architect Jay Reinert, who designed the 2,800-square-foot home.
When Reinert first showed the property to the eventual homeowners, a pair of doctors (one medical, the other a psychologist) on the verge of retirement, the existing house was a mid-century modern with a leaking oil tank. Despite this, Reinert was sure that the property could deliver what his clients were looking for.
The living room boasts generous light and a view of the yard. Photo courtesy of European Home/Matt Wargo
The location, near family, was ideal in more ways than one. The home stood adjacent to a National Historic Landmark where, in the mid-1800s, a chance recognition of dinosaur bones eventually led to the discovery of the most complete skeletal dinosaur—also a new breed—that had been found anywhere in the world at that time.
The element of the paleontological findings at the landmark, now dubbed the Hadrosaurus foulkii Leidy site, fascinated Reinert and spurred his creativity as he considered how bones fit together to serve the whole, and how a home, too, should be united by a central theme that integrates its parts.
Wood finishes add warmth to the kitchen. Photo courtesy of European Home/Matt Wargo
“It’s a traditional neighborhood, and I wanted the house to be an exciting find,” he says, explaining that he wanted to capture the enthusiasm generated by the discovery of dinosaur bones in the former farmland.
Reinert’s design ultimately took its cue from the concept of interlocking parts. He designed the home as “separate masses. Each mass has a function—a sleeping mass, a living/dining mass—with ligaments that hold them together,” he says, explaining the ligaments are the home’s circulation, connecting the masses.
Front-facing windows offer privacy. Photo courtesy of European Home/Matt Wargo
The masses are placed at right angles to each other, positioned to maximize the property’s small footprint. Reinert positioned the structure for a front-facing aesthetic with the other homes on the street, taking special advantage of the natural forest setting and the stream that runs behind the land.
The exterior of Hadrohouse, as it’s known, is clad in fully recyclable textured-steel siding tiles—a nod to dinosaur scales. Inside is sleek and modern, with an open floor plan that incoporates the living and dining spaces.
The main living area’s ceiling is another link to the past. Reinert recycled the Philippine mahogany siding from the original house into handsome planks that are affixed to create the ceiling. A three-sided, modern, glass fireplace from European Home, a manufacturer of unique luxury fireplaces, acts as a visual separation in the room. “It is not a focal point, but a subtle divider that gives warmth and character,” says Reinert.
A multi-sided fireplace area is a visual divider in this open space. Photo courtesy of European Home/Matt Wargo
Hadrohouse is also adaptable, offering single-floor living, so the owners can age in place. Upstairs, there are a guest room and bunks for the grandchildren, and one flight down, an office that walks out to the shady yard. “Architecture helps us understand the time period,” says Reinert. “Today’s houses with open spaces that connect to the environment tell us something about our value system, how we connect, and our culture.”
RESOURCES: Jay Reinert Architect, 41 S. Haddon Avenue, Suite 3, Haddonfield, 856-383-9003; European Home.
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The brownstone-and-brick First National Bank building has dominated the main downtown intersection of the little Salem County borough of Woodstown since it was erected in 1892.
Unlike New Jersey’s many neoclassical banks, the Victorian-inspired First National was built in the ornate Romanesque Revival style, with an open-arched tower rising 70 feet above the entrance. A slate-clad pyramidal roof capped by a weathervane tops the tower. Arched windows flank the entryway, and round pillars rise to the tower above. The building’s original cost: $17,000.
The bank was modernized in the 1940s and restored in 1987, when it was taken over by the First National Bank of Toms River. It functioned as a Sun National Bank branch and then a law office before going vacant. By 2018, the bank made an appearance on Preservation New Jersey’s annual most endangered buildings list.
The building sat vacant for more than a decade until August 2021, when Mike and Rebecca Melniczuk, of nearby Pilesgrove, swooped in. Mike, an engineer by trade and a self-described history buff, had long dreamed of opening a craft brewery. The couple purchased the old bank building and, armed with a Small Business Association loan, began what remains an ongoing renovation project. Developers are undertaking similar projects throughout the Garden State.
The Melniczuks transformed the bank’s more recently renovated area into a modern tap house. Photo courtesy of Farmers & Bankers Brewing
When the Melniczuks took over the building, the roof was leaking and “trees were growing out of the tower,” says Mike. The couple concentrated first on renovating the newer, less architecturally significant rear part of the bank, which had been added in the 1970s. Taking it down to the studs, they remodeled the interior (once a grocery store) as a small, modern tap house.
In June 2022, the Melniczuks opened the doors on Farmers & Bankers Brewing. The 2,500-square-foot space has seating for 125 and a beer garden outside. And what of the bank’s original space? The 1987 restoration had revealed parts of the original pressed metal ceiling, the old mosaic-tile entry vestibule, a fireplace (hidden behind a plaster wall), and the elaborately painted vault door.
The Melniczuks have applied for a grant to help them renovate the old section of the bank, which they plan to use as an event space.
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Downtown banks used to be where eager home buyers applied for mortgages, workers cashed hard-earned paychecks, and youngsters watched nickels and dimes grow in their first savings accounts. But in recent decades, ATM machines and online banking have made these once essential institutions obsolete.
Fortunately, developers and businesses across New Jersey have repurposed dozens of downtown banks as office spaces, restaurants and, in at least one case, a vape shop.
For developer Bob Silver, rescuing old banks has become a personal crusade. “I love everything about history, preserving history and rescuing buildings for different purposes,” says Silver. “I’m very environmentally sensitive, and the greenest thing you can do is keep a building in place and repurpose it.”
Silver, the cofounder and chairman of the Bravitas Group, a Montclair development company, has renovated and transformed three classic bank buildings in Montclair and Caldwell and is working on a fourth. His bank jobs pay close attention to preserving the distinctive original features of the buildings, including their impressive façades, high ceilings, walk-in vaults and other architectural details.
Developer Bob Silver enters the safe-deposit vault that now serves as a hallway in Grover House in downtown Caldwell. Photo by Chris Buck
Bravitas is hardly alone in such endeavors, known among preservationists as adaptive reuse. By saving banks, these developers help maintain the character of downtowns and set a standard for further preservation.
In fact, older bank buildings are ideal candidates for adaptive reuse. David Listokin, a professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, enumerates the reasons that many bank buildings, although aesthetically striking, have become relics. They typically lack drive-through windows, are not energy efficient, and were mainly intended for services now fulfilled electronically.
Still, the banks have “desirable characteristics,” says Listokin—principally, their presence downtown. “They were prominent buildings in prominent locations,” he adds.
Vintage bank details contrast with modern lighting in the vast event space that is now Felina in Ridgewood, formerly the Citizens Bank building. Photo courtesy of Edgardo Dander
Hard hat in place, Silver is giving a tour of his latest construction site, a former Chase Bank location across from the train station in Montclair’s busy Watchung Plaza. Workers have restored the brick-and-granite façade of the building to its original 1925 glory, with tall windows and two-story columns flanking the main entrance. Silver has dubbed this project the National, after its first incarnation as the Montclair National Bank. (It was later the Montclair Trust Company.)
Inside, the linoleum has been ripped up to reveal the bank’s original terrazzo floors. The dropped ceiling has been pulled down—Silver despises dropped ceilings—restoring the first floor to its intended 14-foot height. Nine consulting rooms are framed out for the building’s future tenant, Montclair Speech Therapy, a local business that provides speech, behavioral and occupational therapy for all ages.
On this day, workers are drilling through the 21-inch-thick concrete-and-steel wall of the vault, creating a passage for electrical wiring and HVAC. The vault will be converted into a multisensory therapy room. The vault door will remain in place as a feature in an adjacent consulting room.
Working within the original footprint of a bank is not easy. “They were purpose-built like fortresses with reinforced concrete,” says Silver.
Another six rooms have been framed on the second floor, including a pantry where the young and elderly will be taught to prepare food for themselves, and a high-ceilinged occupational therapy space with a wall for rock climbing. Bare brick and wooden joists are exposed where feasible. Everything is ADA compliant, and an elevator is being installed for easy access to all floors.
Just a few minutes away in downtown Montclair, Silver’s first bank job, Vault491, occupies a former Midlantic Bank location, originally constructed in 1926 as the home of the Bank of Montclair. Its restored, neoclassical, brick-and-granite exterior gives no hint of the interior’s modern, sun-splashed office spaces and street-level retail shops.
On the first floor, a vault has been repurposed as a wet bar and wine room for one tenant, Mindful Wealth Management. In the offices of Cornucopia Capital, a massive vault door hides what Silver calls “a collaboration space.” The entire building has earned LEEDS Gold certification.
Candles set in a wall of former safe-deposit boxes illuminate a corner of Felina in Ridgewood. Photo courtesy of Edgardo Dander
These and other restored—or still endangered—bank buildings are the vestiges of a downtown building boom that swept across New Jersey in the early decades of the 20th century. Bankers built in downtown locations to garner foot traffic and to be closer to local businesses.
In those days, before federal deposit insurance, many depositors were reluctant to put their hard-earned money in the hands of local bankers. To counter this skepticism, banks commissioned top architects to construct jaw-dropping neoclassical structures reminiscent of Greek or Roman temples. With their soaring columns and brawny façades, the banks were often the most formidable structures on the block.
Inside the banks, marble counters, polished terrazzo floors, high ceilings, thick walls and seemingly impregnable vaults gave potential depositors an added sense of security. “They were built grand,” says Silver, “to present the idea that your money was going to be safe.”
Rikki Massand, chairperson of the Montgomery Township Landmarks Preservation Commission and a board member at the nonprofit advocacy group Preservation New Jersey (PNJ), points out that in small New Jersey towns, banks were often the largest and most imposing downtown buildings.
In recent decades, however, banks were built smaller, with utility in mind. Less space was needed for tellers and bank operations; drive-through lanes became essential. This generally meant a migration from the tighter confines of town centers.
In time, as downtown banks changed hands or were converted for other businesses, many of the original surfaces were hidden behind paneling or plasterboard. Original floors and tall windows were covered over. Dropped ceilings were installed in response to rising energy costs. Even classic exteriors were modernized.
These days, the tendency is toward restoration. That attitude could be accelerated by new state tax credits for historic redevelopment that make preservation more viable. “The numbers make sense now,” says Listokin.
Under New Jersey’s Historic Property Reinvestment Program, enacted in January 2021 as part of the state’s pandemic-era Economic Recovery Act, developers of properties listed as historic or in historic districts can be eligible for tax credits typically worth 40 percent of the total project cost, up to $4 million. This is in addition to existing 20 percent federal tax credits for historic redevelopment.
Silver named the renovated Caldwell National Bank building after his father. Photo by Chris Buck
Four miles west of Montclair, on Bloomfield Avenue in Caldwell, Silver has revived the former Caldwell National Bank building, now called the Wilson after the developer’s father, Lewis Wilson Silver. Once obscured beneath lime-green paint, the building’s Indiana limestone exterior has been restored to its original pinkish hue.
Inside the Wilson, Silver repurposed bank features as art pieces. At the side entry, an elaborate marble-faced clock from the teller floor greets visitors, and brass teller stanchions frame the tenant directory. Framed bank ephemera (a vintage check, boiler-room keys, bank-guard badges) hang along the entry hallway. Further on, a bank vault has been reimagined as a conference room. The numbers on reclaimed safe-deposit box doors double as suite numbers.
Framed bank ephemera greets visitors to the Wilson. Photo by Chris Buck
One block away, the old Citizens National Bank building, with sections dating to 1914, has been reborn as Grover House, named by Silver in tribute to Stephen Grover, first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church across the street and namesake of President Grover Cleveland, whose birthplace is a nearby state historic site.
Six fluted columns and preserved copper-and-brass framed Kalamein windows highlight the Grover House façade. Inside, salvaged stained-glass panels from the building’s original skylight are framed as art pieces on walls throughout the building. (“We saved them all,” says Silver.) A narrow vault lined with safe-deposit boxes serves as a corridor to the rear of the building. White marble service counters from the bank have been transformed into a conference-room table replete with Grover House notepads that resemble old deposit slips.
The gilded capital of an ornate column is among the preserved details inside Grover House’s David Chad Beauty Parlor. Photo by Chris Buck
The expansive David Chad Beauty Parlor occupies the cavernous, two-story teller floor of Grover House. Take the winding steps up to the balcony, and you are on eye level with the gilded tops of the Corinthian columns and the elaborate plasterwork of the coffered ceiling. Below, the original marble pillars and terrazzo floor remain in place.
Silver equips all of his projects with environmentally friendly electrical and plumbing fixtures and highly efficient HVAC systems. And all preserve as much of the original materials as feasible. Silver credits his team—builder Jack Finn, architect Paul Sionas and designer Rachel Grochowski—with the fulfillment of his vision.
The former Citizens Bank building in Ridgewood has been transformed into Felina, a Landmark Hospitality restaurant and event space. Photo courtesy of Felina
Other developers have brought similar care and innovation to former downtown banks around the state. In late 2018, Plainfield-based Landmark Hospitality restored the former Citizens Bank in downtown Ridgewood. The front section of the stout old bank, where the tellers greeted customers, is now an elegant, high-ceilinged event space; the rear, where bank offices were located, has become Felina, a highly regarded restaurant operated by Landmark. The metal used for the restaurant’s bar was reclaimed from the old bank. Safe-deposit boxes remain in place on one wall of the restaurant, with candles illuminating some of the vacant boxes. The back of the vault door graces another wall.
Frank Cretella, cofounder of Landmark Hospitality and president of Landmark Developers, has since repurposed the former Plainfield Trust Company building in downtown Plainfield as another event space, dubbed Banq on Parq; it opened last summer. His newest project: rejuvenating the Trust Company of New Jersey building on Newark Avenue in downtown Jersey City.
Erected in 1928, the Trust Company building most recently housed a Capital One branch, but has been vacant for several years. Outside, a fleur-de-lis pattern is sculpted into the arches around six tall windows; delicate scrollwork frames the revolving entry door. Inside, a thick marble balustrade flanks the curving ramp to the teller floor. Above, five ornate chandeliers hang from the coffered ceiling above the mezzanine.
“They put these buildings on a pedestal to attract the very affluent,” says Cretella as he surveys the vast space.
Cretella plans to transform the bank into a restaurant and build an adjoining five-story, 80-room hotel above an existing rear parking lot. A new parking lot will be built below the hotel.
PNJ’s Massand cites the old First National Bank on Main Street in High Bridge as typical of the impressive bank buildings that once dominated some New Jersey downtowns. The Art Deco–style building, which dates to the early 1930s, was restored and reopened in 1997 as the home of Riverside Wines and Liquors. Intricately designed metalwork still surrounds the entrance; inside, the original teller counter, with its brass gates, serves as the checkout desk.
In South Jersey, a 1903 bank building in Riverside that sat vacant for some 10 years was reborn in 2015 as Maja-Flava Vape Den. Inside, the vaults are used as storage closets for the shop’s vaping products. In Woodstown, a couple turned an empty bank into a modern brewery. In historic downtown Pitman, a stone bank building dating to the first decade of the last century was reopened as Merryman’s Pub in May 2020. The building, originally the Pitman National Bank, had been vacant for 30 years and was slated for demolition. “There were plans on the table to make it a parking lot,” says bar manager George Del Duca.
Bank preservation is also in evidence at such Shore towns as Asbury Park, where a former downtown bank on Mattison Avenue is now home to pizza parlor Killer Pies, and in Ocean City, where developers transformed the 120-year-old First National Bank building into an outpost of Island Gypsy, a clothing boutique.
“It looks like you’re stepping back in time,” says Surf City–based Paul Maina, the main contractor on the Island Gypsy renovation. The bank’s exterior remains unchanged from the original, says Maina. Inside, designers gave the 1,700-square-foot retail space a sleek, modern look, but with respect for its history. The new windows preserve the arched shape of the originals, the ceiling remains 25 feet high, and the crown moldings are “still very much intact,” says Maina.
Maina confirms that such conversions present unique problems. “These old buildings, they fight you,” he says. “Every time you turn the corner, it’s a new adventure.”
In Morristown, an adaptive reuse of the National Iron Bank Building on South Street was less of a headache. When David Balsamini opened his Morristown Game Vault in the old bank in 2016, almost all he had to do was drill holes to run electrical wires from the basement. Then the former pharmacist from Basking Ridge filled every nook and cranny with more than 100 video games and pinball machines from his personal collection, including a game called Safe Cracker, whimsically installed in the safe-deposit vault.
More bank jobs are in the works. At deadline, the borough of Spring Lake was closing a deal to purchase the red-brick First National Bank building from Wells Fargo. Ownership of the building—the oldest in downtown Spring Lake—will allow the borough to “create a concessionaire’s license… and lease out the main floor as a restaurant,” says Mayor Jennifer Naughton. Additionally, three affordable-rate housing units will be built on the second floor.
All of this is music to the ears of preservationists. “I like to preserve these buildings and I like to give them new life,” says Landmark’s Cretella. “You put something in that’s a vibrant business, and you ensure the buildings are here for future generations.”
Ken Schlager is a former editor of New Jersey Monthly and a frequent contributor.
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Though there’s more to Italian cooking than this vibrant fruit, it’s difficult to imagine our favorite NJ Italian restaurants without it.
Below, a brief history lesson about the iconic Jersey tomato.
Illustration by John R. Holmes
1812First commercial tomato farm in the Northeast planted by John Loper on Cumberland County land owned by Dr. Ephraim Buck, who had acquired the seeds in New Orleans.
1820 Robert Gibbon Johnson stands on the Old Salem County Courthouse steps eating a bushel of tomatoes to prove they are not poisonous. Actually, the story was invented by Joseph S. Sickler, a local historian, who published two versions, in 1937 and 1948.
1847 Jamesburg resident Harrison Woodhull Crosby pioneers commercially canned tomatoes, soldering tin lids onto tin cans. The New-York Tribune reports in 1849 that they tasted as though “plucked from the vines.”
Illustration by John R. Holmes
1869 The Joseph A. Campbell Preserve Company is founded in Camden to sell tomato ketchup.
1895 Campbell’s releases first can of beefsteak tomato soup.
1930 The Smoot-Hawley Act adds 50 percent tariff to Italian tomato products. By 1937, imports of tomato paste are cut in half.
1934 Rutgers releases seeds of the Rutgers tomato, a beefsteak variety that ripens from the inside out, ensuring it is evenly red and has high sugar content and low acidity. It falls out of favor with commercial growers because it bruises more easily than other varieties as agriculture mechanizes.
1937 New Jersey tomato acreage peaks at 13,000, yielding 137,800 tons of tomatoes. Yet average yield per acre is down due to a hot, dry summer. Today, 85 years later, New Jersey is 10th in production, yielding around 40,000 tons on about 3,000 acres.
Illustration by John R. Holmes
1981 Governor Brendan Byrne, taking a cue from New York City’s “Big Apple” booster stickers, approves a Jersey tomato embroidery to build brand awareness.
1995 The term “The Jersey Tomato” is promoted by the New Jersey Tomato Council, a collective of 21 farmers based in Cedarville, Cumberland County. Tomatoes sold under the name are processed with a computerized photo system, to assess quality, and handled with care to prevent bruising.
2016 The New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers releases the Rutgers 250, an improved version of the 1934 original. The first season’s 5,000 seed packets sell out.
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If your beloved sled was a Flexible Flyer, you’re likely to see one just like it, no matter the style or year, at the Flexible Flyer Sled Museum in Moorestown.
Located in the vestibule between the Moorestown Library and Town Hall, this free museum features 27 Flexible Flyers that were produced between 1890 and 2014. They include rare sleds, such as the Fire Fly, which cost $2 in its day.
The founder and curator of this unique museum is Philip Snow, who loved to sled all day with his three older brothers during winter visits with their maternal grandfather in Moorestown.
Snow, 62, who grew up in Delran and Marlton and now lives in Ocean Grove, realized about eight years ago that no one had created a museum honoring these well-crafted sleds and their brilliant Moorestown inventor, Samuel Leeds Allen, who crafted the first of many toys that have their roots here in New Jersey.
The Flexible Flyer Sled Museum in Moorestown features 27 of the iconic sleds. Photo courtesy of the Flexible Flyer Sled Museum
So Snow opened the Flexible Flyer Museum in 2015, in collaboration with Joseph Galbraith, the library director at the time.
Nearly every sled in the museum is from Snow’s personal collection. Disappointed in adulthood that he no longer had his own childhood sled, he began purchasing old-time Flexible Flyers in a tribute to his passion for the sport.
He started with one from the 1930s that he discovered in a Moorestown antiques store for his young son Andrew. When daughter Amelia, born two years later, was old enough to sled, she, too, received a Flexible Flyer.
Snow obsessively collected sleds from all over the country, paying anywhere from $3 to $300 for each. Eventually, more than 40 of them filled the garage and basement of Snow’s home in Pennsauken.
“One day,” he says, “my wife, Denise, said to me, ‘Would you please get those sleds out of here?’” That may have been the moment that inspired him to create the museum. He chose what he considered the best examples from each era, along with several donated sleds and a pair of 1938-50 wooden Flexible Flyer skis, originally $14.50, and their poles. He also set up a glass display case that holds rare paraphernalia about Flexible Flyer history.
The largest Flexible Flyer ever made is also on display, and you can’t miss it. It’s 8 feet, 5 inches long; 16 inches wide; and includes four pairs of metal footrests. Retail price in 1900: $12.
For more unique museums in New Jersey, check out our guide to under-the-radar treasure troves.
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It’s been 87 years since the state of New Jersey executed an unemployed German immigrant from the Bronx for kidnapping and killing famous aviator Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s trip to the electric chair on April 3, 1936 followed one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history: It generated more than 200,000 documents and pieces of evidence, including hand-written ransom notes, pieces of wood from Hauptmann’s attic and a homemade ladder that police said was used to snatch Charles Jr. from his second-floor nursery at Lindbergh’s home in the Sourland hills outside Hopewell.
All of that evidence remains in storage at the New Jersey State Police headquarters in West Trenton. The archive and a modest museum attached to it have become holy ground for a small but fervent army of researchers, writers and kidnapping hobbyists. They’ve spent years elaborating on revisionist theories about the boy’s murder and insisting that the state subject the evidence to modern-day forensic testing that might show, for example, that Hauptman did not act alone.
A 1932 wanted poster seeks information about the kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. Photo: Photofest
Late last year, Margaret Sudhakar, a freelance researcher from Princeton, filed a Superior Court lawsuit demanding the state release samples of some evidence for DNA analysis and other lab tests. In court filings, Sudhakar said she had spent years researching the case and had volunteered at the museum for a decade, befriending its chief archivist, Mark W. Falzini.
Sudhakar has been working with a Los Angeles-based filmmaker since 2015 and says she has assembled a team of 30 experts to analyze the evidence, including pediatric neurosurgeons, forensic pathologists, medical examiners and DNA experts.
“The time for speculation about the New Jersey State Police’s most famous case is over,’’ Sudhakar wrote to the court. “The time for answers is upon us. The answers to the most basic questions of this case, including who sealed the envelopes, who licked the stamps and who made the ladder, can all be obtained with modern day forensics at no cost to the state of New Jersey.’’
New Jersey Monthly can reveal that in January, Judge Robert Lougy dismissed Sudhakar’s claim, ruling that the researcher had no legitimate right to take evidence for analysis that could permanently alter it, even if the evidence belonged to the public. The state’s open record law, Lougy wrote, “is not the vehicle by which a citizen can march up to a museum and demand that the custodians of historical artifacts and documents surrender the state’s treasures for analysis, alteration and destruction.’’
Sudhakar’s lawyer, Kurt W. Perhach, declined to comment on the ruling and said his client was unavailable for comment. But he said they were considering an appeal to Lougy’s ruling. Perhach, who took on Sudhakar’s case pro bono, is a kidnapping buff himself who said his fascination with the case initially sparked his interest in the law.
Despite winning this round, the state will certainly face mounting pressure to subject the Lindbergh evidence to the kinds of high-tech lab analysis that did not exist in the mid-1930s. In recent years, there has been a raft of new books, including a multi-volume set over 1,000 pages long, exploring every possible angle of the kidnapping case. A trio of Lindbergh internet blogs and discussion forums draw millions of hits every year.
In her suit, Sudhakar recounted comments from a state police official who told her it was long past time for critical evidence, such as the ransom notes and kidnapping ladder, to be released for scientific testing.
“The questions will keep coming because the full story isn’t out there,’’ Perhach says.
The State Police did not respond to written questions submitted by New Jersey Monthly about its handling of the Lindbergh evidence and unwillingness to release material for tests using current forensic technology.
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Illustration by Nadia Radic
Seventy-three years ago, a little-known confrontation between the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the gun-wielding owner of a modest Maple Shade tavern changed world history.
The incident sparked King’s resolve to dedicate his life to fighting racial injustice. It also marked his first-ever recorded civil rights sit-in.
“It is as important as the seed is to the plant or a spark to the fire,” says Patrick Duff, a community activist and watchdog journalist who is considered an expert on the sit-in. “It ignited his unwavering need to seek justice rather than seek peace. It was his first real taste of good trouble.”
Just 14 years later, moved by the teachings of pacifists like Mahatma Gandhi to adopt a non-violent approach to fighting injustice, poverty, and violence, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. But his initial drive to become an activist was sparked by the incident at Mary’s Café in Maple Shade.
The story began on Sunday, June 11, 1950. King, then 21 years old, had been ordained a Baptist minister two years earlier, but was continuing his formal studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He split his time between Pennsylvania and a Camden duplex that he shared with his friend and Crozer classmate, Walter McCall.
King and McCall were on a Sunday-night drive with McCall’s girlfriend, Pearl Smith, and her roommate, Doris Wilson. After attending an evening church service in Merchantville, the foursome decided to stop at Mary’s Café for a round or two of beers.
They sat at a table and waited…and waited…and waited for service.
Finally, McCall stood up and headed to the bar, where he approached the café’s owner, Ernest Nichols, and requested packaged beer with four glasses. Nichols refused, saying he couldn’t sell them packaged beer because it was a Sunday. Nichols then refused McCall’s order for four glasses of beer, and then four ginger ales.
“The best thing would be for you to leave,” Nichols told him, according to a police report.
In response, the four remained glued to their seats—an act of non-violent protest later recognized as King’s first sit-in. By this time, it was past midnight.
Nichols then reportedly stomped out of the bar, later returning with a revolver and shooting it skyward just outside the tavern. “I’d kill for less,” Nichols shouted, now brandishing the gun, according to the police report.
The four friends, fearing for their lives, fled the café and made a beeline for the Maple Shade Police Department, where they filed a complaint. According to Duff’s research, at first the police department refused to file a report. The foursome then contacted Camden NAACP president Ulysses Wiggins to help them file the case, which he did successfully.
Nichols was charged with disorderly conduct and violation of New Jersey’s 1945 civil rights law prohibiting refusal of service based on race. In the end, Nichols was found guilty of firearms violations and fined $50. The racial discrimination case was dismissed.
Over the years, King spoke about the incident, saying it was “a formative step” in his “commitment to a more just society.”
The tavern was demolished in 2011, but a sign recalling the historic event and honoring King was installed in 2018 at the site where Maple Shade history and American history intersected.
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New Jersey has recently become a shocking case study for hate crimes.
But long before groups like the Proud Boys showed up, historians say 60,000 Jerseyans joined the Ku Klux Klan between World War I and World War II, with local groups in places like Scotch Plains, Mountainside, New Brunswick, Plainfield and the Amboys. They were led by a former vaudevillian named Arthur Bell, who lived in Wall Township and assembled a real estate empire in Monmouth County by collecting membership dues and selling “official” Klan hoods and garb. “Bell was a showman who basically ran a pyramid scheme,’’ historian Joseph Bilby, author of The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey, told New Jersey Monthly.
The Klan’s fortunes here ebbed after a mob of irate immigrants stormed an August 1923 Klan meeting in Perth Amboy. Five hundred panicked Klansmen who had gathered at an Odd Fellows Hall ripped off their hoods and dashed out of town. The mob overturned a police wagon full of cowering Klan members. A front-page story in The New York Times said one hapless Klansman was almost stuffed down a manhole. The headline: “Perth Amboy Mob in Anti-Klan Riot; Scores are Beaten. Crowd of 6,000 Drive Ku-Kluxers from Hall, pummeling and stoning them; police tear gas futile.’’
Bilby said Jersey Klan leaders eventually started fighting among themselves and with national Klan leaders over their real estate holdings and pyramid-scheme profits. Bell ended up broke, jobless and living over a garage in Belmar.
By the mid-1930s, members of the German-American Federation—the Bund—were writing a new chapter of Jersey-style white supremacy. More than 112,000 people of German descent lived in Depression-era New Jersey. Historians say about one-third of them sympathized with the racist vision of Adolf Hitler.
To lead the U.S. Bund, Hitler selected Fritz Kuhn, a Munich-born World War I veteran who came to be known as the American Führer. Under Kuhn, Bund chapters opened across New Jersey. There were also rural, woodsy retreats for Bundists in Bloomingdale, Griggstown and Andover, home of the infamous Camp Nordland, which drew 10,000 people on opening day alone.
Bund members enjoyed all the advantages of a close-knit social club—singing, dancing, drinking beer.
Hitler Youth at the German-American Bund Camp Nordland in 1939, having a meal together. Photo courtesy of weirdnj.com
But the main business was the celebration of the Fatherland, Aryan culture and nascent Nazi ideology. Photos from Camp Nordland’s heyday record one-arm saluting and uniformed Hitler Youth marching in rank and file.
As the reality of Nazi evil started sinking in, the American Bund drew increasing attention from suspicious lawmakers and law enforcers, from local sheriffs to the FBI. Bund leaders at Camp Nordland were investigated for a string of vice crimes ranging from child abuse to embezzlement.
Kuhn was convicted of stealing $14,000 in Bund funds and ended up in Sing Sing prison.
By the start of World War II, the Jersey Bund was anemic and officially disbanded after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
Jeff Pillets is an award-winning investigative reporter.
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