Collingswood Presbyterian Church

Collingswood is a small, quaint suburb of Camden founded on 1888. Despite being mostly farmland at the time, the township experienced rapid population growth around the turn of the century. These new residents had a diverse range of religious beliefs, and the building stock of the town reflects that. One such congregation was the Presbyterian church, founded in Collingswood in 1903. 

Source

The congregation first met in a building elsewhere in the town. It wasn't long before they outgrew that space, so a new church was planned at the corner of Fern & Maple. 

The new church was completed in 1929. It featured a large worship space with a full wraparound balcony as well as a school building attached to the south side of the building. 

The congregation used the space until 2023, when it was announced they were leaving their historic home. They sold the structure to a developer, who immediately submitted plans to the town to convert the church into twenty five apartments.

The pre-school which used the school building finally left the building in June of 2024. By that time some preliminary work had already been done in the main church. The submitted plans show that the exterior of the building will be relatively unchanged, with most of the stained glass windows remaining in place. 

By 2025 construction was well underway. I'm grateful I was able to take a brief walk around the space before the interior was split up. And honestly, more housing is always a good thing. All things considered, this is a pretty good win for the town.

Holmes-Tallman House

New Jersey has always been packed with people, but that density was largely relegated to the cities and surrounding areas in its early history. However, the last few decades have seen an unprecedented level of residential and commercial development on once quiet farmlands. These changes have come at a tremendous ecological cost, and constant blows to our stock of historic buildings. One recent example comes to us from the small town of Jamesburg. 

The large home at the corner of Rhode Hall (formerly Browns Corners) and Cranbury-South River roads was built in 1860 by a man named Francis Holmes. Holmes purchased the property from Aaron Gulick, whose family are some of the earliest colonizers of New Jersey. 

The home was a gorgeous three story Carpenter Italianate presence. It boasted a corbel-studded wraparound porch on the first floor and was crowned by a large square cupula. From the moment it was finished, it stood as one of the finest examples of the architecture style in New Jersey. 

Francis Holmes sold the property with the home on it back to the Gulick family in 1869. James Gulick sold the property again just a year later, this time to a man named Jacob Tallman.

The construction of the NJ Turnpike in 1951 changed the landscape of Jamesburg forever. What was once a small, out of the way farm town was now the site of one of the busiest traffic corridors in the nation. The beautiful old home continued to defy time thanks to the meticulous care of the Tallman family. 

In 1979 the home was nominated to be on the National Register of Historic Places. It was an easy decision for the committee; the home was listed on the register that same year. 

The Tallman family loved and maintained the home for well over 100 years. During that time, the Turnpike continued to widen to accomidate the booming population it served. It didn't dramatically change things much in the small town of Jamesburg until 1991. That's when exit 8a was finished. The following decades saw massive warehouse and residential development. The population increased by roughly 150% between 1980 and 2000.

By the 2020's the lovely home had fallen into severe disrepair. I would drive past and look at the home whenever I was in the area, slowly watching it fall apart. One day I noticed the back door sitting open, so of course I had to pop inside. I didn't have my camera with me, just my cell phone and a light panel. The house was in remarkable shape inside. It seemed like the Tallman's took as much care to preserve the interior as possible. 

I shut the door behind me and vowed to return as soon as possible to document it property. I ended up driving right past the building on a productive morning of exploring, so I parked out back and walked through the still-open back door. What I found inside was devastating. The entire interior of the home had been ripped apart. This was beyond just scrapping metal; they sawed through the beautiful pine floors, ripped apart the fireplace mantels, and stole the entire wraparound staircase railing. The home had essentially been demolished inside. 

The home will inevitably be demolished since it is now "too far gone" to save. Demolition by neglect claims another one. 

Passaic County Jail

The first half of the ninteenth century was quite an interesting time for New Jersey. Boundry lines were being redrawn, as townships and counties were being carved out of established ones. In 1837 two new counties were establisted on opposite ends of the state, Atlantic County and Passaic County. This article is focusing on the latter, and more specifically their jail building. 

Source

Construction began for the original Passaic County Jail in 1837, the same year as the original Essex County Jail which still stands in Newark. The basic design included a single cell block as well as a house for the warden. The original building was enlarged in 1854 to accommodate more criminals as the county experienced rapid population growth. 

Source

In 1937 the buildings were thoroughly documented by a photographer named R. Merrit Lacey. Other citizens measured out and redrew the building's floor plans as Lacey took his pictures. These efforts were submitted to the Historic American Buildings Survey, and are hosted online in high resolution by the Library of Congress. 

Source:

Unfortunately, despite being so thoughtfully documented just two decades prior, the building was entirely demolished and a new jail was built on the site in 1957. The new building was a simple mid century design without much detail or embellishment. It was designed to hold 230 prisoners at maximum capacity. 

It wasn't long before the brand new building was already facing an overcrowding issue. Neighboring Essex County had given up on expanding their Newark Jail nearly 100 years prior. Instead, they developed a huge jail annex complex on land they owned far outside the city, where they could spread out as far as they pleased. Instead of taking that tact, Passaic County just continued to pack bodies in wherever they could inside the Marshall Street building. 

When the jail ran out of cramped cells to fill, beds were packed into the common areas. At times, the building was holding upwards of 1500 people inside its walls, more than six times the population it was designed for.

According to the Star Ledger, the state Office of Inmate Advocacy examined every county jail in New Jersey in 1977. The Passaic County Jail was deemed to be the worst in the state. Not only was it severely overcrowded, it was also overrun with rodents and bugs. Sheriff Edwin J. Englehardt was in charge of managing the jail at the time. Instead of doing some honest self reflection and brainstorming ways to improve the facility like a decent person, Englehardt hung a banner outside the building that said "Welcome to the Passaic Country Jail. This is not a country club. All rules will be followed." As far as my research indicates, there was no effort made to remedy the inhumane conditions. 

A new addition was built in the mid 1980s at the corner of Grand and Marshall. This allowed space inside the cell blocks to be further retrofitted to accommodate more bodies. The recreation facilities were moved into cages that were built on the roof. 

In 1987 the county sought to establish a detention center specifically for youth offenders outside the confines of the Marshall Ave site. They decided to retrofit in a vacant nurses building at the old Valley View Sanitorium which straddled the Wayne/Haledon border. 

Unfortunately the jail was still severely overcrowded. To make things worse, the facility was still making headlines for being filthy and overrun with pests. Officials mulled replacing the rapidly aging building, but the talks never led anywhere. 

Instead in 2001 the new leader of the jail, Jerry Speziale, began taking inmates from other counties as a way to pad the budget. Speziale took over from Englehardt, who fled his position amid investigations into corruption within the county. 

Passaic County continued to subject the inmates at their jail to these same inhumane conditions for decades. It wasn't until 2017 when New Jersey finally answered the cries of activists and passed common sense bail reform. For those unfamiliar, one of the major differences between a "jail" and a "prison" is that the latter is where you go after you've been sentenced, typically for stints longer than 30 days. Jail is where you end up after you've been accused of a crime, but before the "speedy" trial you're entitled to. If you have enough cash or property to give to the County as an incentive to ensure you'll show up at further court dates, you can be released. Your guilt or innocence isn't taken into account, because that hasn't been determined by a judge yet. 

That system is obviously flawed, as a guilty person with money gets to go home while an innocent poor person has to stay locked up. Thankfully we don't do that anymore here. Someone's bail status in New Jersey now depends on an assessment of their likelihood to be violent or to reoffend. The system isn't perfect, as opponents say it still leaves open the possibility for unchecked racial bias. Most advocates agree though, it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Five years after the bail reform laws passed in the state, the county worked out an agreement to allow their prisoners to be sent to the sprawling Bergen County Jail in nearby Hackensack. This move allowed Passaic County to finally move to close their Marshall Street Jail. 

The county sheriffs office continued to operate out of their offices within the compound, but by 2024 the jail building was officially closed. It was immediately announced that the building would be demolished and a new county government building would take its place. Before any work was done, the building was used for the filming of the movie"Motor City". Machines moved in shortly after filming wrapped up. 

Crews started by ripping into the walls of the main cellblock, which stretched between Marshall and Main. The plan was essentially to work from the courtyard outwards, allowing the crew to work uninterrupted without affecting traffic around the building. It wasn't long before the iconic, notorious structure was entirely reduced to rubble. I won't be shedding any tears for this compound. Hopefully whatever comes next is much more beneficial than this old eyesore.

Joseph Battin High School

New Jersey is known for having some of the best schools in the country. Unfortunately we also have students learning in some of the oldest facilites in the United States. This is especially true in the northern portion of the state, with some structures dating back to the 1880's still in use today. Unlike many other public buildings which have been perpetually maintained and renovated throughout that time, our schools have largely suffered from deferred maintenence and slim budgets. One example of this was the Joseph Battin High School.

TFPNJ Postcard Archive

The school opened in 1889 in an old mansion on South Street. The building was donated by Joseph Battin, who had been the president of the Elizabethtown Water Company.

TFPNJ Postcard Archive

It wasn't long before the school outgrew the mansion. Designs were solicited for a new building in the early 1910s. A special building committee was assembled, including Richard E. Clement, the superintendent of schools for Elizabeth. The group decided the most efficient school design for the plot on South Street would be a "rectangular" plan building. The plan called for interior corridors, with classrooms being built with large windows along the outside of the building. 

TFPNJ Postcard Archive

The group selected Charles Godfrey Poggi to design the building. Poggi was a rising star in Elizabeth, having designed several churches and other public buildings around the city.  

Poggi studied other local schools for inspiration on how to best appoint the building. He close a tasteful buff colored brick with Indiana limestone trim. The pediment over the front doors featured several hand carved statues flanking the seal of the City of Elizabeth.

The main architectural highlight of the building was the central auditorium. It featured a large coffered ceiling with several skylights, twenty foot windows, and a balcony with seating for several hundred students. Extra plaster ornament was shoehorned inside every crevice and bare space to create an overwhelming sense of grandeur. The auditorium was a work of art. 

In 1929 the brand new Thomas Jefferson High School opened just a few blocks away on Elizabeth Avenue. Unfortunately the board of education couldn't come up with efficient districts by which to fill the schools. Since Jefferson had better "athletic and shop facilities", it was determined the boys would go there, and the girls could have Battin. 

One of the most noteworthy events in the facility's history came in 1952. A small plane failed to land properly at Newark Airport and crashed directly across the street from the building, narrowly missing the school itself. A number of homes at the corner of South and William Street were destroyed by the wreck. A young girl who attended the school at the time went on to have a sucessful writing career, even writing a book about the crash itself. Her name is Judy Blume, and the novel is titled In the Unlikely Event.

A large gymnasium addition was attached to the rear of the building in the 1960s, on land which one held houses. The new Elizabeth High opened in 1977, which closed both Battin and Jefferson. They did both eventually reopen as schools, but the story wasn't over there. 

Battin school was abruptly closed due to poor building conditions in 2022. An inspection had revealed portions of the roof were beginning to show signs of failure. Around the same time, the School Development Authority announced billions of dollars of planned upgrades to the states aging school buildings. Battin was quickly approved to join the list of facility replacements. 

When I first visited the building, I was suprised by how much the auditorium resembled those by my favorite school architects, the Guilbert & Betelle firm of Newark. It wasn't until later that I had uncovered an article which alluded to C. Godfrey Poggi visiting other local schools for inspiration on Battin. He certainly would have visited some of the amazing schools around Essex County, meaning my suspicions about the G & B influence were essentially confirmed. 

Unfortunately demolition work commenced swiftly on Battin. Thankfully the crew started with the more modern rear, allowing me to make a few visits to the school before it was demolished entirely by September 2024. The school was just one of dozens set to be rebuilt by the NJ School Development Authority over the next few years. Stay tuned for more stories. 

Mount Pleasant Mansion

The "Mount Pleasant" Mansion was Built in 1993, on a nearly 6 acre parcel of undeveloped woodland.

The home was built in a modern minimalist style, with a large open atrium flanked by two wings. A butterfly staircase led to the bedrooms on the upper floors. The kitchen and dining areas were just beyond the staircase. 

A large indoor pool and hot tub took up the entire right wing of the house. It was a surprise for me considering how reserved and empty the rest of the interior was.

The home was sold for just one dollar in 2017, then again in 2022 for $2.75 million. As far as I can tell, this is the last time anyone lived inside the building. 

I found the building one day while making deliveries in the area for work. I marked it down on my map, as it was too late in the day for me to risk the long walk down the driveway. 

The next morning I pulled up to the mansion with the intention of scoping it out. The tennis court out back was overgrown, and provided ample cover as I worked my way closer to the home. The closer I got, the more I could see how deteriorated the stucco exterior was. Carefully I made my way towards the back of the building. 

I looked inside a couple doors and windows to confirm that nobody was living inside anymore. One of the back doors was missing a handle, and opened right up when I pushed on it. The door led into the pool room, which still smelled strongly of chlorine. Carefully I worked my way to the main atrium. It wasn't until I realized that power had been cut to the building that I was finally able to relax a bit. 

I didn't spend terribly long inside, intending to return with my camera. Unfortunately before I could get back the building was completely demolished. A house and church next door were also taken down before I could visit, leaving a massive bare patch along what was once a quiet block. 

Even though I'm bummed I wasn't able to shoot it properly I'm still glad I was able to see the building at all. I'm not sure what plans the future has for the property, but whatever it is Hopefully it will be more productive than a single home.