Grace Lutheran Church

Livingston's Grace Lutheran Church was built in the early 1960s, replacing a farmstead that stood on the same land. 

The building consisted of a small chapel with a single story schoolhouse attached to the right side. The Sanctuary was clad in a cedar clapboard painted barn red, which contrasted nicely against the large green lawn. 

In 2011 an article in the Livingston Patch described how a Spanish speaking Lutheran congregation was to began sharing the space with the existing worshippers. 

Unfortunately even with the new worshippers the church couldnt afford the maintenance and upkeep required to stay open. By 2021 the church vacated the building. The property sold quickly for $3.55 million.

The building was vacant for several years before it was eventually declared an "area in need of redevelopment". Town officials were interested in moving the nearby West Essex YMCA out of their aging building and into a new, state of the art facility. There was quite a bit of community pushback, citing increased noise and traffic concerns. Despite that the plans went ahead, and the building was demolished in 2025. 

257 Upper Mountain

257 Upper Mountain Ave was a large Colonial Revival home on an acre of land. 

The exterior of the home was wrapped in cedar clapboard and capped with a slate roof. The interior was equally simple. 

The original portion of the home was built in 1889, with a large sunroom added to the right side of the building.

The home had an unremarkable history and was redecorated several times over the next century. 

In 2021 the home was purchased for $1.25 Million. It was left vacant without a security system, so neighborhood kids started hanging out on the property. 

They smashed a bunch of windows out which eventually got boarded over. The fresh plywood caught my eye while driving past, and before long I made a trip over to try and get inside.

I only made the one trip to 257, and only shot it on my phone. By 2025 the home was entirely gutted and reborn as a new modern dwelling. 

Mater Dei School

Mater Dei was founded in 1961 as a part of St. Mary's School. 

A second school building was constructed on the property in the mid 1960s to house Mater Dei. This was actually when enrolment in private Catholic schools had reached its highest point in the US. 

After the high point of the mid 1960s, enrollment in Catholic schools began to trend downward. This was especially true in New Jersey, where catholic schools began closing in droves by the 2010s. 

In 2017 it was announced Mater Dei was being eyed for closure. Local families were outraged, demanding the archdiocese of Trenton reconsider. They ended up raising over a million dollars, which allowed them to remain open.

The reprieve from closure was only temporary. Talks of closing the school  began again, and by the end of the 2022 school year it was finally shuttered.

In 2023 the school was used as the "principal photography location" for the Mean Girls revival. For those like myself who aren't familiar with that term, its basically where a majority of the filming takes place. 

Demolition was announced and began swiftly at the end of summer 2025. Once the building is cleared the land will be re-dedicated as Mater Dei Park. 

The Griffith Piano Company Building

The city of Newark was a much different place 100 years ago. With both a booming industrial force and a bustling commercial downtown, the city was growing in fine fashion. Newark was a perfect place for the Griffith Piano Company to open their new factory and headquarters.

The limestone and yellow brick tower was constructed adjacent to the iconic Hahne Company Building in 1927. The site was already home to two buildings outgrown by the Griffith company. 

Griffith's new headquarters was a beautiful gothic edifice designed by city architect George Elwood Jones. The fourteen story tower featured an elegant facade clad in polychromatic terra-cotta tilework on the upper floors.

Behind the front doors was a handsome two story lobby. The walls on the first floor are marble clad, and the second floor contains a wraparound mezzanine. The ceiling inside the space was a gorgeous plaster design like one might expect to see inside a bank or post office. To call the space overwhelming would be an understatement.

Also on the second floor was the Griffith Recital Hall. The 50ftx75ft space had a seating capacity of 200, which made the room an ideal space to demonstrate new models of Griffith Pianos to potential buyers. The room had a hardwood floor and mirror clad walls. The ceiling had a beautiful plaster design and recessed stained glass light fixtures. The beautiful decoration seemed to come at you from every angle, making it truly one of the most remarkable office buildings in Newark at the tume. The finished structure topped out at 210 feet tall, making it one of the tallest in the city at the time.

At its time Griffith was one of the most successful piano companies in the country. Some of the greatest pianists of the time reportedly used Griffith pianos, including Sergei Rachmaninoff. This was largely in part to the pioneering efforts of Mrs. Lena Donaldson Griffith, who also went by Mrs. Parker O. Griffith. A firm believer in equitable resource access, she started the Griffith Music Foundation. 

The goal of the foundation was to draw some of the greatest musical artists of the time to Newark for performances that could be attended by people of every creed, color and class. In 1938 the foundation took over operations of the Mosque Theater, which would go on to become the Newark Symphony Hall.

Tragically, Parker O. Griffith passed away at Orange Memorial Hospiral on March 12th, 1960. Mrs. Parker passed away the following year. Griffith Piano Company continued to operate for just over a decade, declining until eventually going bankrupt in 1973. The city of Newark was experiencing a recession at the time, therefore the only tenant that could be found for the property was a discount dress shop which functioned inside the lobby. 

The tower was subjected to a decade of neglect, which decimated the interior of the structure. Despite that the building was snapped up by NYC real estate developer Sol Gillman in 1983 for $500,000. The purchase was so significant the New York Times ran an article about the purchase. To the city of Newark it was symbolic of a potential downtown renaissance. However, aside from being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 nothing became of Gillmans $2 million plans to restore the building. Newarks economic resurgence wouldn't be coming any time soon.

The building wouldn't change hands for another 19 years, but in 2003 the Cogswell Reality group entered into an agreement to purchase the tower. Unfortunately when the group toured their perspective purchase, they saw the significant structural degradation the interior of the building had faced, and they rescinded their offer for the property. 

Another thirteen years later the building once again changed hands, this time under the stewardship of the Berger Group. The group had already taken on and completed several large scale projects in the city, including the restoration of the adjacent Hahne building. Even the Bergers couldn't make it work, so they sold it to a newly formed LLC not affiliated with any established group. 

Somehow this new team managed to find a plan that seemed viable, and in 2019 the building underwent a  The Covid 19 pandemic took its toll on the building, causing the construction to last longer than expected. The newly reborn building, dubbed "The Griffith" opened in 2025 with a mix of retail and residential.

Another win for the city of Newark. Thanks for learning with me. 

19 Marie Major Dr

The home at 19 Marie Major Dr was built on a three acre lot in 1974.

Well manicured lanscaping surrounded the home itself. The owners also installed a pool and tennis courts on the edge of the property.

In the decades since the home was built Alpine became home to some of the richest people in the state. By 2016 the property was assessed to be valued at $6 million. 

When I was growing up my father always had a skill of delivering some sort of complex, practical knowledge with a single sentence.  One of his classics was the phrase "something is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. 19 Marie Major is a great example. The property was sold in June of 2019 for just $3 Million.

The home sat vacant for a number of years. During this time a new trend developed in the Urban Exploring community, particularly on Tik Tok. It was the era of the "clout mansion".

A "clout mansion" is any large home, usually a fairly recent real estate listing, which has some distinctive feature that drives the algorithm wild. It may be an interior pool, a famous former resident, or in some cases even just the list price. People who seek attention visit these places and immediately share them with other people who had broken into similar mansions, creating this weird trend in the moment. 

I had been putting off visiting these mansions even though a couple were in NJ. I did eventually check them out though. 19 Marie Major was known as the "Basketball Court Mansion" because the last owner installed a single hoop inside on the second floor.

The home was finally torn down in 2025, and a new home built on the same spot. Hopefully the new owners dont disturb the property too much, as it really is a fantastic piece of land. 

First Presbyterian Church of Atlantic City

As someone who grew up in North Jersey, Atlantic City might as well have been Las Vegas. None of my travels as a kid ever took me past it, so I didnt see it in person until I was grown. They were both known to have a gruff reputation, corrupt history, and gambling. Despite that, the city actually holds several really distinctive civic buildings. The subject of this article is one such space that has unfortunately been lost. 

Source: TFPNJ Postcard Archive

The original First Presbyterian Church complex was built on the same site between 1856 and 1857. The main building was a handsome carpenter gothic structure with a tall, distinctive spire above it's bell tower. It also had a detached secondary chapel along S. Presbyterian Avenue. Corrupt crime boss and republican politician Nucky Johnson married in the old building in 1906. Johnson is ficticously portrayed by Steve Buschemi in the hit HBO series "Boardwalk Empire". 

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The church was stripped back to its frame and almost entirely rebuilt in 1909. This was likely done due to the fire hazard the original church building posed. Seneca Red sandstone replaced the old wooden clapboard. The bell tower was moved from the center of the building to the right corner, while the enormous spire was never rebuilt. 

The interior floor plan was dramatically changed as well to accomidate the growing congregation. Seating in the nave was reoriented to face the left wall, which had been opened up and rebuilt to serve as the pulpit.  This allowed the a much more significant balcony to be constructed, nearly doubling the capacity of the sanctuary. Three gorgeous windows were purchased from Tiffany Studios and installed behind the choir loft. 

Atlantic City experienced a significant population decline in the decades after WWII. Eventually the First Presbyterian congregation had become so small they didn't need such a large building anymore. Victory Deliverence Church moved into the space in 1989, making very few changes.

A charity food program known as Sister Jean's Kitchen moved into the building in 1997. Sister Jean was a former chef at several of the large casinos along the shore. One night a decade prior she saw a man digging through the trash for some food. She decided to take the man to a nearby pizzeria and get him something substantial instead. She invited the man to her house the next day for a proper home-cooked meal. This selfless act eventually grew into one of the most substantial charity meal programs in the history of Atlantic City. 

Sister Jean Webster passed away in 2011. The kitchen continued on in her honor, although it wouldnt be long before the program experienced another setback. 

Hurricane Sandy devastated the First Presbyterian building just a year later, forcing the kitchen out. Victory Deliverence came up with a plan to renovate the space, but it never came to fruition, and by 2018 the building was officially vacant. 

The building continued to languish over the years. The Tiffany stained glass was removed from the choir loft, and a number of pews were smashed up and discarded. The doors and windows were replaced by steel VPS panels to prevent further break ins. By 2024, plans were approved to have a cannabis dispensary replace the old church building. 

Demolition began in 2025. Usually thats the end of the story, but this one has a pretty wild twist. I mentioned earlier that the exterior was clad with Seneca Red Sandstone. That wasn't just a filler detail. The geological formation that produces that specific stone is part of a thin network that spans from northern Connecticut to southern North Carolina. The largest band streches from northern Virginia to the southern tip of New York, right across New Jersey. This band produced the stone for our church, as well as several prominent buildings in our nation's capital. Perhaps most notably was the original building of the Smithsonian Museum, known as "The Castle". The quarry that produced the Smithsonian's stone had been out of production for over a century, so they thought they were going to have to make an unflattering compromise duringtheir ongoing renovation. A member of the design team happened to be from Atlantic City thiigh, and knew of the old First Presbyterian Church. They brought a spalled piece of the museum to the old church and held it up; it was a near-perfect match. 

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It took several weeks to pry off all the stone, but the team got it done. The stone was loaded onto trucks and hauled down to the museum. The rest of the structure was torn down, leaving the lot bare for the first time in 168 years. It won't be for long though. A new dispensary means that lot will be on the tax rolls for that same period. City leaders have to be excited about that. 

Thanks for learning with me.