South River Trust Company

 

TFPNJ Postcard Archive

The South River Trust Company was established in 1919 at the junction of Main and Ferry Streets. The building itself is small but lavish. Two large ionic columns flank the front door, supporting a terra cotta pediment with the banks name embossed into it. Though records don't exist online, the terra cotta was almost certainly manufactured at the nearby Sayre - Fisher brickworks. Steel spandrel panels separated the first and second floor windows. The entire rest of the facade was clad in limestone. 

The banking hall was a stunner. A massive stained glass tray ceiling lit the room, supplemented by large chandeliers as well as another large window at the rear of the building. The teller counter was made of beautifully veined white marble. 

The bank managers office had the best view, overlooking the banking floor. 

The bank closed in 1931, right at the start of the Great Depression. The closure was short lived though, as the bank reorganized and reopened in 1933. 

As is the case with many banks SRTC ended up merging into a bunch of other institutions before eventually being functionally  closed. The space was being utilized by Bank of America in the fall of 2013, when it closed for renovations. 

The building never reopened as a bank. Instead it stood vacant for over a decade. I would visit the structure from time to time whenever I was in the area with time to kill. The back door was always open. It blew my mind that there wasnt any vandalism inside, and that it never ended up on the "Urbex" radar. People flocked to Sayreville for years from all over the world to sneak into the old generating station along the river. The only people who ever found out about it were friends of mine who happened to be in the area with me at the time

Work finally began to convert the space into a lobby for a brand new apartment building in 2026. Considering First National Bank just a block away was demolished entirely, I consider this new future for the SRTC building a blessing. As the town continues to grow people like me will still have the opportunity to stop by and appreciate the building.

Thanks for reading!

St Mary's Greek Catholic School

When most of the population of the United States  thinks of schools and hospitals, we think of them as public institutions that have always existed and always will. The reality is that they both trace their origins back to the Catholic church in early ninteeth century. Nearly 100 years after the first parochial school was founded, St. Mary's Assumption of Trenton established a K-8 facility on a lot across Malone St from their house of worship. 

The school was built in 1921. The facade was made of buff brick with limestone accents, a common design choice for the time. It rose three stories on a linear footprint, with classroom space on the first two floors and a large "gymatorium" on the third. 

Everything about the facility was classic parochial school. It had 11 foot ceilings on every floor. Large transom windows sat above each door in order to encourage air flow on warm days. 

Like so many neighborhood buildings the school operated without much fanfare as the neighborhood evolved around it. A large arson attack destroyed the parish church in 1956, along with nearly a dozen others. It took three years to rebuild. During the rebuild process mass was held inside the gym. 

The school officially closed in 1999. Like many other catholic schools it continued to be maintained and used for parish activities. Since churches don't pay taxes, its easy for them to sit on property rather than immediately selling off or demolishing their empty buildings. This ended up paying off during the demolition and reconstruction of Trenton Central High School in 2015. Some students from that facility were sent to St Mary's until the new high school opened in 2019. 

St. Mary's parish took advantage of the recent refurbishment and ended up putting the building on the market immediately after Trenton Central reopened. It was sold the following year. The new owners immediately replaced the roof, but aside from that nothing happened with the building for another several years. Renovation work finally began in 2026 with the goal of reopening the space as apartments. The entire building was gutted back to bare walls, erasing the well kept 1920s floorplan. 

The building will undoubtedly be more productive as apartments than it has been for the last 5 or so years, so I'll count this as a win. 

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711 Broadway

The incredible Victorian mansion at 711 Broadway dated back to the very late 1800s. It was a three story building with a mansard roof and an 800sf wraparound porch. 

A beautiful elliptical staircase wrapped its way up through the center of the house, connecting all seven bedrooms. 

Each of the bedrooms on the first two stories had floor to ceiling windows and gorgeous pine floors. Most also had large, functional fireplaces. 

Several of the rooms even had large walk in closets between them.

The home was occupied into the 2020s, but had been falling into disrepair for years. 

It was sold in 2025 to an LLC who was granted permission from the town to subdivide the lot into three smaller parcels. 

The plan was contingent on the existing home being demolished.

Demolition began in spring of 2026.  The home wasn't even on my radar, but a random tip on Reddit one Friday morning let me know destruction was imminent. 

I ran up to Norwood after work the same day. Unfortunately the demo crews had already begun stripping the historic fixtures out. 

Thankfully there were still a few rooms in decent enough shape for me to want to take out my camera and give it a proper shoot. 

Im really glad that at least some of the trim and fixtures were stripped before the demoliton. It always kills me to see such a gorgeous house be demolished for some contemporary nonsense though, especially one that hasn't been heavily renovated.

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281 Trenton Lakewood Road

The property at 281 Trenton-Lakewood road held a two story house right on the bank of the Doctors Creek in Cream Ridge. 

The ~2200 square foot home was built in the mid 1970's. It consisted of a standard mid century  cedar clad dwelling atop a concrete pedestal.

Most of the livable space was on the second floor, likely due to the risk of flooding. 

The interior of the home featured two large fireplace made of natural river stone, which I imagine heated the space very effectively.

Combined with the pine ceilings and walls the space echoed its natural surroundings quite well. 

In October of 2016 Monmouth County purchased the property, which had only been empty a short time. 

They let the home sit abandoned for another six or so years before eventually demolishing the building.

I'm grateful to see any effort to restore the overbuilt floodlands of the state, and more free open space is always a win. Still, I'm glad I was able to check out the home while it still stood. 

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Stanley Theater

Most people walking the streets these days might not know it, but Newark used to be a massive entertainment hub. Large theaters with ornate and whimsical marquees could be spotted on most downtown blocks, in some cases right next to and across the street from each other. Rising fire insurance costs, post-war austerity, and a number of other factors changed the landscape of the industry throughout the nation, and Newark was no exception. One by one each of these grand buildings were abandoned and demolished until the Symphony Hall (formerly Mosque Theater) was the only one left open. A few of these buildings, like RKO Proctors and the Paramount stuck around long enough to become iconic abandoned locations. Some others outside the commercial district found new life as churches and continue to hold services each Sunday. The Stanley was one such example.

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The new theater building was built in 1927 in the Vailsburg neighborhood. Vailsburg didn't have any theaters yet, so the Stanley Corporation  decided to build big. At the time it was finished, the auditorium could hold 1200 people. 

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City architect Frank Grad was chosen to design the building. He chose a Spanish Baroque style with an atmospheric interior. Atmospheric theaters were considered bold departures from the theaters of the time. Instead of heavily ornamented ceilings with a central dome the field was barrel vaulted, blue, and bare. Small lights could be activated to mimic a starry ceiling. The walls were built with faux streetscapes, giving one the impression they had been teleported into a European courtyard. 

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The Stanley was fitted with the best special effects money could buy. Large fog machines were hidden behind the plaster work. Each egress was capped with a backlit stained glass exit signs. Patrons could only exit on the left-hand side of the theater or the front doors; the right hand side never had exits. Outside the auditorium patrons entered into a large foyer area. The space had staircases to the balcony as well as water fountains, bathrooms, and concessions. 

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As decades passed the theater struggled to make money. It was shuttered like so many other city theaters in the 1950s. "Casa Italiana", an Italian American social club opened inside the space afterwards. After that a church purchased the building, rebranding the space as the Newark Gospel Tabernacle. By 1986 the building had landed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

I had been making deliveries for my family's company since I first got my driver's license. I still remember the first time I saw the incredible marquee while driving down South Orange Avenue. The building was still in use by a church at the time, but it was obviously beginning to fall into disrepair. 

I never lost my fascination with the Stanley. My interest only grew more and more as it continued to age. By the time Covid hit the building was fully unused, so I started planning my way in. 

I spent hours over the next several years scoping and attempting to get into the building. It was very well barricaded, to the point where nothing I tried seemed to work. In addition to being well barricaded the building sat in a very high traffic area. I could show up at breakfast, dinner, or 2am on a holiday and there would still be a crowd on the street.

In 2025 an article came out describing how the building was set to be almost entirely demolished to make space for an office tower. Once again I made frequent visits to the building to make sure I could get inside before it was gone. Finally I got my opportunity one morning in 2026, while the building was being prepped for demolition.

The seats had been pushed into a corner, but most of the decorative plasterwork remained intact. 

The water damage throughout the auditorium was so bad, it became clear why the building wasn't even being considered for re-use. 

The projector booth was incredible. Two city-built Forest projectors were still in place on their stands. Multiple rolls of film were left on the rewind bench and in cans stacked around the room.

Another thing I thought was extremely cool was a book display which had been left untouched from when the church left. The books themselves had begun to decay in place. 

For the next few hours I made my way through every corner of the space until I felt satisfied that I had documented each significant space. 

I made several more visits as demolition progressed to capture the progress and mourn the space. 

The demolition was rushed and sloppy, with no remediation work being done despite the building being replete with asbestos. The entire neighborhood was swallowed up in a dust cloud during the work. The workers, perhaps not understanding what they were being exposed to, didn't even wear proper safety gear. 

Its going to be really sad driving past the lot now. As much as I'm grateful for any affordable housing we get, I really hate when it has to be a trade off with a special part of the city's heritage. With Proctors and Paramount collapsing and doomed to be demolished, we truly have lost almost every piece of Newark's entertainment history. 

Thanks for learning with me.