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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
