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.

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary Monastery

The monastery of the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary opened in 1900. At the time, the sisters were worshipping in a pair of old houses along Haddon Avenue. It wasn't until the late 1920s that a large construction project was undertaken to create a proper worship space for the sisters. 

A large, beautiful double chapel was constructed between the houses. Dormitory space was built around an inner courtyard, a design which drew influence from European monasteries. A matching stone wall with heavy iron gates surrounded the complex. The large new building was open for worship by 1927.

At its peak as many as thirty nuns lived at the monastery, each taking turns performing a perpetual Rosary prayer. Life within the walls remained relatively unchanged until 1947, when construction began on the adjacent Lourdes Hospital.

The medical center dwarfed the old monastery, standing tall over the Parkside neighborhood of the city. The sleek new art deco hospital was run by the Catholics, making them great neighbors for the monastery.

After a century of perpetual worship but dwindling occupancy, the building was vacated in 2013. At this  point only a few sisters remained at the Camden location. Once the complex was shuttered they moved up to the Monastery of Mary the Queen in Elmira, NY.

The deceased sisters who were interred on the property were moved to Calvalry cemetery in neighboring Cherry Hill. A St. Michael statue created by DaPrato Studios was given to the St. Michael's school in Clayton. 

Lourdes Hospital purchased the empty monastery the following year. This was the first time I was ever made aware of the building. During a visit to a patient at the hospital, I overheard a discussion about how the sisters had left the building and nobody knew what was going to happen with it next. 

In 2017 a large parking lot was built around the monastery. The hospital still insisted they had "no plans" for the old place of worship. The structure had already been suffering for years of deferred maintenance before the nuns even left. I continued to watch the deterioration progress, just waiting for the right moment to make my move.

Lourdes continued using the monastery for storage and for parking security vehicles. Every time I visited Camden I'd drive by to see what was going on with the building. Occasionally I'd see the front gates open, which was my invitation to sneak around inside the complex. Still, I wasn't able to make it inside the well secured structure. 

Lourdes hospital was purchased by Virtua Health Network in 2019. The sale included the monastery, which was now firmly tied into the medical campus. At this point the building had been vacant for half a decade, which signaled to me that the hospital network had no intention of reusing the structure. 

The building languished for another five years before Virtua announced they were planning to demolish the monastery. I assumed I'd have a little bit of time with it until a friend of mine told me equipment was on site and the buildings days were numbered. I already had plans that weekend, so I was panicking. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get down to Camden before demolition started. 

I decided the only chance I had was to sit through the awful traffic after my full work day to get from Essex to Camden. The whole ride down I had butterflies in my stomach, wondering how badly the demolition prep had affected the building. 

I arrived with about an hour and a half left of daylight, meaning I had about 90 minutes to get inside and get my photos. A shift change at the hospital combined with a vigilant security gaurd in the parking lot left me with very few options for approach. I did see that there was one unlocked gate I could access if I timed it right. 

A few cars passed by, but nobody was paying me any mind as I walked into the lot. As I approached the gate my eyes were shooting back and forth trying to get eyes on the gaurd. I couldn't see them, but I was at the gate now. It was now or never in the most literal sense. Just as I was making my way past the gate, security came right around the corner right in front of me. I muttered an explative to myself and turned back towards the driveway, as security drove behind me to ensure I left. 

From across the street I watched until the gaurd went back to his spot in the parking lot. The open gate was now out of play; my options were now extremely limited. The only other way I could figure involved a very visible climb over the front gate. Even that was an imperfect approach, as I wasn't sure there would be a way inside from there. Just as I was working out my chances I noticed my moment was arriving fast. Nobody on the sidewalk, nobody driving in the road, nobody stopped at the traffic light. Before I even knew what I was doing I found myself flying over the top of the fence and heading towards the storm door I had been eyeing from the sidewalk.

I was overjoyed when the door opened right up, allowing me to hide and check to see if I had caused any disturbance. Everything looked good outside, nobody seemed to have noticed me. I had to check my hands for scrapes since the column I had pulled myself up on was topped with broken glass in the mortar; a common Philly area anti-climb measure. Thankfully the glass was so weathered it had actually been dulled over years, becoming little more than a slight discomfort.

The closed door into the building itself was a sobering reminder that I wasn't actually inside the building yet. The handle turned, and the door began to open. Unfortunately it was almost immediately blocked by something on the other side. I gave a few pushes along the handle side of the door to feel out where it was being blocked. The obstruction was around chest height; that means it's either an interior deadbolt or a hasp and padlock. The amount of give led me to believe it was the latter. 

I checked each of the windows on the porch; they were all locked and wood-blocked. I went back to the door which had some give as I mentioned. I pulled the door shut, then pushed again with a bit of force. I could feel the hasp beginning to give, so once more I pulled the door nearly shut, and put all my weight behind my shoulder for one last bump. Finally the screws gave out and the door swung open. 

The inside of the building was as remarkable as I had hoped. There were stained glass windows all throughout the complex. They had been removed from the chapels, but even without them those spaces were still magnificent. Out of all the large monastery buildings throughout New Jersey I've had the pleasure of documenting, this was one of the finest.

I spent about an hour wandering around the building before plotting my exit. I checked on security from one of the upper floors, and noticed from where they were sitting I should be able to walk out that open gate from earlier without them noticing me. And even if they did see me, I was on the way out anyway. My other option was to wait for the sun to go down, which would leave me walking alone back to the street where I left my car in the dark.  It wasn't a very difficult decision.

I waited a few weeks to see what would happen with the building. Occasionally demolition projects will stall or slow down significantly, but not this one. The historic monastery was quickly reduced to rubble. Surprisingly, despite multiple articles discussing the impending destruction, I didn't end up seeing any other photos of the complex. I'm extremely glad I managed to get inside and document the space. 

The space where the monastery once stood will go on to serve the hospital as a parking lot. Another ridiculous loss for the historic landscape of Camden. 

American Strip Steel

Passaic Avenue in Kearny looks much different than it did at the turn of the century. Factories and machine shops used to tower over both sides of the street. Those industries have since died out and made way for cookie-cutter retail and tacky, high density housing. One such factory that was recently demolished was the American Strip Steel Company. 

American Strip Steel was founded by Newark Entrepenuer LeRoy Schecter. Schecter had just returned home after fighting in World War II. After a brief stint working in the local steel mills he founded his own rolling mill just up river from the city in Kearny.

After a few decades, Schecter noticed that one of the pinch points in his operation was having to rely on outside trucking firms to move his goods around. The mill had a shoreline crane to load barges and was adjascent to a freight railway, but fright was losing out to truck transportation as more and more lines across the country closed and consolidated. This led Schecter to found Norbert Trucking in 1965. 

Kearny experienced the same heavy blows to domestic production that much of the country faced as the decades passed. The Aluminum Bat Factory to the north had been shuttered, as had the Clark Thread Mill to the south. Despite this American Strip was thriving. Things were going so well they began branching out to fill other niches.

In 1989 the company started manufacting metal studs under the name Ware Industries. Ware then purchased the Marino company four years later, rebranding themselves Marino-Ware. 

The Passaic Avenue Industrial corridor was beginning to become a nuicense to the town of Kearny. They declared the strech "an area in need of redevelopment". This allowed them to rezone the area for high density and grant special tax incentives so developers can make a ton of money rebuilding the properties. 

Most of the old industrial buildings were swiftly demolished. American Strip Steel, however, managed to hang on just a bit longer. It wasn't until the 2020's that American Strip had finally left Kearny. They moved to the large Marino-Ware compound in South Plainfield. 

At this point their old buildings stood out a bit like a sore thumb among the equally unappealing "peel and stick" style apartments. The oginal American Strip Steel Buildings were eventually demolished in the early 2020s. Workers moved slowly to salvage some of the overhead gantry cranes that were built into the structure, but by 2023 the buildings were entirely wiped away.

The site is currently being reworked to accomidate the new buildings that will rise where American Strip Steel once stood. Hopefully they pay some sort of homage to what once stood there, as the story is such a quintessentially American one. Only time will tell.