6 Charney Place

6 Charney Place in Alpine was a beautiful wooded lot which had a sinlge modest house on it since the mid 1960s. 

The home dated to a time when development was first booming throughout the town. The newly opened Palisades Interstate Parkway turned Alpine from a small, out of the way town to a NYC suburb. 

Roads were being carved through the mountains for the first time, with small to medium sized contemporary homes popping up alongside them.

The real estate market in Alpine absolutely exploded over the next several decades. Celebrities and other wealthy people snapped up the cheapest homes they could to demolish them and rebuild custom mega mansions. 

By the mid 2020's it wasn't just the smaller houses getting leveled. Several multi million dollar mansions came down during this time, including homes at 19 Marie Major and 14 Autumn Terrace. 

Sure enough the home was demolished in 2025, roughly a year after being sold for $2.25 mil. The new home being built on the property is ugly as sin and the entire lot has been stripped.bare. I'm just glad I got to experience the property as it was. 

Thanks for reading.

GAF Wayne

Up until the mid 1960s the tract of land at the confluence of Ratzer & Alps roads was quiet and largely undeveloped. In 1964 a small racial uprising in Paterson drove flocks of white residents into the hills of the neighboring towns, bringing new commercial interest to an area that didnt make sense beforehand. So, in true New Jersey fashion, a large industrial chemical laboratory was built right in the middle of this peaceful woodland.

The history of the property at 1361 alps is a little murky. Several different companies formed to create GAF right around the time the complex was built. However, they didn't formally take that name until the late 1960s, several years after the buildings were finished. By the point of reincorporation they had been a major producer of movie film as well as roofing products and other adhesives. 

A few structures and improvements were added onto the campus throughout the 1970's, including a large office building. In 1983 a man named Samual Heyman became the head of the company. The following year he moved their headquarters from Manhattan to the Alps Road location. 

Over the next several decades the company realligned their priorities, focusing more heavily on roofing materials. Their iconic Timberline brand of shingles are sold throughout the country, dressing the tops of millions of US homes. 

As time went on the comapany continued consolidating operations further. By 2015 it was announced they were moving to Parsippany, and the Wayne heaquarters would be vacated.

When the buildings went dark the nearly 100 acre property swiftly began reverting back to nature. The driveways and walking paths were swallowed by overgrowth, while a sole security gaurd was stationed at the front gate. 

The large buildings were entirely invisible from the main road, which allowed them a bit of time to decay naturally despite thousands of cars passing each day.

Eventually the bored Wayne youth started spreading the word about the complex. The presence of security on the grounds kept the damage mostly to the edge of the property, but that could only last so long. 

In 2021 the land was sold to a developer who planned a housing community for the site. Around the same time I decided to head back to the grounds to see how far I could get.

The complex consisted of eleven buildings of various size and purpose. The main point of interest for me was Building #4, the Pilot Plant. 

At the time I thought it was a steam generating station, but it turned out to be another laboratory building with bigger equipment. 

I spent the next few hours walking through each of the buildings on campus. They were mostly all dark, and the offices were all extremely moldy and nasty inside. 

Building #4 proved to be the most interesting by far. I even ended up popping back inside to make sure I saw it all. 

Several years passed before any work happened on the property. That changed suddenly in 2025 when the land was entirely stripped of plant life. By the following year demolition of the buildings was well underway, with the entire site bare by May. 

Despite numerous instances of fuel and solvent spills on the site, an expert hired by the developer announced all necessary remediation had taken place and the contaminants found in the groundwater were below acceptable levels. It seems like the largest ecological disaster in the sites history is the clearcutting of dozens of acres of trees from the property. Ill be curious to see how the runoff is managed since the property is significantly sloped and positioned above a dense neighborhood. Only time will tell.

As always, thanks for learning with me. 

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. 

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. 

St. Joseph's Village/Bergen County Healthcare Center

St Joseph's Home for Dependent Children was a large orphanage that once stood on Piermont Road in Rockleigh. The complex of small, one story brick buildings was built in 1958 on 48 acres of was then undeveloped land.

Source: TFPNJ Postcard Archive

Almost the entire campus was built at the same time. It was known as St. Joseph's Village. The village was founded by the Newark Sisters of St. Joseph as a replacement for their orphanage in Englewood Cliffs which was destroyed by a fire on April 1st, 1953.

Source: Palisades Interstate Park Facebook page

The new facility had a large central chapel, a gymnasium/auditorium, eight dormitories, a food services building, and a few other ancillary structures. The entire campus was connected by long corridors like many other facilities of its time. 

The last major improvement was a modern structure all the way at the west end of the campus. This was the only building that didn't get a corridor connecting it to the rest of the complex.

St Joseph's Village operated until June of 1973, when the sisters decided it was too expensive to maintain and operate the campus. The property was snapped up by Bergen County who reopened the facility as a nursing home. 

The nursing home had a rather mundane history, providing decent care for the 110 people who lived there at peak times. Still, the center endured high costs which weren't fully reimbursed by the residents. In addition, cuts to Medicaid at the time were poised to cost the center another $300,000 anually. An article in 2012 claimed the county was considering selling the facility, which could have caused severe turmoil among the residents. Thankfully they didn't go through with it. 

The facility was still open in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic rattled the nation. As a precaution, the administration stopped admitting new residents and and initiated strict pandemic policies. Despite their efforts there was at least one outbreak. Five patients ended up dying, and over 100 other staff and patients contracted the virus acording to a September 2022 Report. Many other nursing facilities that had outbreaks fared far worse, but the losses were still significant. 

A press release from the county went out on July 16th, 2021 stating that they intended to close the center. They cited financial problems among other factors, and pointed to multiple other nursing home closures throughout the state to back that up. The families were able to relocate their loved ones, and the county was able to find jobs for the whole staff at Bergen Regional Hospital and the on site nursing unit. 

Demolition began quietly in 2023. When I first rolled up to document the complex they were already in the process of abatment. After getting inside I discovered that the western dorms had actually been reused as a school near the end of the centers life. The school ended up painting a bunch of neat murals throughout the corridors.

I could tell by the aerial view of the complex that I was getting near the gym building. I was happy to find a large stage when I walked into the room, as well as a rock climbing wall of all things. Unfortunately some of the local kids had beaten me inside, where they managed to make a huge mess. They even set a fire in the center of the room. 

They had built a wall inside the main corridor to seperate the school from the nursing home. As a result I actually had to leave the building and find a window to climb through. As I dusted myself off I was thrown off gaurd by the lights still being on. It made the rest of my visit to the complex a little more exciting. There was a single security gaurd driving around, but they never seemed to notice I was there. 

By early 2024 the entire facility was gone. I'm not sure what the county is planning to do with the land. Considering the size and existing infrastructure I wouldn't be surprised to see it become a housing development.

 I don't get up to the area often, so I'll probably have to wait until Google maps updates to find out for sure. Another New Jersey Healthcare facility gone without a trace.