Eastside High School

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Woodrow Wilson School opened on the east side of Camden in 1930. The 29,300 square foot structure was actually built as a middle school, but it switched to a high school curriculum in 1933. 

The building itself was an interesting blend of gothic and art deco. The exterior of the school building was a stylish buff brick lightly decorated with limestone accents. The front doors were recessed behind three large lancet arches. Above the central lancet was a limestone carving of the state seal. Inside the hallways have tall ceilings and walls adorned with distinctively dark grey marble slabs. These corridors wind their way around an interior open air courtyard which allows natural light to fill the halls. The main interior architectural highlight for me was the large auditorium on the left side of the building. 

It wasn't until the 1960s that the large modern addition was built on the back of the school. The highlight of the new building was a massive gymnasium building. 

More classroom space was added a decade later along 31st st, which was the last major improvement the building ever saw. 

Woodrow Wilsons name was rightfully dropped from the school in 2020, during a long overdue moment of reckoning for racist historical figures across the country. Afterwards the school was known as Eastside High.  

In 2022 it was announced that the school would be entirely rebuilt, just as Camden High was five years prior. I was never able to get inside the old CHS before it was leveled, despite a few attempts. This one wasn't going to get the best of me. The building finally closed for good in 2024.

After nearly 20 years of exploring I've developed a strong sense of intuition with regards to timing and the best way to get inside different abandoned buildings. Eastside High was a tough one though. The first few times I drove around the building it didn't look like anyone had been messing with it. I kept my eye on the School Development Authorities website waiting for a demo date. Shortly after it was announced I made my way down south. I knew there was a dead end street that looked like it would be a decent place to get through the fence. Unfortunately for me there were two police officers sitting in their cars out front. 

East Camden isn't as tough as other parts of the city, and in the last decade the police have made enormous strides in repairing trust with the citizens. Calls to 911 are being answered and responded to swiftly. The sun was rising and I didn't have anything else lined up, so rather than burn a free day I decided to go for it. I knew I had to be fast and invisible on the approach.  Fortunately for me there was an enormous hole in the fence already. I climbed down using a couple large backhoe tires that were propped up against the wall. Since getting onto the property was so easy, I figured getting inside the building would be a breeze. However every single door and window was barricaded. Carefully I crept my way around the back of the building, through another locked fence that had a hole in it, trying every single door and window as the sun continued to rise. After noticing a new looking solar powered camera, I decided to take the L and try and come back at night. 

I got back to my car and noticed one of the police officers from out front was now driving around, looking at the property. I wasn't sure if it was just a coincidence or if I had been seen on the camera, but it certainly didn't help my nerves. When I came back that same night, those backhoe tires I had used to climb down were on the other side of the locked gate. I told myself it was probably just another coincidence. Through the second fence I went, back to a door that seemed like my best bet. Sure enough, the door opened up and I slid in. 

I was inside a locker room area for the sports fields out back. Unfortunately it quickly became clear there was no way upstairs. Once again I had to sneak back to my car and drive all the way home thinking about what else I could do to get inside. The entire front of the building was essentially off limits, as the police were always parked there. I was road tripping out to Cleveland the following weekend, so there was no way I was going to be able to try again for two weeks. It felt like they'd be so far along by then it wouldn't be worth the risk anymore. I spent more time that week thinking about Eastside than my coming trip.  

Cleveland ended up being amazing. I ran myself ragged exploring sunup to well past sundown, seeing pretty much everything I wanted to. I couldnt stop thinking about Eastside though. From where I was in Ohio, home and Camden were essentially the exact same distance. Before I even knew what was happening I was headed down 76 towards Camden, only stopping for coffee refills. 

By the time I made it, I had a new plan of approach all worked out. It pretty much depended entirely on tbe cops being busy, or at least parked further down the property than they had been. They were nowhere to be found as I made my way around the block looking for a place to park. After vaulting the fence, I rushed into the courtyard between the original building and the midcentury addition. After some creative move making, I was able to slip through a door and into the school. 

I was fairly certain I hadn't been seen, and I was also pretty sure the old cctv cameras and motion sensors were offline at this point. I just had to be mindful that those wifi cameras I had seen outside may also be somewhere inside as well. Carefully I made my way towards my main point of interest; the original 1930's auditorium. I hadn't seen any contemporary photos of it, so I was glad to see it was still in good shape. Next stop was the gym, which was actually being used by the construction crew as a home base. After a satisfying amount of time inside I packed up and headed to the exit, hoping nobody would be there waiting for me. 

Heavy machinery began ripping the building apart in June of 2025. A handful of relics were saved and will be reinstalled in the new Eastside building. As much as I hate to see a historic building get demolished, I am really glad the students are getting the brand new facility they deserve. So often these buildings aren't just old and poorly maintained, they've barely even been brought up to modern standards. This upgrade is long overdue. 

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. 

RCA Building No. 8

The Victor Talking Machine company, established in Camden in 1901, is perhaps one of the most iconic American companies of all time. They started out making phonographs and recording equipment before braching out into the new medium of radio technology. The company expanded into a large manufacturing and office complex in downtown Camden, right at the landing of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The crown jewel of the hulking Ballinger & Perot designed campus was the iconic tower adorned with D'ascenzio Studios stained glass windows depicting the company's trademark "His Masters Voice" logo. General Electric bought out VTMC in 1919 and incorporated it into their new corporation, RCA. Over the next decade they continued to expand the Camden campus, which is when the subject of this article came to be.

Source: Library of Congress 

Building 8 was constructed between 1924 and 1925. This made it one of the few buildings added after RCA had been incorporated. Despite the expansive growth operations at the massive manufacturing center began to dwindle over the next few decades, as was the case with a lot of domestic production. The beautiful D'ascenzo Company stained glass had been removed from the tower windows, and replaced with plywood before finally being replaced again with new, cheaper glass windows.  In the late 1980s the first large scale demolition project began on campus. The two buildings adjacent to No. 8, buildings 1 and 18 were taken down and replaced with surface parking.

By the time General Electric formally vacated the complex in 1992 a majority of the production buildings had been demolished. That included building No. 4, which was attached to building 8. What remained were several warehouses, the generating station, building no. 8, and the iconic "Nipper" Building. The buildings were absolutely ravaged by metal thieves and vandals over the next decade. They found their way to the stained glass windows, and destroyed them. Thankfully the original glass had been removed in the late 1960s and distributed to several universities and museums. The remaining buildings were demolished one by one, The complex became a symbol for the overall deterioration of the city, visible to everyone taking the Ben Franklin into Philadelphia. 

Finally in 2002, after more than a decade of abandonment, the Nipper building was purchased by Philadelphia Developer Carl Dranoff. Work moved quick on the structure which reopened as apartments the following year. Replacement Stained Glass windows were even installed in the tower. Unfortately things almost immediately started to get ugly between the city and Dranoff. Part of the developers plans were contingent on the city doing an environmental survey on building No. 8 and taking on the ensuing cleanup. Afterwards the developer would purchase the building from the city and renovate that into lofts too. However, the city expected an initial loan of 3 million dollars to have been paid off first. Dranofff saw things differently. 

After years of fighting between the city and the developer, The Nipper building was put on the market in 2014. A Colorado based company attempted to purchase the apartment building, but the city refused to transfer the 30 year tax abatement they had granted to Dranoff to the new buyers. Therefore they backed out of the sale. Dranoff then sued the city, claiming they sabatoged the sale on purpose. All this time building no. 8 continued to languish, casting a tall shadow over downtown Camden. 

The highly visible Building no. 8 had long been considered an eyesore, but that was made worse in 2020 when the building was struck by lightning. Large pieces of the facade fell down to the street below, causing the city to erect a fence around the perimeter of the high rise. The following year a superior court judge ruled that the dispute would go in front of a jury. After two more years of backroom deal making a settlement was finally announced in 2023 that would see the developer receiving a small payout, and the city gaining redevelopment rights to Building No. 8. It was around this time that I visited the structure.

I had been getting rejected at everything I had been trying to access one morning in the city. I decided I had better stop pushing my luck and move on to another city. However, I remembered how accessible the old RCA building that stood downtown looked. The structure was unremarkable, but had a fantastic view of the bridge and Philly from the roof. After taking a moment to smoke a bowl in the car, I headed across the parking lot alone to the hulking shadow of a building. I could tell from the well worn path that the building was both a popular place to hang out for taggers, but also a shelter for some local unhoused folks. Not wanting to intrude on anyones space, I was extremely conscious to be as quiet as possible as I worked my way towards the stairs and began the climb up.

After about a half an hour I decided to get on with my day, so I climbed back down the stairs and headed to my car. I never did end up crossing paths with anyone inside, which was a bit of a relief. Currently the building is still standing derelict, and I'm not sure if it will ever end up being converted. Whatever happens I'll be sure to update the post.