Village Hall

Downtown South Orange is one of the last places one would expect to find a large vacant building. Despite this I kept driving past the old Village Hall and noticed it was falling into disrepair. One day I decided to park and investigate.

Source

The gorgeous tudor building with its looming clock tower and German half timber styling is arguably the most iconic structure in the bustling downtown. 

It was designed by E. K. Rossiter, who was best known for his work designing homes for the wealthy. The building originally functioned as offices and a courthouse. It opened in 1894, 25 years after the township was incorporated. 

In 1975 the building was added to the NJ Register of Historic Places. A year later it made it to the National Register. It seems that the space was vacated around 2010, when a federal grant was issued to restore the building. Work stopped after the interior was almost entirely gutted, and the structure stayed that way for nearly a decade. 

Work finally began again in 2019 to restore the building and open a restaurant inside. The restoration is full swing, and the restaurant is expected to open later this year. 

South Orange Water Works

Pumping stations are a fairly rare utility to come across, especially abandoned ones. Thats why I was so surprised to find out there was a second one right near the old Campbells Pond station. This one, however, retained all it's equipment.

Built in 1912, ths building was the pump house for the village of South Orange water works. It is roughly the same size as the Campbell's Pond pump house, but without the iconic chimney. There isn't any architect I can find listed for the project, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find it had been drawn up by the local firm of Hurd & Sutton. H&S are famous for designing the iconic red brick buildings of the Overbrook Hospital in Cedar Grove around the same time. The pumphouse bears a number of architectural similarities to the buildings there. 

An envirmental assessment performed around 2013 recommended demolishing the pumphouse to help restore the natural flood plane of the area. Fortunately no work had begun on that yet by 2024. 

I'm sure the building will eventually be demolished, but it's still neat to know that there were once two abandoned pumping stations so close by in Essex County.