B.L. England Generating Station

Every summer my family would join thousands of others on the long trek from the suburbs of North Jersey to Wildwood. The journey always seemed to take forever, but I knew when we hit the Great Egg Harbor Bridge our drive was almost over. It wasn't really the bridge that I remember using as a landmark though; it was the old B. L. England Generating Station on the shores of Beesley's Point that truly served as a welcome sign.

Power generation began at the 350 acre site in 1961, when Atlantic City Energy Co. put four small diesel generators into service. Demand for electricity in the area was growing though, so construction began swiftly on a brand new coal powered unit which was brought online just a year later. The new coal burning unit was far more powerful than the old diesel generators, with a maximum output of 129 megawatts. By 1964 a second coal unit was completed, giving the station a 285MW potential.

Though the England station was among a dozen others in the state burning coal, it did so slightly differently. Most generating stations that came before B.L. England used pulverized coal in their boilers. The England station utilized "Cyclone Boilers", a Babcock & Wilcox invention in which larger chunks of solid fuel are dispersed in a circular fashion. This allowed the fuel to burn up just as efficiently, but with less preperation. It also allowed the England station to burn a small percentage of alternative fuel with coal, in this case scrap tires. One of the downsides of using these larger unrefined chunks of fuel was the amount of waste leftover. As much as 70,000 tons of slag material had to be carted off site every year. It was so cumbersome the plant had to be shut down bi-annually in order to clean out all the waste. 

A decade later the facility was expanded once again. Another 165 megawatt oil burning unit brought the total potential of the plant up to 450mw. Unfortunately with each expansion came new problems. The generating process creates recondensed waste water, which is often scalding hot. The waste water was being discharged into the harbor without being cooled, causing a variety of ecological issues. To help remedy this, a massive concrete cooling tower was added to the site. The near-boiling waste water was pumped into the tower and air cooled before finally ending up in the harbor. 

By 1987 the three original chimneys were chopped down and a new modern one was added. The new stack included scrubber equipment which allowed sulfur dioxide to be removed from the exhaust gas. Since the new chimney was going to stand out so much, the company decided to try and mimic the design of a lighthouse. I've never seen anything quite like it at the dozens of other generating stations I have visited. Unfortuneately the scrubbers weren't doing enough to keep the plant off the radar of the EPA. In 2006 the plant was cited for violating the clean air act. This meant they either needed to install expensive pollution mitigation systems, or close. Atlantic City Energy decided instead to sell the plant to the BL Holdings company for just over 12 million dollars.

By 2013 Unit 1 was brought offline, and BL Holdings planned to convert the other two units to natural gas. They asked the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for permission to build a new pipeline to accomidate the conversion, much to the chagrin of locals. The group initially approved the plan, which would have seen a pipeline going through the Pinelands. However, public utilities are banned from the Pinelands, which is a federally protected national reserve. After some back and forth the pipeline was initially approved by the Pinelands Commision. The locals weren't having it though. The Pinelands Preservation Alliance appealed the ruling, and shortly afterwards the New Jersey Sierra Club and Environment New Jersey filed a lawsuit against the Pinelands Commision. The appellate court ruled against the commission, and found that their president didnt have the authority to approve the pipeline. The Commision voted again a year later, this time in favor with a 9 - 5 split. The NJ Sierra Club and Environment NJ were quick to appeal the ruling. The plant was already scheduled to be shut down for the conversion, but instead it continued to burn coal until 2019. By then the owners of the plant had enough of the legal trouble. Non renewable power generation had become extremely unpopular in New Jersey, and pipelines themselves had become a national hot button issue. On May 1st 2019 the plant officially went offline. 

It was a calm morning as we arrived in the quiet town of Beesley's Point to document the power plant. The warm air was filled with the nostaglic and unmistakable smell of the Jersey Shore. We walked along the old rail spur which once brought coal to the facility, now overgrown and rusted. 

It wasn't long before we were at the base of the massive structure, searching for a staircase. We spent about an hour exploring the building as folks began to wake up. Boats filled the harbor and fisherman were casting reels, it was time for us to leave before someone noticed us and called the police. As we departed it was clear to us there was never going to be another use for this old outdated generating station. Unspurisingly, demolition was announced shortly after our visit. The first major step towards demolition was remediating all the hazardous materials from the plant. In 2022 the first real visible act of demolition took place when the iconic cooling tower was imploded. Over the course of the next year the generating equipment and valuable materials were removed, and on April 21st 2023 the boilers were imploded. It was both impressive and disgusting watching the old steel structure disappear into a cloud of smoke and coal dust. In some ways it was a fitting end for a monument to the most dirty and destructive form of power generation on this planet. 

At the time of publishing, only the iconic chimney and a few ancillary structures remain on the site. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for the property. I still haven't been over the Great Egg Harbor Bridge since the demolition, but I'm sure the next time I do it will be strange not seeing B.L. England for the first time in my life. 

St Marys Hospital

Source

The first St Mary's hospital in Passiac originally began operations in 1895 in the old St. Nicholas Church rectory. It wasn't until three years later that their first standalone building opened along Pennington Ave. It was around this same time that the Passaic General Hospital was founded a few blocks away on Boulevard. 

The Forgotten Past Historic Postcard Archive

Within a few decades the hospital was already faced with a need to expand. The NYC hospital architecture firm of Crowell, Lewis, and Wick was hired to design the new structure. C, L & W had already gained notoriety in the region, having designed buildings at other nearby hospitals like Orange Memorial. The most notable feature of the new wing of St. Marys was definitely the beautiful chapel tucked behind main elevation on Pennington Ave. 

In the 1950s another new wing was added to the hospital along Aycrigg Ave. The newest section was joined to the left side of the original building. The structure matched the elevation of the existing portions, but grew much larger along Aycrigg to keep up with the slope of the street.  

Around this same time a new nurses building was built across the street. The walls were made of the same red brick, with matching limestone details. By 1966 several homes at the corner of Pennington and Randolph were demolished to make room for another new wing.

In the 1970's St. Mary's underwent a major construction project which totally changed the the campus. The boiler house and adjascent staff dormitory were replaced with yet another large new wing with a new emergency room entrance along Randolph Ave. The original hospital building, which up until this point had maintained a great deal of historic integrity, was also mostly demolished. The front section along Pennington was gutted to bare brick and the decorative roofline was flattened to match the wings on either side.

The hospital continued to provide critical care to the neighborhood it was growing alongside. Unfortately it wasn't long before the same problems that plagued many other hospitals in the state began to affect the three healthcare facilities in Passaic. St Mary's was in the best financial position of the three, so they actually bought out the other two struggling hospitals. The Beth Israel hospital along Parker Avenue was shuttered and quickly demolished. The Pennington Avenue campus officially closed shortly after the merger in 2007. The psych unit stayed open for two more years, but also eventually shut down as well. St Mary's moved their operations to the old Passaic General campus, leaving their original campus totally vacant.

 

Several television shows used the hospital for filming after operations moved to Passaic General. Most notably was the show Mercy, which filmed there in 2008. The show was also used for something relating to Batman, as an interior door displayed the name "Wayne Enterprises".

The first time I visited the hospital was back in 2010. I had heard about the place through a friend I was exploring in Newark with. We decided to take the ride up Route 21 and saw what was going on with St Mary's. I left my bag in the car, not expecting we were going to be able to get inside. Suprisingly we actually found a door pretty quickly. I was annoyed that I didn't have my camera with me, and back then phone cameras were really not capable of shooting in low light. We spent a good amount of time inside wandering the place top to bottom. I was really excited to return with my gear to document it properly. I was too young to drive myself though, so I wasn't able to get back very quickly.

Shortly afterwards my friends returned, only to be met inside by several police officers. Unbeknownst to anyone the caretaker had been living inside the hospital. The ordeal they went to scared me off for several years. I did keep coming back though, checking all the possible ways inside. Every time I was sure the caretaker was gone, he would end up suprising me. One time I was in the chapel courtyard and he rolled up on me and told me to get lost. A few times he would bang on windows when he would see me snooping, and at one point he even had a flashlight and a megaphone which he used to scare me off. I was finally able to return around a decade later, and by then a lot had changed. 

The entire inside of the building had been completely gutted. The only room that really managed to survive was the old chapel. We were really glad though, since the room was quite pretty. Unfortunately all the of the murals had been removed, and the two stained glass windows from behind the altar space had been moved over to the new St Mary's. Construction progressed slowly, with most of the areas having been renovated. Unfortunately in 2021 the last surviving piece of the original 1897 building was demolished. This separated the the Crowell, Lewis, & Wick wing from the 1950s addition. All Catholic imagery was stripped from the facade, owing to the heavy orthodox Jewish population in the neighborhood. 

So many New Jersey hospitals closed and were demolished in the last two decades. It's refreshing to see one find a productive new use instead of meeting that same fate. While this certainly won't be the last chapter of the hospitals story, as they continue to operate Passaic General as St. Mary's. Hopefully this will allow the memory of the Pennington Avenue campus to survive for many years to come.

Woodbridge State School

The middle part of the 20th century was tough on the mental health care landscape of New Jersey. The existing hospitals and state schools were bursting at the seams and constantly expanding. 

Source

It was determined that a new State School was needed in the northern part of the state to alleviate overcrowding at other nearby facilities

Construction began in 1963 for the new Woodbridge State School. The new buildings were to be built on 68 acres of farmland near the East Jersey State Prison in Avanel. By 1965 the facility was open and accepting new residents.

The buildings themselves were an architecturally unremarkable cluster of hexagon shaped dormitories. The infirmary building was slightly different. It was asymmetrical with 3 sides longer than the other. The building also had a nice central courtyard which allowed natural light to fill the entire structure. 

Woodbridge operated without much notoriety throughout the years. In my research I couldn't find much about the day to day operations of the center. There were never any major new construction projects or improvements. At some point in the 1970s the facility changed its name from Woodbridge State School to Woodbridge Developmental Center. I imagine this was done as a result of the 1972 release of Giraldo Rivera's exposé on the horrid conditions of the Willowbrook State School. Willowbrook was on Staten Island, just a few miles away from Woodbridge.

A 2012 report recommended closing the facility as well as the North Jersey Developmental Center over the course of the next 5 years. This created outrage with the employees, the nurses unions and the families of the residents. They were all again horrified when then- governor Chris Christie announced that the plan was going to be accelerated. All residents were to be relocated within the next two years.

A Courier Post article from June of 2014 describes the chaos families were thrown into trying to make arrangements for their family members. It was bad enough that the facility was closing in a few months. The North Jersey Developmental Center closing first just added insult to injury. This created a huge void in local beds for the displaced residents of WDC.

Despite the outrage the center finally closed on December 11th, 2014. Roughly 150 patients were moved and over 600 employees were laid off. The displaced residents were moved down to either the Vineland or Woodbine Developmental Center down in the Pinelands. The two closer facilities were already at capacity, likely due to the June closure of NJDC. 

The campus sat dormant for several years before the wheels started to move on redevelopment. 54 acres of land was purchased by the town of Avanel in 2018 for $5 Million. That was about 80% of the parcel's total square footage. Shortly afterwards Morris Industrial won the bid to redevelop the property. They announced plans for a large warehouse and distribution center on the grounds and a neighboring parcel, with all existing structures being demolished.

Demolition took place in two stages. The western half of the campus was wiped out in 2020. It took another two years for the work to completely wrap up at the east side of the facility. 

It probably won't be too long before lots of folks have forgotten about the center. It was so hidden from view and operated so quietly that I imagine a good amount of people in town never even knew it was there in the first place. I'm very glad I was able to document what I did of the grounds and buildings so those who seek out the story of the Woodbridge State School can see and read about what once was.

Hurstmont Mansion

Source

I'm sure many readers of this blog will recognize Hurstmont. The stunning mansion stood just off of Route 202 south in Harding, right before Tempe Wick Road. It was hard not to take one's eyes off the road to catch a passing glimpse of the once grand manor. This article is going to take a dive into the history of the stately home, one of the greatest residential buildings ever constructed in Morris County. 

The building we remember passing was actually not the first home on the property. In fact, it wasn't even the first home on that stone foundation. The original home was constructed in 1886. The structure was short lived unfortunately, lasting just over 15 years before being ripped down and rebuilt. It took several years to complete, but eventually the handsome home we are familiar with was ready to host the Pyle family.

Stamford White of the famed McKim, Mead and White architecture firm was responsible for designing the mansion. White was actually in the process of designing his own home at the time, and included many of the same flourishes at Hurstmont. 

The home had several beautiful sweeping staircases, carved stone mantles, decorative plaster ceilings, leaded glass windows, and lovely hardwood trim. The propery was so lavish it quickly graced the cover of the American Homes and Gardens June 1907 edition.

Source

The robust home could comfortably host a railroad tycoon or steel magnate. So how was it that Mr James T Pyle came into his fortune?

Quite suprisingly, Mr Pyle was a manufacturer of soaps and other household goods. While we may think of this as sort of a trivial way to get rich, in the 1800's it was anything but.

The New York based company was known as having one of the best all purpose cleaning agents around. An ad in the NY Times from 1862 exclaims "no other soap is required about the house when Pyles OK Soap is in use".

The Pyle's only occupied the home until 1925, after which it underwent a succession of different owners. Nobody did any major renovation work to the house or landscaping, so it stayed in remarkable shape. 

The home was last occupied regularly in the 1980's. I'm not sure what exactly happened to the last owners. When they left they abandoned many of their possessions inside. A write up on the VacantNJ website shows articles of clothing, furniture, and other ephemera scattered around the building's many luxurious rooms.

Hurstmont sat in this state of abandonment until 2011 when the property was sold off. An architect named Peter Dorne purchased the mansion with plans to redevelop the grounds. His plan called for the one parcel to be broken up into 4 pieces, each holding a distinct portion of the historic estate. Unfortunately, the plan also called for the mansion to be "reduced in size".

Source

Two years after the sale of the property, Peter followed through on demolishing a massive portion of the home. I'll never forget the first time I drove down that strech of 202 I thought to myself "I think this is where that mansion Vacant NJ posted is". As the mansion came into view I was extremely excited for half a second, until the demolition scene came into view. I let out a loud curse, and spread the word among the local community that the building was coming down. I had no idea that it was only supposed to be a partial demolition. I had never seen anything quite like it at the time.

Unfortunately the demolition was the only thing Mr. Dorne ever followed through on. The property continued to languish at an accelerated rate since it was now thoughtlessly ripped apart. Local kids found it to be a suitable place to take out their privileged suburban angst, kicking out the ballisturs and smashing out the leaded glass windows. By 2021 the building was deemed unsalvagable and the rest of the home was demolished.

The story of Hurstmont will always be absolutely heartbreaking. It stood so long, and despite changing hands so many times it was never tastelessly updated. Even after abandonment it continued to stand almost in a state of suspended animation for roughly 25 years. All it took was one man and his absurd redevelopment strategy to rob all future generations of this architectural treasure. Though a special case of demolition by neglect, it remains one all the same. 

The great architectural photographer Richard Nickel once said "great architecture has only two enemies, water and stupid men". Unfortunately, Hurstmont had to face both. Hopefully the ugly new dwellings will remind everyone what is at stake when we put greed before heritage.