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.

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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. 

St Michaels Hospital

The story of St Michael's Medical Center is one of the longest of all the Newark care facilities, going all the way back to 1868. At the time a rented space on Bleecker Street was being used for a hospital.  Land was purchased and a small, simple building with a chapel on Central Avenue was erected and opened in 1871.

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There was also a home on the property which was used as a temporary hospital, which is a common theme with most of the general hospitals in the region. Rumors say one of the first times Black and White folks ever marched together was during a dedication ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone for the building.

The Franciscan order who commissioned the hospital had the idea that the city would help sustain the facility. At the time the city of Newark desperately needed medical care facilities. Unfortunately the city had no interest in taking on any expense. After they decided not to be involved, local Catholics were asked to donate money to help keep the hospital operating and expanding. Donors were promised a bed in the hospital if ever necessary. The hospital advertised "130 beds open to all, without distinction of race or color" in the 1874 Newark City Directory. The need for more hospital space was increasing, so the hospital underwent a large expansion project in 1888. Renowned local architect Jeremiah O'Rourke was tasked with designing the new wing, as he was the chief architect for the Archdioece of Newark at the time. O'Rourke is better known for designing the Basillica of the Sacred Heart, but he can also be found on this blog for his work on Jersey City's St Lucy's Church.

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The new building absorbed the original structure somewhat seamlessly. Pressed tin was thrown up throughout the halls. This covered the original skylights that once lit the halls of the structure. An emergency exit was added onto the right side of the original building, capped with a peak giving the impression of a tower. Most importantly, a large chapel was incorporated into the new design. The space featured a vaulted ceiling with tight ribbing and plaster ornamentation.

The corners of the ribs were decorated with colorful stenciling. The relatively small room had the grandeur of a much larger worship space, a true testament to the skill of Jeremiah O'Rourke.

In addition to being beautiful the hospital was also developing quite a reputation by the turn of the century. The hospital claims to be the site of the first open heart surgery in the state. They also take credit for instituting the first cardiac catheter program.

The hospital wouldn't continue to grow so handsomely, however. Over the years the hospital became a mash up of different architectural styles. The mansard roof over the original structure was removed, and an extra floor was added to the structure. An art deco wing was added to the left of the O'Rourke building at some point in the 30's or 40's. By 1960 modern buildings were popping up on the property, drawing away from the beauty of the O'Rourke building. After the rebellion of 1968 property values in Newark dropped significantly, and the hospital capitalized on this by purchasing a large portion of property on the block behind the complex. Many homes were demolished, and In 1969 the most disruptive construction to date began.

A large new white building sprouted up behind the original buildings. The hospital now resembled a short T. By this point it was impossible to tell that the property used to be 2 separate blocks. A few decades later the most modern section of the hospital was built. It was around this time that hospital operations moved out of the oldest buildings on the property. The hospital chapel was deconsecrated, and the buildings were left to rot. The hospital slowly began to decline, and was shuffled around quite a bit. In 2008 Cathedral Health Services sold the building to Catholic Health East. Two years later plans were unveiled to transform the campus with a massive redevelopment, but those plans never came to fruition.

I first tried to get inside the hospital as a teenager back in 2012. I ducked into the basement with the hope that I could find a stairwell that would bring me into the now abandoned portion. My goals were dashed as a large security guard caught me almost immediately and escorted me out of the hospital. I was disappointed, but at the time the interior of the hospital was sheathed in drywall and drop ceiling so I didn't think I was missing much. I nearly forgot about the hospital until they announced that they were filing for bankruptcy protection. The hospital was then sold to Prime Healthcare, who took control of the hospital in 2016.

I tried several more times to get inside during and after the sale, finally finding a way inside shortly after the complex changed hands. I was pleased to find that the inside had been partially gutted. The ugly modernization work had been stripped away, revealing the expert craftmanship of the 1800s carpenters. The buildings had tall pressed tin ceilings and lancet doorways.

I spent the next several years visiting the hospital regularly with friends. Very few people had discovered the entrance, so my friends and I mostly had the place to ourselves. Unfortunately by late 2017 the hospital fell victim to Instagram popularity. The urban tourist crowd came through and began to destroy the building. Thankfully it didn't last too long, as redevelopment plans were approved the following year. By 2019 renovation was in full swing, and the former hospital was well on it's way to a mixed use conversion. Construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2020.

Fairview/Edgewater Tunnel

One of my favorite ways to spend spare time is by using aerial imagery to trace old railroad lines as they make their way across the country. New Jersey has hundreds of miles of abandoned right of way, stretching out across the landscape of the state like a network of veins. While following the Edgewater spur of the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway the line seems to disappear into a valley at the Fairview Cemetery. This is where the Fairview Edgwater Tunnel begins.

Construction for the subterranean passage wrapped up in 1894. Most of the span is natural stone, with brick arches at regular intervals. The mouth of the west portal is also bare stone, but is lined with concrete. The east portal has a more decorative concrete face.

The tunnel featured two portals and a single brick vent. The vent can still be seen today, looking very out of place among the houses that surround it.

The tunnel vent as seen from Google Earth.

The mile long corridor was in service for nearly a century, but eventually fell out of use. The tracks along the right of way were removed in the early 1990s, and the line was abandoned. The tunnel itself is still technically used, though not by any rail service. A natural gas line as well as a power line still run through the corridor. The natural decay has begun to take a toll on the utilities. Large chunks of rock have chipped of the walls and ceiling, occasionally landing on the lines.

There has been talk of reviving the abandoned line for light rail service, and while these notions haven't been put into place they also haven't been dismissed. For this to happen there would need to be significant repair work done on the tunnel, as the years of disuse have caused severe degradation and have brought the structural integrity of the tube into question.

I hope somebody steps in and finds a more practical use for the Fairview Tunnel soon. Its only a matter of time before the portals get sealed off and the tunnel demolishes itself.

Village School

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This small brick school building sits on a patch of land in the heart of Closter. The facility, originally built for grades K-8, was erected in a renaissance revival style in 1900, four years before the boro was officially incorporated.

The school didn't need to be large, as Closter didn't have many residents at the turn of the century. The facility opened with three classrooms and an assembly space on the top floor.

The building was supplemented several times over the years. Just 7 years after opening a matching wing was added to the building, and the structure was again enlarged in 1912 and 1921. The school was now sufficiently large enough to house high school as well as K-8. 

The largest wing was added in the middle of the century. In keeping with trends of the time, the new wing didn't look anything like the original school. The building was eventually renamed, after a naming contest in 1955 in which a girl named Vicki Mall won. She got the name from her grandmother, who mentioned that some of the older citizens of the boro referred to it as the Village. By 1996, however, the school was outdated and too small. It was shuttered by the boro and sold the following year.

The building sat vacant for more than two decades before it was purchased by a group who planned to convert it into residential units. Work began in 2018 starting with the demolition of the mid century addition. Hopefully the renovation process wraps up soon, and the school can continue to be a part of Closters history.

St Joseph's Catholic Church

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The city of Bayonne has long had a large Roman Catholic population. In the late 1800's the St Joseph's parish formed out of mostly Slovak catholics. However it wasn't until 1909 that the church in this post was constructed.

The grey stone structure stood at the corner of Avenue E and 25th street, replacing an earlier carpenter gothic building. The parish used the building until 2011, when the archdiocese of Newark chose to consolidate some of its parishes. St Joseph's folded into the new St John Paul II parish, alongside Our Lady of Mt Carmel. The new group operated out of the Mt. Carmel church.

It wasn't long before the building was occupied again, this time by a Syriac Catholic parish. They only used the church for four years, when it was once again announced that the building was to be closed as a place of worship.

2018 brought news that the site was going to be completely demolished and a new housing development was going to rise on the grounds. I grabbed my camera and headed out to the church the next day. I slipped inside and spent the next 15 minutes checking out the place by myself. The interior  of the building was architecturally unremarkable, likely the result of a fire or some other sort of cosmetic damage over the years. I decided to return the next day with my girlfriend to properly document the building.

Late in 2019 heavy machinery started eating away at the beautiful stone edifice from the back, until the 110 year old building was completely reduced to rubble. Before long there will be two ugly new residential buildings on the land, and afterwards the St Joseph's parish will be forgotten.

Orange Memorial Hospital

The hospital center in Orange dates back to 1873 when a disused firehouse on Lincoln Avenue was donated to a group looking to start a hospital. There were several hospitals a few miles away in Newark, but as the city began to grow they needed their own. Just a year after being founded, the firehouse was proving to be inefficient for caring for the sick. A home a few blocks away was rented out and became the new Orange Memorial Hospital. At this point in the late 1800's it was quite common for hospitals to function out of houses. The old Presbyterian Hospital just down Central Avenue started out the same way, as did the Elizabeth General Hospital. The Jersey City Medical Center also used houses as temporary hospital space as that campus began to develop. However, as was always the case, the hospital outgrew the houses and needed an even larger structure. In 1881 local philanthropist Joseph Whipple Stickler donated the land on South Essex Avenue for the construction of a new hospital. The following year the new structure was operational.

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In 1885 a training school was built for nurses adjacent to the new hospital building. The nurses were required to put in time at Orange Memorial as part of the program. The hospital was expanding rapidly, and a new structure called the "North Building" was built in 1906. The same year the hospital had absorbed the school, and it became the Orange Memorial Hospital School of Nursing thirteen years later. The North building quicky became crowded, and an addition was completed in 1908. North is the oldest extant building on the property, at the corner of Central Avenue and South Essex Streets.

The bolier house with its iconic chimney was built in 1912, and in 1914 the service building was built. The new structure was designed by famed NYC hospital architects Crow, Lewis, and Wick. The service building had a new kitchen, dining halls, and dormitory space for staff. This was critical as the patient population of the hospital soared to nearly 2000.

The maternity department operating out of the North Building was one of the most active parts of the complex. The hospital sought to answer the growing demand for maternity care by constructing the Bingham Building in 1920 in a colonial revivial style. The new wing was named for noted obstetrician Arthur Walter Bingham. Crow, Lewis & Wick were once again called in to design the new structure, which was intended to be able to support maternity services for the foreseeable future. Despite that, the building was already at capacity when it opened.

Two years later, the hospital began raising money to expand their campus to better serve the community. The two million dollar goal was reached before long, with a large percentage of the donations coming from city residents and staff from the hospital. A few years later, new buildings started popping up. The most notable structure from this expansion was Mary Austen Hall, which was a dormitory for the student nurses built in 1928. The original nurses residence was demolished in order to accomidate the structure.

The surgical building was erected the following year. The size of the hospital at this time construction was finished was 80,000 square feet.

In 1931 the Metcalf Foundation opened a state of the art radiological building on the campus. The foundation was also able to conduct cancer research in their new structure. Sources state that Metcalf was the only radiology department in north Jersey that would accomidate indigent patients.  The hospital had been gaining a reputation as one of the innovative and advanced medical centers in the region. The sewing department was even responsible for making doctors masks and other fabric products for the hospital.

In 1950 an additional floor was added to the service building, Bingham building, Mary Austen hall, and surgical building. The Orthopedic center was constructed in 1960. Orange Memorial Hospital had merged with the New Jersey Orthopedic Hospital two years prior, and the NJOH needed a space at the hospital. Despite being a complete departure architecturally from the rest of the colonial revival hospital, the new wing was designed by William H Crow Jr., the son of one of the original architects. The 1960's and 1970's brought a lot of change to the hospital.  In 1965, large additions were added to the tops of the surgical building and the building constructed by the Metcalf Institute. Instead of making an effort to blend the additions as was done in 1950, these new sections of building were clad in ugly red siding which brought the aesthetic value of the entire complex down. An old building along Henry Street was demolished and a new entrance was built on S. Essex Avenue. In 1975 the new "professional" building added space for doctors offices. The professional building is by far the most ugly building on the grounds.

Over the years the facility started to decline. By 1998, the hospital was purchased on the brink of bankrupcy by Cathedral Health Systems in Newark. However, they didn't take on the hospitals existing debt. In 2002 the emergency room was shut down by the state health department due to unsanitary conditions and improper cleaning of tools. Despite over a century of history serving the community, the hospital center was shuttered in 2004 after a vote by the board of directors. The buildings remained vacant, slowly deteriorating until the city of Orange was designated a "Transit Village". This label allows for increased redevelopment of vacant property through tax incentives. Around 2015 news came about that the hospital was going to be fully renovated and reborn as apartments. Before any development could occur, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. No work has been done since then. In 2019, several dead bodies were found inside the blighted building. It didn't make the news, but it did convince the city to order the building secured. Crews went around the hospital putting plywood on all the potential entrances to the crumbling complex. I sincerely hope I can soon add a happy ending to this post in the future, if the redevelopment ever happens. Until then it will stand empty as a symbol of the failure of the American healthcare system.