The former Community Church was once a bustling place. But when the church saw its congregation and funds wane, it closed. The building, which fell into disrepair after being left vacant for years, is poised for a renewal. The city took the title to the 22,872-square-foot building and parking lot in foreclosure and is now looking for someone to redevelop it. Long before Community Church, it was PSP Church. Built in 1875, it soon became one of Trenton's largest and most prestigious congregations. But as its predominantly white members aged and moved to the suburbs, attendance plunged. When the church closed its doors in 1993, it was unclear if the spacious sanctuary would ever again house religious services.
Showing posts with label NJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NJ. Show all posts
July 13, 2018
The PSP Church
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January 24, 2016
Palmer Sucks Estate (Rutherfurd-Stuyvesant Estate)
Traveling along County Road 517 in Allamuchy, past the verdant rolling fields of the rural countryside, it’s not hard to imagine why this area was given the name Tranquility. If you turn off the main road at the old 18th century country church graveyard you will find yourself on a rough, pot holed back road. Before long the cracked asphalt will give way to gravel and then dirt. There are expansive farm fields on your right a forested mountain rises up on you left.
Then you’ll see something unexpected at the side of the road, just a few feet into the woods––two ten-foot tall concrete pillars, and between them hang two rusted iron gates, still swinging back and forth on their ancient hinges. Anyone could tell that this impressive gate must have at one time been an entryway to a very grand place. What you might not have realized though, is that the broken road you have been traversing was once actually the driveway for that grand place.
The road, now only open at one end to cars and not much more than a hiking path at the other, is Stuyvesant Road and at one time it led to one of the most impressive estates in New Jersey, if not all of America––Tranquility Farms. Today the land is part of Allamuchy Mountain State Park, but long before it was parkland the vast tract belonging to one of the country’s oldest and wealthiest families. In centuries past the weedy trail that now leads into forest once led to the ancestral home of the Rutherfurd-Stuyvesant family.
The Rutherurd-Stuyvesants were direct descendants of Peter Stuyvesant, or more accurately, Pieter or Petrus Stuyvesant (1592-1672), who was the last Dutch colonial Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch territory between the Delaware Bay and the Connecticut River (including what is now New Jersey) until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664.
If your curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to venture through that ominous looking gate you will find yourself walking along the meandering carriage path deeper into the woods. You will soon see the remnants of stone walls, bridges and dams, that once led the way up to the old mansion, which was originally built in the late 1700’s. If you continue on this course you may just find some intriguing––some might even say shocking––surprises await you there.
Rutherfurd-Stuyvesant Estate Today
In the late 1960’s the State bought land for Interstate 80, splitting the Rutherford-Stuyvesant estate in two and separating Tranquility and Allamuchy farms with an eight lane interstate super-highway. In the 1970s the State purchased the Allamuchy Mountain sections of the estate with Green Acres bond funds. According to the Village of Allamuchy Parks and Recreation web site, “The mansion burned to the ground in 1959 and was bulldozed under and the remaining farm buildings are completely covered with trees, brush, etc. and the area is definitely not safe or pleasant to roam around.”
Today if you go exploring the park looking for the ruins of the old mansion all you will find are about a half dozen outbuildings scattered around in the woods throughout the property. These consist of farmhouses, barns, sheds and the like––all being in extremely deteriorated condition, though still quite beautiful in their Carpenter Gothic architecture. Beautiful, that is, if you can disregard one very disturbing characteristic about them. The extant building are completely covered with graffiti profanity, which has been meticulously scrawled on just about ever square inch of available wall space, doors, ceilings and floors, inside and outside the decrepit wooden structures. We have no clue as to who is responsible for this defacing, but it seems that it is all the handiwork of a single obsessed individual––an individual with a LOT of time on his or her hands. Even stranger is the fact that all of the vulgarities seem to be directed at another specific person––someone named Mark.
The smutty insults are ubiquitous in all the building still standing, some of which are in such a state of decay that the writer must have risked life and limb to accomplish their slanderous task. The handwritten multi-colored messages rail against Mark and his mother, in an overwhelmingly repetitive torrent of curses, bodily function references and sexually explicit jabs. The diatribe is omnipresent throughout the buildings, carefully lettered line after line on kitchen cabinets and tiles, windowpanes, staircases and furniture. If it wasn’t so revolting, one might be compelled to feel a sense of admiration for the dedication that the draftsman put into this insane project. One can only imagine the long hours they must have spent all alone in these creepy dilapidated houses painstakingly considering each nuanced rant until they came up with just the perfect poetic line––like “LICK MY HINEY HOLE.”
Today there is a commercial farm in operation named Tranquillity Farms (spelled with two L’s) across the road from the old Rutherford-Stuyvesant Estate property on CR 517 in Allamuchy. We’re told that descendants of the Rutherfurd family can still be found working there. Many a deceased Stuyvesant and Rutherfurd can be found resting in peace in the expansive family plots at Tranquility Cemetery, which is located nearby. And perhaps they are better off there, because if they saw what has become of their once grand estate, it would surely kill them.
Info Via Weird NJ...
January 6, 2013
Cedar Cliff Nursing Home
Cedar Cliff was opened in 1929 as a tuberculosis sanitarium.
In Two Thousand & Nine Construction of
the new wing at the county nursing home is now finished and awaiting final
safety inspection by the state. Should the building pass the inspection,
residents are expected to begin moving into the wing within four to six weeks.
The new facility, which has been under construction for three years, is
meant to replace two Depression-era buildings that are overcrowded, dank, and
cheerless. The goal has been to bring all of 342 current residents under one roof
and to create enough space so that the Nursing Home can expand the number of
beds to 406.
Cedar Cliff provides both long-term and short-term care for both the
indigent elderly and people with a variety of disabilities, including Multiple Sclerosis.
In the old buildings, some residents are currently living four to a room
and sharing community bathrooms that are not accessible to the handicapped;
such residents must be assisted onto toilets. The dining room is a cramped,
drab place, with room for about a half-dozen card tables with metal folding
chairs.
By contrast, the residence rooms in the new wing are bright and
pastel-colored and will be occupied by no more than two people per room. Each
room has its own wheelchair-accessible bathroom and the beds are separated by a
wall, which allows a resident to control the temperature on their side of the
room. The dining room is now a big, wide-open space that invites residents to
congregate.
As for the Old Building, The Fate is Unknown.
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