Going ... Going ... (12 pix)

I have watched the demolition of the enormous, abandoned Charles F. Guyon, Inc., industrial building at Cape May Street and Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard,* which was the first building you came to on crossing the Jackson Street Bridge from the Ironbound over the Passaic into Harrison. I intersperse in the following commentary, pictures of that demolition at various stages of progress. Some are only subtly different for being taken only a few days apart, from the same vantage point on the New York-bound platform of the Harrison PATH station. First, an overview, as the building looked September 25th, when I first noticed gaps in the roof.

I'm not clear on what the Charles F. Guyon company was, but find it described in a New York Times wedding announcement as "an industrial pipe distributor in Harrison, N.J." I think the young man I met while taking pix of the Newark Public Library's main branch at nite said it made automotive or aircraft parts. An article about the groundbreaking ceremonies for construction of the Red Bull Soccer Stadium nearby described the building as a "pipefitting distribution site".

The picture above shows a closer view of the initial openings in the roof. The foto below focuses on the central portion of the wider view to ease comparison with the other fotos below.

The three fotos above depict the site on September 25th. That below, on September 27th.

Now October 4th.

The MetroCenter development is apparently costing Harrison dearly. One online letter to the editor claims that the town had to come up with $50 million in bonds while the billionnaire developers contributed only $30 million. Consider the uproar about Newark's spending $210 million on the Newark Arena, then consider that Harrison had a population in 2000 of 14,424 and was still losing population, down to 14,060 in 2005 (a 2.5% decline in five years). Housing is to be part of the MetroCenter development, so maybe some population increase will arise from it. But if something goes awry with the MetroCenter development, a mere 14,000 residents could be left holding the bag for $50 million in debt, a per-capita share of $3,571. By contrast, Newark's per-capita share of the cost of our Arena is $700. Hopefully both projects will succeed and revitalize the entire area.

The foto above was taken October 12th. That below, October 18th.

October 24th.

In researching this blog entry, I chanced to find the answer to something I had been wondering about. When I was a child, and lived in Palisades Park (Bergen County), we drove to my grandmother's house in West Allenhurst (Monmouth County) via the Turnpike. As we passed over the Passaic, we saw a huge collapsible natural-gas storage tank to the left of the view of Downtown Newark, but in recent years I haven't seen it, and couldn't figure out where it was, or had been. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, I was inclined to spend the money on a Turnpike fare to see if it was still there and I had somehow missed it.

Foto above, October 26th. The foto below shows the dramatic change that had occurred by November 1st. The entire building (well, such as remained) had fallen over onto its side. That's why it is so much shorter than it had been a week before.)

Today I discovered that the big open area between the PSE&G facility near the Harrison PATH station and the river, where the soccer stadium is to be built, is the very place the tank had stood, before it was demolished over a decade ago. Now I know — and I saved a buck or two on a Turnpike fare.

Above, November 9th.
Gone!
November 21st.

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* Frank E. Rodgers was the longest-serving mayor in U.S. history. He served 48 years as Harrison's mayor, 24 two-year terms running from 1947 to 1995.