UPDATED! Preservation Alert: Demolition Applications Up for Review at Jersey City Historic Preservation Commission

UPDATED 9/16/24 JCHPC MEETING INFORMATION:

The teardown trend in Jersey City continues — with intensity and precision!

At the Monday, September 16, 2024, public meeting of the Jersey City Historic Preservation Commission, commissioners will hear, review and act on several demolition applications being put forth from various high-powered developers and their attorneys.

Simply, these buildings on the agenda are pivotal resources that have added to Jersey City’s architectural integrity for the last two centuries, and allowing them to be erased allows these LLC investors to create more over-scaled, historic-neighborhood-destroying projects.

One application in particular — 384 Communipaw Avenue, in Jersey City’s ancient Lafayette neighborhood — dates to precisely 1860 and is recognized as being an integral part of our African American history. Another applicant — 169-179 Palisade Avenue, in the historic Heights section of the city — is seeking to demolish the former Christ Hospital Nurses’ Residence, a major 1920s-era medical facility designed by renowned local architect John T. Rowland Jr. And yet another application wants to tear down a former pre-war power sub-station in the southern meadows section of Lafayette near the New Jersey Turnpike. PLEASE SEE UPDATES ABOVE REGARDING THESE APPLICATIONS, AS PER INFORMATION PROVIDED BY PLANNING STAFF

While JCHPC staff and consultants are offering opinions that state that these demolition applications, if approved, will adversely affect the architectural resources in question, this does not necessarily mean that commissioners won’t approve and forward the applications up the planning, zoning, and municipal council channels, where the buildings’ fates face final decisions.

TAKE PRESERVATION ACTION!

  • Please attend, in person, and surprise the JCHPC, staff, and applicants by stepping up to the podium during the public comment portion to oppose the multiple requests to demolish. In-person meeting location: The Boardroom at the Holloway Building, City Hall Annex, 4 Jackson Square, Jersey City | Directions + Map PLEASE NOTE UPDATED INFORMATION ABOVE (AND BELOW) REGARDING 223 PALISADE AVENUE, 169-179 PALISADE AVENUE, 116 MAGNOLIA AVENUE, 384 COMMUNIPAW AVENUE + THE PRE-WAR POWER SUB-STATION

  • If you can’t attend in person, please call and leave a message with Mayor Steven Fulop’s office at (201) 547-5200 or send an email to:

    steven.m.fulop@gmail.com.

DEMOLITION APPLICATIONS ON THE 9/16/24 JCHPC AGENDA:

ADDITIONAL JCHPC MEETING DATES:

  • Monday, October 21, 2024, 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

  • Monday, November 18, 2024, 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

  • Monday, December 16, 2024, 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

John Gomez

Master of Science in Historic Preservation, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University

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