Last spring Preservation New Jersey added the Plume House to the 10 Most Endangered Historic Sites in New Jersey. NPLC is actively working to mobilize support to have New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJ DOT) relocate the Plume house to the other side House of Prayer Church which sets next door. Just beyond both structures is a vacant lot that is a perfect location for the building, and would allow for visitor parking as well...
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| (Plume House next to I-280) |
SO WHY FIGHT TO MOVE AND PROTECT THE PLUME HOUSE?
(Exerts from article at Preservation New Jersey):
"Built prior to 1725, The Plume House is Newark’s second oldest extant building. Originally constructed by the Plume family, prominent early Newark settlers, the Dutch Colonial House exhibits local sandstone and hand-hewn timber framing and flooring. An 1874 rear addition brought the house to its current configuration..."
The Plume House served as a private residence until 1849, when it was sold to the House of Prayer church. The house was converted into a rectory for the church, which was constructed in 1850 immediately north of the Plume House on Broad Street. The Plume House attained further significance in 1887, when Reverend Hannibal Goodwin invented celluloid photographic film there (his application for a patent just two years before that of George Eastman would eventually result in a 1914 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that confirmed Reverend Goodwin the inventor of celluloid photographic film).
The Plume House has survived the mass development of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, over the last 280+ years. Most significantly, the house narrowly escaped obliteration during the mid 20th century, when an overpass for I-280 was constructed just four feet away. Unfortunately, it is the presence of this same overpass that threatens the Plume House today, almost 60 years later... ). (Read completed article at Preservation New Jersey: http://www.preservationnj.org/site/ExpEng/index.php?/ten_most/index_detail/The_Plume_House)...
LET'S TALK NUMBERS:
NJDOT'S Transit Capital Program for the fiscal years of 2009 - 2010 was 3.5 billion dollars. According to that same report 20 million of those dollars were allocated for some nebulous term called 'Metropolitan Planning.' An unverified report says that the I-280 expansion project will cost in the neighborhood of $48 million....
Segway to the Plume house, the second oldest structure in Newark from its Colonial past. Newark, the third oldest city in the United States of America behind Boston and New York... Conservative estimates say that it will cost perhaps a 1 million dollars to move the Plume House to safety. NPLC board members have attended several meetings, including hearings in Trenton, and submitted a written proposal toward this solution. Still it appears that NJDOT is looking to avoid the move for the cheaper solution of a sound wall. Which will dull the sound from I-280 to the surrounding community, but have no impact on the vibration that slowly destroying the Plume house.
Several years ago historic preservation circles were all abuzz with Pennsylvania's success story of how the state turned around a fledgling fiscal budget by creating an Historic Tourism industry that now bring millions of dollars into the state... When will New Jersey state and local authorities catch the vision? When will they realize that our city's history is one of its most valuable resources? According the important historic structures that have been lost each decade since NPLC came into existence, the answer appears to be -- NEVER!
To look at Boston and New York is see their architectural history. To gaze at our beloved Newark with its vacant lots where history once stood; decayed structures caught in political chest games; contemporary facades of glass and steal hiding historic buildings... and all one sees is greed and perhaps ignorance. If we don't work to preserve the Plume house NOW, it is certain that we will be condoning its demise in the near future.
Please help:
- GET THE WORD OUT TO ALL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS -- JOIN IN THE FIGHT! WAYS YOU CAN HELP:
- Consider the impact on the Plume house past, present, future:
- Become a member of NPLC to keep up to date with historic preservation in the city.
- Contact your city and state official to register your concern about the Plume House
- Submit personal letters of concern a to the NJ Department of Transportation (NJDOT)
MOST RECENT UPDATE > March 2011:
TO PEOPLE FROM HOUSE OF PRAYER OR LANDMARKS COMMITTEE:
In recent months we’ve circulated some letters from the N.J. Dept. of Transportation and the N.J. Historic Preservation Office about the proposed Route 280-21 interchange reconstruction. Some of these deal with a proposed “Memorandum of Agreement” covering plans for rebuilding this interchange – a project that the State acknowledges will have an “adverse effect” on the house, the second oldest building in Newark.
These letters contain a lot of bureaucratic language, and aren’t easy to understand. But I wanted to direct your attention to some passages in a Feb. 17 letter from Elkins Green of the DOT to Robert Hartman, a commissioner of the City’s Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission. Hartman had written to the State to express the Commission’s continuing concern about the highway plans.
This letter (which was sent to most of you recently)is the first I have seen that makes any mention of suggestions that the Plume House be relocated to protect it against vibrations from the elevated 280. Such a move has been proposed separately by the City commission, by our Landmarks Committee. and by Preservation New Jersey. The DOT’s Green makes no judgment about the desirability or feasibility of relocating the house, but says the idea cannot even be considered until a proposed historic study of the house is proposed. Green says the study should be done soon, and will provide basic information about the condition of the house, and possible causes of its deterioration.
I just want to highlight a couple of passages from this letter, but will omit a lot of incidental language and focus just on the Plume issues
”The Historic Structures Report for the Plume House…will be prepared as soon as possible in order to inform the Final Design Process…This study…will provide the framework for the preservation and conservation of the Plume House. A Historic Structures Report will supply a Planning Document that can be used by the property owner {the House of Prayer} to apply for funding that is offered for the preservation, restoration, and/or conservation of National Register-listed properties. This may include the NJ Historic Trust, the NJ Cultural Trust, or the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures Grant Programs.
“The NJSHPO [New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office} has agreed that, without a Historic Structures Report, the advisability of moving the structure to another site cannot be assessed. In addition, the structural evaluation that will be included in this document will identify the causes of cracking in the Plume House and will also offer structural stabilization that would prevent further deterioration of this building.”
NOTE: Under the draft Memorandum of Agreement, the DOT would have to sponsor a Historic Structures Report by professional engineers, architects, historians, et al., but the DOT would not be required to undertake any specific remedial actions.
I hope this DOT letter can be considered in its entirety by the House of Prayer, the Landmarks Commission, the Landmarks Committee, and other organizations, and they can work together on a strategy to protect the Plume House for many years to come – preferably by relocating it at some distance from the elevated highway. I think we need an intensive, coordinated effort on this. All comments are welcome.
Special thanks to Bob Hartman for his leadership on this.
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