[1972 Code § 33A-1]
This chapter shall be known and may be referred to as the "Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne."
[1972 Code § 33A-2]
a.
In adopting this chapter, it is the intention of the Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne to designate and regulate historic sites and historic districts within the City consistent with and pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law (N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1, et seq.).
b.
A Commission is hereby created to review the potential effect of development and permit applications on designated historic sites and in designated districts and to work with and advise the Planning Board and the Zoning Board on the effect of any such applications coming before either Board.
c.
This chapter is intended to regulate only those activities on designated sites or within designated districts which require a permit from a municipal officer or employee or which require an application for development to the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Adjustment. Nothing herein shall prevent review of other activities by the Commission, but such review is not required by the adoption of this chapter.
d.
This chapter does not require or prohibit any particular architectural style; rather its purpose is to preserve the past by making the past compatible with and relevant to the present. To that end, new construction upon or near a landmark should not necessarily duplicate the exact style of the site or district; rather, it should be compatible with and not detract from the site or district.
[1972 Code § 33A-3]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines that the City has many historic or architecturally significant properties, together with groupings or districts of generally vernacular structures. These properties and districts contribute visually to the character and integrity of the City and are important in assessing the historic patterns of development. Maintaining, preserving and rehabilitating these visual links to the past is an important function of government, not only to provide a sense of stability and continuity for future generations but also to provide impetus for the revitalization of the City's economic base and for the resulting increase in property values.
These historic preservation regulations are intended to effect and accomplish the protection, enhancement and perpetuation of especially noteworthy examples or elements of the City's environment in order to:
a.
Safeguard the heritage of Bayonne by preserving resources within the City which reflect elements of its cultural, social, economic and architectural history;
b.
Encourage the continued use of historic landmarks and facilitate their appropriate use;
c.
Maintain and develop an appropriate and harmonious setting for the historic and architecturally significant buildings, structures, sites, objects, or districts within the City of Bayonne;
d.
Stabilize and improve property values within districts and foster civic pride in the built environment;
e.
Promote appreciation of historic landmarks for education, pleasure and the welfare of the local population;
f.
Encourage beautification and private reinvestment;
g.
Manage change by preventing alteration or new construction not in keeping with the district;
h.
Discourage the unnecessary demolition of historic resources;
i.
Recognize the importance of individual historic landmarks located outside of a district by urging property owners and tenants to maintain their properties in keeping with the requirements and standards of this chapter;
j.
Encourage the proper maintenance and preservation of historic settings and landscapes;
k.
Encourage appropriate alterations of historic landmarks;
l.
Enhance the visual and aesthetic character, diversity, continuity and interest in the City;
m.
Promote the conservation of historic sites and districts and invite and encourage voluntary compliance.
[1972 Code § 33A-4; Ord. No. O-09-28 § 2]
As used in this chapter:
Shall mean the construction of a new improvement as part of an existing improvement when such new improvement changes the exterior architectural appearance of any landmark.
Shall mean the Zoning Officer or other person designated by the Mayor to handle the administration of historic project review applications as well as the coordination of building permit applications as referenced in this chapter.
Shall mean any development activity which alters the exterior architectural appearance of an historic site or any improvement within an historic district.
Shall mean any work done on any improvement which (i) is not an addition to the improvement and (ii) constitutes a change by addition or replacement in the exterior architectural appearance of an improvement.
Shall mean a request to the Historic Preservation Commission completed on forms available from the administrative officer or the Commission, to review a proposal for addition, alteration, demolition or other work on any structure or property located in an historic district, for purposes of obtaining certification by the Commission that the application is acceptable in terms of the review standards set forth in this chapter. Application shall include any application for development made to the Construction Official, Planning Board or Board of Adjustment which must be referred to the Commission for review.
Shall mean the partial or total razing, dismantling or destruction of any historic site or any improvement within an historic district.
Shall mean the division of a parcel of land into two or more parcels, the construction, reconstruction, conversion, structural alterations, relocation or enlargement of any building or other structure or of any mining excavation or landfill, and any use or extension of use of land, for which permission may be required pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq. or Chapter 35, Zoning Regulations, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
Shall mean those areas which comprise (i) one or more historic sites and intervening or surrounding property significantly affecting, or affected by, the quality and character of the historic site or sites; or (ii) a definable group of tax map lots, the improvements on which when viewed collectively:
Represent a significant period or periods in the architectural and social history of the municipality; and/or
Because of their unique character can readily be viewed as an area or neighborhood distinct from surrounding portions of the municipality; or
Have a unique character resulting from their architectural style.
Resources within an historic district shall be classified as either key, contributing, or noncontributing:
Shall mean any buildings, structures, sites or objects which, due to their significance, would individually qualify for landmark status.
Shall mean any buildings, structures, sites or objects which are integral components of the historic district either because they date from a time period for which the district is significant, or because they represent an architectural type, period, or method for which the district is significant.
Shall mean any buildings, structures, sites or objects which are not integral components of the historic district because they neither date from a time period for which the district is significant nor represent an architectural type, period, or method for which the district is significant.
Shall mean any real property, man-made structure, natural object or any portion or group of the foregoing which is of historical, architectural, cultural, scenic or archeological significance.
Shall mean any structure or any part thereof installed upon real property by human endeavor and intended to be kept at the location of such construction or installation for a period of not less than 180 days.
Shall mean the authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property's historic or prehistoric period.
Shall mean any person whose right to use, acquire, or enjoy property is or may be affected by any action taken under this chapter, or whose rights to use, acquire, or enjoy property under this chapter or under any other laws of this State or of the United States have been denied, violated or infringed by an action or a failure to act under this chapter.
Shall mean a list of historic properties determined to meet specified criteria of significance.
Shall mean an historic site as defined in this chapter.
Shall mean the Master Plan of the City of Bayonne, adopted by the Planning Board, as the same may be amended from time to time.
Shall mean the established criteria for evaluating the eligibility of properties for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
Shall mean repair of any deterioration, wear, or damage to a structure, in order to return the same, as nearly as practicable, to its condition prior to the occurrence of such deterioration, wear, or damage with materials and workmanship of the same quality. Ordinary maintenance shall further include replacement of exterior elements or accessory hardware, including signs, using the same materials and workmanship and having the same appearance.
Shall mean any permit required to be obtained from the Construction Official, the Zoning Officer, or the Department of Public Works and Parks in conjunction with construction, alteration, renovation or other work to be done on or about a property.
Shall mean the act or process of applying measures to sustain the existing form, integrity and vegetative cover of a site. It may include initial stabilization work, where necessary, as well as ongoing maintenance of the historic building materials.
Shall mean the act or process of applying measures designed to affect the physical condition of a property by defending it or guarding it from deterioration, loss or attack, or to cover or shield the property from danger or injury.
Shall mean the act or process of reproducing by new construction the exact form and detail of a vanished building, structure or object, or any part thereof, as it appeared at a specific period of time.
Shall mean the act or process of returning a property to a state of utility through repair or alteration which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions or features of the property which are significant to its historical, architectural and cultural values.
Shall mean the partial or complete removal of a structure.
Shall mean any work done on an improvement that is not an addition and does not change the exterior appearance of any improvement.
Shall mean the act or process of accurately recovering the form and details of a property and its setting as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of later work or by the replacement of missing earlier work.
Shall mean a combination of materials to form a construction for occupancy, use, or ornamentation whether installed on, above, or below the surface of a parcel of land.
[1972 Code § 33A-5]
Unless otherwise noted, the following regulations shall apply only to those historic sites and those properties located within an historic district which have been formally designated by the Municipal Council in accordance with the provisions set forth in Section 37-8.
[1972 Code § 33A-6]
All uses permitted for an historic landmark or for structures within an historic district shall be those designated by the Official Zoning Map. Such uses shall not be altered by further designation pursuant to this chapter. Building height minimum lot size, maximum coverage and other general zoning provisions shall be as provided by Chapter 35, Zoning Regulations for the respective zones, except that the Zoning Board or the Planning Board, as appropriate, may grant variances and waivers from such regulations when necessary to preserve or restore historic characteristics.
[1972 Code § 33A-7.1]
There is hereby created in and for the City of Bayonne a commission to be known as "The Historic Preservation Commission," referred to in this chapter as "the Commission."
a.
The Commission shall consist of seven regular members and two alternates who shall serve without compensation, except that the Commission members shall be reimbursed for reasonable and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of official business, including attendance at annual training sessions or programs that relate to historic preservation, within the guidelines of the budget established by the Municipal Council for the Commission.
b.
The Commission shall include at least one member from each of the following classes:
Class A — A person knowledgeable in building design and construction or architectural history and who may reside outside of the municipality;
Class B — A person knowledgeable or with a demonstrated interest in local history and who may reside outside the municipality;
Class C — Persons who are residents of the municipality and who hold no other municipal office position or employment except for membership on the Planning Board or Zoning Board. One Commissioner shall be a member of the Planning Board.
There shall be two alternate members, designated "Alternate "Alternate No. 2," who shall be residents of the municipality and who shall hold no other municipal office, position or employment except for membership on the Planning Board or the No. 1" and e Board of Adjustment. Of the regular members, at least one less than a majority shall be of Classes A and B.
c.
All members shall be appointed by the Mayor except for the Planning Board member who shall be appointed by the Chairman of the Planning Board. Regular members shall serve for four-year terms except that of the members first appointed, one shall serve for one year; two shall serve for two years; one shall serve for three years and two shall serve for four years. The term of any member who is also a member of the Planning Board or Zoning Board shall be coterminous with his or her Planning Board or Zoning Board term. Alternate members shall serve for terms of two years, except for the first alternates, one of whom shall serve for one year.
d.
Vacancies shall be filled in the same manner in which the previous incumbent was appointed and such vacancy appointment shall be only for the balance of such incumbent's unexpired term. A vacancy occurring otherwise than by expiration of the term shall be filled within 60 days for the unexpired term only.
e.
Any member of the Commission may, after public hearing if he requests it, be removed by the Municipal Council for cause.
f.
A member of the City of Bayonne Municipal Council shall be designated as liaison between the Historic Preservation Commission and the Council.
[1972 Code § 33A-7.2]
The Commission shall adopt internal rules and procedures for the transaction of its business, subject to the following:
a.
The Commission shall elect from its members a Chairman and a Vice Chairman.
b.
A quorum for the transaction of all business shall be four members.
c.
All Commission minutes and records are public records and all Commission meetings shall comply with the Open Public Meetings Act N.J.S.A. 10:4-7, et seq.
d.
The Commission shall employ, designate or elect a Secretary who need not be a member of the Commission. The Secretary shall keep minutes and records of all meetings and proceedings, including voting records, attendance, resolutions, findings, determinations and decisions.
e.
Commission meetings shall be scheduled at least four times a year or as often as required to fulfill its obligations to advise the administrative officer, Planning Board, Zoning Board or Municipal Council.
f.
No Commission member shall be permitted to act on any matter in which he or she has either directly or indirectly any personal or financial interest.
g.
Alternate members may participate in discussions of the proceedings but may not vote except in the absence or disqualification of a regular member. A vote shall not be delayed in order that a regular member may vote instead of an alternate member. In the event that a choice must be made as to which alternate member is to vote, Alternate Number 1 shall vote.
[1972 Code § 33A-7.3; Ord. No. O-09-28 § 2]
a.
The Municipal Council shall make provision in its budget and appropriate funds for the expenses of the Commission. The Commission may employ, contract for, and fix the compensation of experts and other staff and services as it shall deem necessary. The Commission shall obtain its legal counsel from the Corporation Counsel or his designee. Expenditures pursuant to this section shall not exceed, exclusive of gifts and grants, the amount appropriated by the Municipality for the Commission's use.
b.
The Commission may appoint a consultant who is a recognized professional in the field of architectural history, historic preservation or similar discipline to advise the Commission on matters before it as the Commission may deem necessary to assist it in rendering decisions.
c.
The City Planning, Zoning and Construction Officials shall provide such technical, administrative and clerical assistance as the Historic Preservation Commission shall require. For budgeting and purchasing purposes, however, the Commission shall be allocated its own budget.
[1972 Code § 33A-7.4]
It shall be the responsibility of the Commission to:
a.
Identify, record and maintain a system to survey and inventory all building sites, places, landmarks and structures of historical or architectural significance, based on the criteria set forth in this chapter;
b.
Make recommendations to the Planning Board in the preparation and periodic updating of the Historic Preservation Element of the Master Plan, including but not limited to the addition or deletion of historic sites and districts identified in the Master Plan;
c.
Make recommendations to the Planning Board on the historic preservation implications of any plan element of the Master Plan which has been or may be adopted;
d.
Recommend to the Municipal Council sites and districts to be designated through amendment of the Zoning Ordinance in accordance with the criteria and procedures for designation set forth in Section 37-8;
e.
Advise the Planning Board and Board of Adjustment on development and zoning applications for properties in designated districts and sites, in accordance with the procedures established in Section 37-10;
f.
Review all permit applications affecting designated sites and properties in designated districts and provide written reports to the Zoning/Construction Official in accordance with the procedures established in Section 37-10;
g.
Provide advisory, educational, and informational services to promote historic preservation in the Municipality;
h.
Draft and recommend to Municipal Council and the Planning Board ordinances or amendments to existing ordinances that would resolve any conflicts which may exist between the design standards of the Historic Preservation Ordinance and the building or zoning regulations of the Municipality;
i.
Assist other public bodies in aiding the public in understanding the significance of historic resources and methods of preservation;
j.
Advise the Municipal Council on the relative merits of proposals involving public lands to restore, preserve and protect historical buildings, places and structures, including the preparation of a long range plan therefor, securing State, Federal and other grants in aid to assist therein and monitoring such projects once underway;
k.
Secure the voluntary assistance of the public and, within the limits of the budget established by the Municipal Council for the Historic Preservation Commission's operation, retain consultants and experts and incur expenses to assist the Historic Preservation Commission in its work;
l.
Cooperate with local, County, State, or national historic societies, governmental bodies and organizations to maximize their contributions to the intent and purposes of this chapter;
m.
Advise and assist Municipal officers, employees, boards and other bodies including those at the County, State, and Federal levels on all matters which have potential impact on the historic buildings, places, structures and districts in the Municipality or on the physical character and ambiance of a district;
n.
Request the Municipal Council to seek, on its motion or otherwise, injunctive relief for violations of this chapter or actions contrary to the intent and purposes of this chapter;
o.
Report at least annually to the Municipal Council on the state of historic preservation in the Municipality and recommend measures to improve same.
[1972 Code § 33A-8.1]
The Survey shall be used as a basis for identifying sites and districts worthy of designation. The Commission shall consider for designation districts and sites that have integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and association, and that meet one or more of the following criteria:
a.
Character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the Municipality, State, or nation;
b.
Identification with a person or persons who significantly enriched the Municipality, State, or nation;
c.
Site of an historic event which had significant effect on the development of the Municipality, State, or nation;
d.
Embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering;
e.
Identification with the work of a builder, designer, artist, architect, or landscape architect whose work has influenced the development of the Municipality, State, or nation;
f.
Embodiment of elements of design, detail, materials or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative;
g.
Unique location of singular physical characteristics that make a district or site an established or familiar visual feature;
h.
Likely to yield information important in prehistory or history.
[1972 Code § 33A-8.2]
Based on the Commission's review of the survey, or upon the recommendations of other municipal agencies or of interested parties, the Commission shall consider designation of a district or a site according to the procedures outlined below:
a.
For each proposed district or site, the Commission or interested party shall prepare a brief description of the proposed site or district, a description of its significance pursuant to the criteria set forth above, a description of the site or district's location and boundaries and a map siting. For historic district designations, the description shall include an inventory of all properties to be included within the district by street address as well as tax lot and block. Photographs of the site or representative properties in the district may be included.
b.
The Commission shall schedule a public hearing on the proposed designation of a district or site. At least 10 days prior to the hearing the applicant for designation or the Commission, as the case may be, shall by personal service or certified mail:
1.
Notify each owner of a proposed historic site or of property within a proposed historic district that his or her property is being considered for historic designation and the reasons therefore;
2.
Advise each owner of the significance and consequences of such designation, and of his or her rights to contest such designation; and
3.
Notify each owner of the date, time and place of the hearing.
c.
Public notice of the hearing shall be given at least 10 days prior to the hearing by publication in the official newspaper of the Municipality. A copy of the description and report shall also be made available for public inspection in the City Clerk's office at least 10 days prior to the hearing.
d.
Upon Commission review and approval of the proposed historic district or site designation, the Commission shall forward its report to the Municipal Council which, prior to or following the introduction of an ordinance for designation but before final passage, shall refer the report to the Planning Board. The Planning Board shall issue its own report, approving or disapproving the proposed designation to the Municipal Council within 35 days after referral. The Municipal Council may disapprove or change any Planning Board recommendation by a vote of a majority of its full authorized membership and shall record in its minutes the reasons for not following such recommendation. Failure of the Planning Board to transmit its report within the thirty-five-day period provided herein shall relieve the Municipal Council of its obligations relating to referral of such a report to the Planning Board. Municipal Council action on historic district or historic site designations shall be otherwise subject to those procedures and statutes which apply to a change of a zoning designation and the adoption, revision, or amendment of any development regulation.
e.
All historic sites and historic districts designated by ordinance shall be based on identification in the historic preservation plan element of the Master Plan; provided that the Municipal Council may designate historic sites or districts not identified in the historic preservation plan element of the Master Plan upon the affirmative vote of a majority of its members and provided further that the reasons for its actions are set forth in a resolution and recorded in its minutes.
f.
A protest against a proposed historic site or district signed by the owners of 20% or more either of the area of the lots or land included in the proposed designation or of the lots or land extending 200 feet in all directions inclusive of street space may be filed with the City Clerk. No designation shall become effective following the filing of such a protest except by the favorable vote of 2/3 of all members of the Municipal Council.
[1972 Code § 33A-9.2]
a.
All applications, whether to an administrative officer of the City or to the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment, that may affect a designated historic site or district shall be reviewed by the Commission except as set forth in paragraph b, below. Such review shall be required for, but not limited to, the following actions:
1.
Demolition of any improvement on an historic site or within an historic district.
2.
Relocation of any improvement on an historic site or within an historic district.
3.
All changes in the exterior architectural appearance of any improvement on an historic site or within an historic district, whether by alteration, addition or replacement.
4.
Any new construction on an historic site or in an historic district.
5.
Site plans or subdivisions affecting an historic site or a property within an historic district.
6.
Zoning variances affecting an historic site district.
In making a recommendation on an application, the Commission shall be aware of the importance of finding a way to meet the current needs of the applicant. The Commission shall also recognize the importance of making recommendations that will be reasonable for the applicant to carry out. Before an applicant prepares his plans, he may bring a tentative proposal to the Commission for informal review and comment. |
b.
Review by the Commission is not Required.
1.
For changes to the interior of structures.
2.
For repair or exact replacement of any existing improvement provided that the work does not alter the exterior appearance of the structure. In the event, however, that previous noncontributing or inharmonious repairs or alterations are being replaced, such repair or replacement should be referred to the Commission for review. Every effort shall be made to return the structure to its original condition or to a condition compatible with the landmark or the district in which the structure is located. Following are some of the activities which are permitted as repair or exact replacement:
(a)
Identical replacement of existing windows and doors;
(b)
Repairs of existing windows and doors which does not change the design, scale, or appearance of the windows or doors being replaced;
(c)
Maintenance and repair of existing roofing materials involving no change in design, scale, or appearance of the structure;
(d)
Structural repairs which do not alter the exterior appearance of the structure;
(e)
Replacement of existing clapboards, shingles, or other siding with identical material;
(f)
Maintenance and repair of existing shingles, clapboards or other siding, using the same materials that are being repaired or maintained;
(g)
Repairs to existing signs, shutters, outdoor displays, fences, hedges, street furniture, awnings, off-street driveway and parking materials and sidewalks, using the same material for those items being repaired;
(h)
Exterior or interior painting of existing structures.
c.
When a historic landmark requires immediate emergency repair to preserve the continued habitability of the landmark and/or health and safety of its occupants or others. Emergency repairs may be performed in accordance with municipal codes, without the necessity of first obtaining the Commission's review. Under such circumstances, the repairs performed shall only be such that are necessary to maintain the habitability of the structure. A request for the Commission's review shall be made as soon as possible and no additional work shall be performed upon the structure until an appropriate request for approval is made and obtained in accordance with the procedures set forth in this chapter. All work done under this section shall conform to the criteria set forth in Section 37-11.
[1972 Code § 33A-9.2]
In the event that the Zoning Officer or the Construction Official of the City of Bayonne shall determine that neither a permit nor an application for development is required for a proposed modification to the property, then the property owner and/or tenant of the property on which changes are proposed to be made is encouraged to, but need not, make application to the Commission for an advisory opinion. Any such applications may be made to the Commission regarding any changes in the exterior appearance of any structure or improvement on an historic site or within an historic district.
The Commission shall hear such applications, employing its procedures used for all other applications, and will render its findings in accordance with those procedures. In such cases, the Commission's report shall be advisory only, and shall not be binding on the Zoning Officer or the applicant.
[1972 Code § 33A-9.3]
a.
At the request of applicants considering action that may require Commission review, the Commission shall grant an informal review of a concept plan for the proposed undertaking. Neither the applicant nor the Commission shall be bound by any informal review.
b.
Where it can be determined that the project clearly complies with applicable standards, or that any impact on the landmark or district is insignificant, the Commission may recommend approval at such informal review. The Commission may decline such approval where the preliminary data and drawings are insufficient to make a determination.
[1972 Code § 33A-10.1]
When it is determined that a permit or application for development must be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission, the applicant, in addition to any other filing requirements, must complete an application for Historic Preservation Review. Persons interested in obtaining Commission approval of proposed work covered by the provisions of this chapter are encouraged to apply directly to the Commission for review and approval.
a.
Applications shall be made on forms available from the Zoning Officer.
b.
Completed applications shall be included with other application material, or in the case of an application filed directly with the Commission, shall be delivered or mailed to the Secretary of the Commission, 630 Avenue C, Bayonne, New Jersey.
c.
The Commission shall advise the applicant in writing of the time, date, and place of the meeting at which his or her application is to be reviewed.
d.
Applications shall include a completed application form which contains a precise written description of the proposed work or activity and any of the following as may be required by the Commission:
1.
Photographs of the existing structure or lot;
2.
Scaled drawings showing site plan layout, facade elevations;
3.
Specification of materials to be used;
4.
For applications for new construction, a streetscape elevation drawn to scale, showing the new structure in the context of neighboring buildings;
5.
For large projects, working drawings;
6.
The Commission may require the submission of additional information, such as material samples, reasonably necessary to reach an informed decision.
e.
The Commission's request for additional information shall not toll the running of any time period within which the Commission must act, so long as the applicant provides such information within 10 days of the Commission's request therefor.
f.
An applicant shall be permitted but not required to appear or to be represented at any meeting of the Commission at which the Commission will consider an application for a permit or the application for development.
g.
The Commission shall issue a written report on any application, whether approved, approved with conditions or disapproved. Such written report shall be stated in resolution form and shall be provided to the applicant and the administrative officer, the Planning Board or the Zoning Board, as appropriate, within the time periods hereinafter set forth.
[1972 Code § 33A-10.2]
a.
The Planning Board and Board of Adjustment shall refer to the Commission a copy of every application for development submitted to either Board for development in historic districts or on historic sites designated on the Zoning Map or identified in any component element of the Master Plan. The referral shall be made when the application for development is deemed complete or is scheduled for a hearing, whichever occurs sooner.
b.
On all applications for development referred to it, the Commission shall immediately determine the time period within which the Planning Board or Zoning Board must act on the application and the Commission shall assure that its report or advice to the Planning Board or Zoning Board is rendered in a timely fashion so as to allow those agencies adequate time to consider and respond to the content of the report.
c.
The Commission may make its recommendations to the appropriate Board in the form of a written report, and it shall convey its advice through delegation of one of its members or staff to testify orally at any hearing on the application and to explain any written report which may have been submitted.
d.
The Commission's recommendations shall focus on how the proposed undertaking would affect a site or district's historic or architectural significance. In considering the Commission's recommendations, the Planning Board and Board of Adjustment shall be guided by the review standards referenced Section 37- 11.
e.
On all matters referred to the Commission which require approval or action by the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment, the decision of the Commission shall be a recommendation only, which may be approved, disapproved or amended by the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment. In the event that the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment should disapprove or amend the decision of the Commission, it shall state its reasons therefor at a public hearing and in its memorializing resolution.
[1972 Code § 33A-10]
a.
The administrative officer shall refer all applications for issuance of permits pertaining to activities on a designated historic site or within a designated historic district to the Commission for a written report on the application of historic preservation provisions. Where a permit is requested for a project approved by the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment, the permit review shall nonetheless be required for any historic preservation aspects of the change proposed which were not determined by the municipal agency pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq.
b.
The Commission shall submit its written report on the application to the administrative officer as soon as possible but no later than 45 days of his referral of the application to the Commission.
c.
If within the forty-five-day period the Commission recommends to the administrative officer against the issuance of a permit or recommends conditions to the permit to be issued, the administrative officer shall deny issuance of the permit or include the conditions in the permit, as the case may be.
d.
Failure of the Commission to report within the forty-five-day period shall be deemed to constitute a report in favor of issuance of the permit and without the recommendation of conditions to the permit.
e.
Nothing herein shall prohibit an extension of time by mutual agreement of the applicant and the Commission.
[1972 Code § 33A-11.1]
In reviewing an application for its potential effect on an historic site or a property within an historic district, the following criteria shall be used by the Historic Preservation Commission, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment. In regard to all applications affecting an historic site or a property within an historic district, the following factors shall be considered:
a.
The impact of the proposed change on the historic and architectural significance of the landmark or the historic district.
b.
The landmark's importance to the municipality and the extent to which its historic or architectural significance would be adversely affected to the detriment of the public interest.
c.
The use of any structure involved.
d.
The extent to which the proposed action would adversely affect the public's view of the landmark or structure within an historic district from a public street.
e.
For a structure or a proposed structure within an historic district, the impact the proposed change would have on the district's architectural or historic significance and its compatibility with the buildings, places and structures to which it is visually related pursuant to the factors set forth in subsection 37-11.2.
[1972 Code § 33A-11.2]
In reviewing applications for new construction, additions, alterations or replacements affecting an historic site or a property within an historic district, the following visual compatibility factors shall be considered by the Commission.
a.
Height. The height of the proposed building shall be visually compatible with buildings and places to which it is visually related.
b.
Proportion of Building's Front Facade. The relationship of the width of the building to the height of the front elevation shall be visually compatible with buildings and places to which it is visually related.
c.
Proportion of Openings within the Facility. The relationship of the width of windows to the height of windows in a building shall be visually compatible with the buildings and places to which it is visually related.
d.
Rhythm of Solids to Voids in Front Facades. The relationship of solids to voids in the front facade of a building shall be visually compatible with the buildings and places to which it is visually related.
e.
Rhythm of Spacing of Buildings on Streets. The relationship of the building to the open space between it and adjoining buildings shall be visually compatible with the buildings and places to which it is visually related.
f.
Rhythm of Entrance and/or Porch Projections. The relationship of entrance and porch projections to the street shall be visually compatible with the buildings and places to which it is visually related.
g.
Relationship of Materials, Texture and Color. The relationship of materials, texture and color of the facade and roof of a building shall be visually compatible with the predominant materials used in the buildings to which it is visually related.
h.
Walls of Continuity. Appurtenances of a building such as walls, open type fencing and evergreen landscape masses shall form cohesive walls of enclosure along a street to the extent necessary to maintain visual compatibility of the building with the building and places to which it is visually related.
i.
Scale of Building. The size of a building, the mass of a building in relation to open spaces, the windows, door openings, porches and balconies shall be visually compatible with the buildings and places to which it is visually related.
j.
Directional Expression of Front Elevation. A building shall be visually compatible with buildings and places to which it is visually related and its directional character whether this be vertical character, horizontal character or nondirectional character.
[1972 Code § 33A-11.3]
In reviewing applications to demolish an historic landmark or any improvement within an historic district, the following matters shall be considered:
a.
Its historic, architectural, cultural or scenic significance.
b.
If it is within an historic district, the significance of the structure in relation to the historic character of the district and the probable impact of its removal on the district.
c.
Its potential for use for those purposes currently permitted by the Zoning Ordinance.
d.
Its structural condition and the economic feasibility of alternatives to the proposal.
e.
Its importance to the municipality and the extent to which its historical or architectural value is such that its removal would be detrimental to the public interest.
f.
The extent to which it is of such old, unusual or uncommon design, craftsmanship, texture or material that it could be reproduced only with great difficulty and expense.
g.
The extent to which its retention would promote the general welfare by maintaining and increasing the real estate values, generating business, attracting tourists, attracting new residents, stimulating interest and study in architecture and design, or making the municipality an attractive and desirable place in which to live.
h.
If it is within an historic district, the probable impact of its removal upon the integrity and character of the historic district.
[1972 Code § 33A-11.4]
When reviewing an application to move any historic landmark, or to move any structure within an historic district, the following matters shall be considered:
a.
The historic loss to the site of original location and the historic district as a whole.
b.
The reasons for not retaining the landmark or structure at its present site.
c.
The compatibility, nature and character of the current and of the proposed surrounding areas as they relate to the protection of the interests and values embodied in this chapter.
d.
If the proposed new location is within an historic district, visual compatibility factors as set forth in subsection 37-11.2.
e.
The probability of significant damage to the landmark or structure itself.
f.
If it is to be removed from the City of Bayonne, the proximity of the proposed new location to the City, including the accessibility of such location to the residents of the City and others.
[1972 Code § 33A-12]
a.
Approval by either the Zoning Official, Planning Board or Zoning Board of Adjustment in accordance with the procedures set forth herein shall be deemed to be final approval pursuant to this chapter. Such approval shall neither cause nor prevent the filing of any collateral application or other proceeding required by any other municipal ordinance to be made prior to undertaking the action requested concerning the landmark or property located in an historic district.
b.
Denial of approval for a development application by the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Adjustment, or denial of a building permit by the Zoning Official shall be deemed to bar the applicant from undertaking the activity which would affect the landmark or property in an historic district which was the subject of the denied application.
c.
The grant or denial of an approval for a building permit by the Construction Official or Zoning Officer pursuant to this chapter may be appealed to the Zoning Board of Adjustment in the same manner as if the appeal were taken pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70. The Zoning Board shall be guided in its determinations by the provisions of N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70.2.
d.
The grant or denial of an approval from Planning Board or Board of Adjustment may be appealed in the same manner as any other determination of those bodies.
[1972 Code § 33A-13.1]
In the event that the Commission disapproves an application for a permit to demolish a structure on an historic site or in an historic district, the owner shall nevertheless, as matter of right, be entitled to raze or demolish such structure provided that the following requirements have been fully met:
a.
The owner has applied for the necessary permit, has received denial of same from the administrative officer as a result of the Commission's report and has appealed said denial to the Zoning Board of Adjustment which has affirmed the denial.
b.
The applicant has met the following notice requirements:
1.
The notice period shall commence on the 10th day following the date of the resolution of the Zoning Board affirming the denial of the permit for demolition and shall continue for 120 days.
2.
The applicant shall publish a notice of the proposed demolition in the official newspaper of the City within the first 10 days of the notice period and again not less than 30 nor more than 40 days from the date of the first publication. Final notice shall be published not less than 10 nor more than 15 days before the expiration of the notice period.
3.
Notice of the proposed demolition shall be prominently posted on the premises proposed to be demolished throughout the notice period in a location such that it is visible from the street.
c.
Upon the expiration of the 120-day notice period the applicant shall present to the administrative officer proof that the above requirements have been met, at which time the administrative officer shall issue the permit.
[1972 Code § 33A-13.2]
During the notice period, the Commission, alone or in conjunction with the Municipal Council, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection or other similarly qualified organization, shall consult and negotiate with the owner to find an amicable alternative to demolition of the property.
[1972 Code § 33A-13.3]
If a significant change in circumstances occurs or for other good cause, the Commission may, at any time during the notice period, approve a permit for demolition, in which event the permit shall be issued within 10 days thereafter.
[1972 Code § 33A-14]
a.
Any person violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall, upon conviction, be subject to the penalties herein.
b.
A separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day during or on which a violation occurs or continues.
c.
Any person who shall undertake any activity without approval required by this chapter shall be deemed to be in violation of this chapter.
d.
Upon learning of the violation, the administrative officer shall personally serve upon the owner of the property whereon the violation is occurring a notice describing the violation in detail and giving the owner 10 days to abate the violation by restoring the site or improvement to the condition it was in prior to the violation. If the owner cannot be personally served within the City, a copy of the notice shall be posted on the site and a copy sent to the owner at his or her last known address.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines that Stephen R. Gregg Bayonne Hudson County Park ("the Park"), which survives as an intact example of any early 20th century Renaissance-style garden, was dedicated in 1916 and reflects the national parks movement at the turn of the 20th century to revitalize urban communities and provide recreational activities in cities. It is in the public interest to preserve the historic and aesthetic integrity of the Park for the citizens of Bayonne and the residents of Hudson County.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Park meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
It serves as an illustration of the development of the City as an industrial community at the turn of the 20th century and the City's commitment to the quality of life of residents at the time of its greatest population and economic growth.
b.
The war and civilian memorials and rededication of the park to World War II Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Stephen R. Gregg represent significant expressions of civic pride in the community.
c.
The essential design elements of the Park District, together with a majority of its contributing structures and buildings within, were designed by notable landscape architect Charles N. Lowrie.
d.
It represents the parks movement of the early 20th century with the intent to beautify the City, combining the features of a graceful classical garden within an industrial community for both passive and active recreation.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
Stephen R. Gregg Bayonne Hudson County Park, known as Block 74 Lot 1; Block 95, Lot 1; Block 100, Lot 1; and Block 103, Lot 1 on the Tax Map, is hereby designated a historic district in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
It is not the intent or purpose of this designation to hamper or delay the proper maintenance of the Park as both an active and a passive recreation area for the residents of the City of Bayonne and County of Hudson; rather, the purpose and intent is to preserve intact limited key and contributing elements which together comprise its integrity as a historic site. To that end, the Historic Preservation Commission and enforcement officials of the City of Bayonne shall implement the following guidelines for the proper preservation of the Park.
a.
Key Elements. Key elements, which are found within the major focal point of the Park, create a sense of historic time and place. The focal point of the park's design encompasses the upper level of the Park from the entrance on Avenue C and includes the terrace level beyond the entrance, the driveway and walking paths leading to the triangular plaza, the descending staircase, and the path leading to the boathouse and boat basin. A major component of the classical design is the clear vista extending from the Avenue C entrance to the waterfront below. Key elements within the focal point are:
b.
Contributing Elements. Contributing elements, which are found at the upper level of the park but outside the focal point include:
1.
Concrete entrance gate (Avenue C between 40th and 41st Street) and ornaments on top of gateposts.
2.
Concrete bridge (West 39th Street) with vertical round arch bands, guardrail and balustrade.
3.
Concrete bridge (lower, West 46th Street) with quatrefoil openings.
4.
Concrete bridge (lower West 42nd Street) with quatrefoil opening and red brick ornamentation.
5.
Concrete entrance gate (Kennedy Boulevard and West 37th Street) with simulated arbor details and urns on the gateposts.
6.
Concrete entrance gate (Kennedy Boulevard and West 46th Street) with simulated arbor details and urns on the gateposts.
7.
Concrete wall with park benches near entrance (Kennedy Boulevard between Dillon Drive and Devlin Drive).
8.
Concrete balustrade/wall between Kennedy Boulevard and Avenue B between 40th and 41st Streets; marks terrace entrance beyond Avenue C.
9.
Concrete wall (Kennedy Boulevard and 43rd Street) in front of Community Center/Park Office.
10.
Statue of The Hiker (Kennedy Boulevard and West 39th Street).
11.
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (GAR Memorial).
12.
Two iron drinking fountains.
13.
"Double Hill" — Elevated area within the Park District traditionally used in winter by children for snow sledding.
c.
Noncontributing Elements. Elements that were not present during the original design of the park, or that have been changed or renovated, or that were intended for active recreational purposes rather than historic or aesthetic value to the park are determined to be noncontributing. These elements, with the exception of the renovated children's playground, tennis courts and park benches, are on the lower level of the park facing Newark Bay and extend north and south of the path extension of the park's focal point.
1.
Bulkhead with waterfront promenade to perimeter of park.
2.
Sheltered fishing pier and restroom.
3.
Tennis courts.
4.
George R. Buttner Running Track.
5.
Utility buildings.
6.
Public restrooms.
7.
Renovated children's playground.
8.
Community Center/Park Office.
9.
Police substation.
10.
Athletic fields — football, softball, soccer, bocce.
11.
Walkways.
12.
Driveways.
13.
Park benches restored or renovated as required for public use.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
In addition to the procedures set forth under the Municipal Land Use Law[1] and the ordinances of the City of Bayonne and in recognition of the special relationship between the City of Bayonne and the County of Hudson, the Mayor, the Historic Preservation Commission and other City Officials are authorized and directed to seek the cooperation of the County of Hudson in preserving intact the key and contributing elements of the historic district.
[1]
Editor's Note: N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
Nothing herein shall be construed to delay or prohibit the continuing ordinary maintenance deemed essential for usage of the Park in accordance with prevailing guidelines and considerations established for public safety. Noncontributing elements and active recreational areas in the upper and lower levels of the Park may be subject to desirable and allowable development options appropriate to the purpose and intent of the use of the Park, including the continued grading and paving of walkways and driveways and renovation of bulkhead and athletic fields.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
The Historic Preservation Commission is authorized to develop and implement such further guidelines, not inconsistent with this section, as it deems necessary for the preservation and restoration of Stephen R. Gregg Bayonne County Park.
[Ord. No. O-01-63]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The property is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Properties for its architectural significance.
b.
The Hale-Whitney Mansion is a Second Empire, single-family residence built in 1869.
c.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic and architectural and aesthetic elements of the Hale-Whitney Mansion within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the property's significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
Features key to the dwelling's architectural significance include:
1.
The hallmark Mansard roof.
2.
Diamond-shaped slates covering the Mansard.
3.
Three porches with decorative corbels and columns; particularly reflective of the period is the side porch or veranda.
4.
Side bay window extending to the ground.
5.
First floor front windows that extend to the floor of the porch.
6.
Hooded dormers in the Mansard roof (rounded).
7.
Wood frame two over two double hung windows.
b.
The cobblestone drive leading to the garage is a significant historic feature of the property reflective of the period.
c.
The slate sidewalks are likewise key to the property and reflective of the period.
d.
Existing landscape materials visible from the street include an apple tree, large lilac, peegee hydrangea and wisteria, with two of the trees being over 100 years old.
e.
The garage is not part of the original structure but was constructed at a later date and is not reflective of Second Empire architecture.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Hale-Whitney Mansion meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
It is one of the few remaining houses of its period remaining in Bayonne and is an excellent and well-preserved example of the Second Empire style of architecture, popular in America from the 1860's to the 1890's.
b.
The main dwelling house has not been architecturally altered; however, it is noted that the original siding was covered with a brick patterned asphalt siding in 1945 and a garage was subsequently constructed, which is not reflective of the Second Empire period.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 1]
The Hale-Whitney Mansion, located at 100 Broadway and known as Block 356, Lot 30, is hereby designated a historic landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 2]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
In accordance with the opinion in the Lynn Drobbin Associates report of 1994, the Bayonne Trust Company building has been "Determined to be Eligible" for the State Register of Historic Places.
b.
The Bayonne Trust Company building is a two-story, Vermont granite clad structure built in 1912.
c.
At the time of its construction, the bank building was located at a commercial and transportation hub of the City known as Bergen Point, and was accessible to railroad commuters and pedestrian traffic.
d.
Lansing C. Holden, Sr., who was president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, designed the beaux-arts building. Mr. Holden also designed a Bayonne Hospital building in 1910.
e.
The Bayonne Trust Company, incorporated in 1902, was one of the earliest banking organizations in Bayonne.
f.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic architectural and aesthetic elements of the Bayonne Trust Company within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 2]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the building's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 2]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Bayonne Trust Company meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
It is an excellent interpretation of beaux-arts commercial building in Bayonne, designed by the notable architect, Lansing C. Holden, Sr.
b.
The imposing Federal design structure of granite and brick veneer with classical features was reflective of the commercial goals of the investors and the community to share in the prosperity of the times.
c.
The building serves as an illustration of the development of the City of Bayonne as an industrial community at the turn of the 20th century and is representative of the City's economic development at the time of its greatest population and economic growth during New Jersey's Metropolitan era (1910-1945).
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 2]
The Bayonne Trust Company, located at 229-231 Broadway and known as Block 277, Lot 30, is hereby designated a historic landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 2]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 3]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The property is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Properties for its local significance.
b.
The Bayonne Truck (Hook and Ladder) House No. 1, now known as the Chief John Brennan Fire Museum is a two-story structure built in 1875 and is one of the first firehouses built in Bayonne.
c.
The structure remains essentially as originally constructed, with its original window openings, doorways and Italianate wood roof-cornice intact; however, the original brick and brownstone facade is presently covered with a rough textured stucco.
d.
The building is now known as the Chief John Brennan Fire Museum and houses much of the original equipment needed to operate a firehouse in 1875.
e.
Memorabilia on display inside the fire museum includes a veritable art gallery of rare and valuable photographs of the many fires fought by the Department through the years, as well as of parades and other historic events in which firefighters participated.
f.
Helmets formerly worn by departed Chiefs and firemen of the volunteers, and memorials and tributes to past firefighter heroes adorn the walls. The oldest hose carriage in the State of New Jersey stands on exhibit here. Purchased from the State of Georgia in 1884 by the Bayonne Volunteer Fire Department for $48.76, the hose carriage remained in use until 1897.
g.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic architectural and aesthetic elements of the Fire Museum within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 3]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Fire Museum meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
Although the facade has been altered, the structure of the building itself has not changed and stands as an example of a simple, utilitarian firehouse of its time. The greatest importance is that the Fire Museum represents an important period in the development of the City, contributing to the urban development of Bayonne and its social institutions.
b.
The citizens of Bayonne sought a City Charter in 1869, due, in part, to the need to have a government strong enough to organize and control an adequate Fire Department.
c.
The members of the Bayonne Volunteer Fire Company, Bayonne Hook and Ladder No. 1, held their first meeting in the firehouse in June, 1875.
d.
It is the oldest existing firehouse built in the City of Bayonne, which provided the citizens with a sense of safety, housing the City's fire equipment for over 50 years until a larger firehouse was built.
e.
The structure currently is used as a museum enabling current residents and future generations to access the City's history and to witness evolving firefighting techniques over the past century.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 3]
Bayonne Truck (Hook and Ladder) House No. 1, now known as the Chief John Brennan Fire Museum, located at 12 West 47th Street, and known as Block 77, Lot 2, is hereby designated a historic landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 3]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 4]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The property is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Properties for its architectural significance.
b.
The rectangular wood frame structure housing the current First Federated Church, believed to have been designed by C. Graham and Sons, was erected in 1866 on the corner of Avenue C and Bayonne Avenue (now 33rd Street).
c.
The building, along with other structures along Avenue C, was moved in 1875 to accommodate widening the main thoroughfare.
d.
The longitudinal facade of the Church has seven bays, the final two a result of expansion in 1890.
e.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic and architectural and aesthetic elements of First Federated Church (the "Church") within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 4]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the church's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
The distinctive Italianate bell tower and spire.
b.
The gable-roof.
c.
The 8/8 sash windows on the ground floor.
d.
The cornice, egg and dart moldings and frieze comprising the entablature as more particularly described in the National Register nomination form.
e.
Vertical arched stained glass windows, one over the entrance on Avenue C; one on either side of the entrance; and five extending along each of the two sides.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 4]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the church meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The structure is a rare vestige of Bayonne's pre-urban past, built as Bayonne was beginning to evolve from farmlands surrounding small villages into a major urban center for the petroleum industry.
b.
It is one of the few surviving examples of vernacular Italianate architecture in the City of Bayonne.
c.
The Dutch Reformed Church is one of the few extant physical reminders of the City's proud Dutch culture and tradition.
d.
Although the original arched doorway was drastically modified around 1960 with a triangular pediment, the structure has otherwise not been significantly altered in the past century.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 4]
First Federated Church, located at 736 Avenue C and known as Block 136, Lot 32, is hereby designated a historic landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-02-22 § 4]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-03-04 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The Free Public Library and Cultural Center of Bayonne is a two-story building that exemplifies the Beaux-Arts and Classical Revival Styles popular in the early 20th century.
[Ord. No. O-03-04 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the structure's architectural significance include, but are not limited to, the following:
a.
Limestone, granite and brick exterior.
b.
The main entrance flanked by round columns and by cartouches depicting lion heads and torches of enlightenment, symbols associated with libraries.
c.
The north, west, and south additions (c. 1930-32) visually flank the original structure via an impressive colonnade to form a courtyard around the main entrance.
d.
Five windows that face West 31st Street are inscribed in accordance with the disciplines of literature, history, art, science, and philosophy.
e.
Six windows that face into the courtyard are inscribed with the names of eight world leaders in arts and sciences: Solon, Darwin, Milton, Phidias, Mozart, Homer, Da Vinci and Einstein.
f.
Decorative imagery on the facade includes a lamp signifying enlightenment, a winged hourglass symbolizing that "time flies" and a monkey's face recalling the theory of human evolution.
g.
Ionic and Doric columns flanking the front door along the colonnade and the 31st Street wall.
h.
Design patterns along the pediment, the colonnade, and the side doors including egg-and-dart, bead-and-reel and waterleaf.
i.
Quoins, rosettes and cartouches as well as brackets, dentils and cornices along the pediment and the colonnade.
[Ord. No. O-03-04 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Free Public Library and Cultural Center of Bayonne meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The Free Public Library and Cultural Center of Bayonne is illustrative of the development of the City of Bayonne as an industrial community at the turn of the 20th century.
b.
Funded by grants from Andrew Carnegie, it is representative of the City's period of greatest economic development and population growth, which occurred during New Jersey's Metropolitan era (1910-1945).
c.
The building exemplified the development, heritage and cultural characteristics of the municipality in particular and of the County and State.
d.
The Free Public Library and Cultural Center of Bayonne has serviced not only as the City's public library since 1904, but also as a formal meeting place for many local organizations, and it has been the site of numerous cultural events such as art shows, exhibits and concerts.
e.
The building is an example of an excellent interpretation of the Beaux-Arts and Classical Revival architectural styles as designed by two notable American architects.
f.
Of national significance, Edward Lippincott Tilton, the architect who designed the original structure in 1903, designed the existing wall containing the main entrance as the facade of a Carnegie Library.
g.
The north, south and west additions of 1930-1932 are significant as the most ornate design of Hudson County architect Charles Shilowitz, who worked in the metropolitan area during the first half of the 20th century.
[Ord. No. O-03-04 § 1]
The Free Public Library and Cultural Center of Bayonne, located at 697 Avenue C and known as Block 152, Lot 8, is hereby designated as Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-03-04 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-06-13 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines that the property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history as follows:
a.
The structure on the property was constructed in 1907-08 as office space for the Babcock and Wilcox Company's adjacent manufacturing facility.
b.
Babcock and Wilcox manufactured steam boilers for both industrial and military use, and also manufactured power systems for the United States War and Navy Departments during both World Wars I and II.
c.
In 1946, the building was acquired by the Divera Sportswear Company, and was converted to factory use.
d.
In 1948, the building was acquired by the Maidenform Brassiere Company, which used the building for the manufacture of women's clothing.
e.
The building currently houses apartments for senior citizens in the former factory space and is known currently as Senior Horizons.
[Ord. No. O-06-13 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction represents the work of a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction by the following:
a.
The building is a 3 1/2 story tall, rectangular red brick building with a limestone base and trim, and is designed in the Commercial style as a simply, rectangular block, metal framed, with large, variously paned windows grouped in bays along each facade.
[Ord. No. O-06-13 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the property meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.
b.
The property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
[Ord. No. O-06-13 § 1]
74 Lexington Avenue and known as Block 372, Lot 1.01 is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-06-13 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-06-45 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The Despestre-O'Brien-Zeik House is a Second Empire or Mansard Style, is a three-story, single-family residence built between 1871 and 1873.
b.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic and architectural and aesthetic elements of the Despestre-O'Brien-Zeik House within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-06-45 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
Features key to the dwelling's architectural significance include:
1.
The roof includes original slate shingles and an original skylight.
2.
The house includes replacement windows in the same positions as the original windows.
3.
Covered with original cedar shakes, and original sawed ornamental gingerbread trim remains all around the roofline, framed around the windows and over the cover porch.
4.
House includes original basement windows.
5.
Three original marble mantled fireplaces.
6.
A coal room and a bathroom in the basement are original to the structure.
7.
Ornamental elements include a three-story curved banister.
8.
Original oak parquet and pine floors, tins ceilings, ornamental moldings, original wooden doors and decorative radiators with covers.
b.
The property has an original flagstone wall and two step-ways leading to the property also contained in some of the original flagstone and the brick found is original.
c.
The slate sidewalks are likewise key to the property and reflective of the period.
[Ord. No. O-06-45 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Despestre-O'Brien-Zeik House meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
It is one of the few remaining houses of its period remaining in Bayonne and is an excellent and well-preserved example of the Second Empire or Mansard Style of architecture, popular in America from the 1860s to the 1890s.
b.
The main dwelling house has not been architecturally altered; however, it is noted that an additional porch at the rear of the house dating from the 1960s and a lift that is still on the property, but no longer is attached to the structure. The rear porch and the lift are noncontributing elements.
[Ord. No. O-06-45 § 1]
The Despestre-O'Brien-Zeik House, located at 104-106 West 8th Street and known as Block 286, Lot 37, is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-06-45 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-07-19 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The original Robbins Reef Light Station which is located on the West Side, Main Channel, Upper New York Bay, in the territorial waters of Bayonne, southeast of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, was established and constructed in 1839. The current light station was built in 1883.
b.
The Robbins Reef Light Station is historically significant for the City of Bayonne and for all of Hudson County, New Jersey. It is also on the National and State Registers of Historic Places for its association with the efforts of the Federal government to provide an integrated system of navigational sites throughout the United States, and in promoting maritime transport safety in and around the ports in northern New Jersey and New York City.
c.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic elements of the Robbins Reef Light Station within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-07-19 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
The current lighthouse includes a forty-eight-foot superstructure that sits atop a masonry pier. Its pier is about 45 feet in diameter and built of granite blocks.
b.
The lighthouse pier's foundation was built according the nineteenth century engineering methods developed in England for light towers at wave-swept, offshore location. This interlocking stone block style of pier is the first one of its type constructed in the United States. Its durability in design inspired the construction of several other offshore lights with similar pier foundations.
c.
The light station's existing cast iron tower is historically significant as a well-preserved example of a sparkplug lighthouse build in 1882. It replaced the original masonry tower that was removed in the late nineteenth century. The sparkplug light tower was an important advance in United States lighthouse design that was especially suited for offshore locations. It was based on a standardized plan that included a kit of prefabricated parts that was easily transported and quickly assembled at offshore locations. The design type facilitated expanding the Federal government's nationwide system of navigation aids during the period of rapid growth in the United States maritime commerce that occurred during the late nineteenth century following the Civil War.
d.
The most noticeable change to the interior of the lighthouse is the character of its main gallery. This gallery was formerly roofed with a circular metal awning attached to a metal ledge affixed to the light tower just below the second story windows. The ledge is still present. The original main gallery was also partly enclosed with walls referred to in architectural drawings of the lighthouse as its fog signal house. The main gallery also formerly included an oil storage tank, hoist and boat davits. The gallery's awning, walls enclosing the fog signal hours, tank, hoist and davits were removed sometime following the lighthouse's automation in 1965.
[Ord. No. O-07-19 § 1; Ord. No. O-08-20]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Robbins Reef Light Station meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
Robbins Reef Light Station's character and appearance reflect the property's period of historical significance and meets the registration requirements in the multiple property documentation for "Light Stations of the United States."
[Ord. No. O-07-19 § 1]
The Robbins Reef Light Station located on the West Side, Main Channel, Upper New York Bay, in the territorial waters of Bayonne, southeast of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-07-19 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-08-40 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
St. Vincent DePaul Church was designed in the Romanesque Revival style with Lombard influence of Northern Italy by the architectural firm of Maginnis and Walsh of Boston was built by the Charles J. Smith Construction Company.
b.
The exterior facade of 10,350 square feet church is made of Weymouth granite from Plymouth Quarries, Inc., with "cut stone" trim. The exterior granite varies in coloring from reddish-brown to light green. The stones are laid in a rambling ashlar style.
c.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic elements of the St. Vincent DePaul Church within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-08-40 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the church's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
The front facade is massive but artistic and fits exactly the edge of the main body of the church, thus enhancing its stately appearance.
b.
A 140-foot Venetian-style campanile adds majestic height to the main body of the church and stand outs prominently from a great distance. Standing freely away from the main mass of the church, the campanile rises sheer from the ground. In the Italian manner, it is located on the Gospel (south) side of the church. The fenestration of the campanile is made up of openings becoming more numerous at each story level with each level developing into a rich arcade at the top. Below the arch openings at the top level are rows of decorative marble insets. Each of the four corners of the tower has a pyramid-shaped peak representing one of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. A conical spire adorned with a cross sits on the top of the campanile. The cone is covered with terra cotta colored tile in various patterns. In 2000, the lights in the campanile were restored. In 2003, the chimes were restored.
[Ord. No. O-08-40 § 1]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the St. Vincent DePaul meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
St. Vincent DePaul's character and appearance reflect the property's period of historical significance and meets the registration requirements in the multiple property documentation for "Roman Catholic Churches of the United States."
[Ord. No. O-08-40 § 1]
St. Vincent DePaul Church is located at 979-993 Avenue C, which is also known as Block 76, Lot 17, on the tax map of the City of Bayonne, is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-08-40 § 1]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-10-17 § 1]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The structure on the property is a Victorian home that was built between 1871 and 1873. It is a simplified version of a Second Empire (also known as a French Mansard) house that was popular in Bayonne and other cities after the Civil War.
b.
It is the public interest to preserve the historic and architectural and aesthetic elements of 120-124 West 8th Street within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-10-17 § 2]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
Features key to the dwelling's architectural significance include:
1.
It shall has the original gingerbread and other 19th century features, such as the trim around the windows and doors. The house consists of nine rooms — four on the first floor, three bedrooms on the second floor, and two rooms on the third floor. The roof includes original slate shingles and an original skylight.
2.
The defining style for the Second Empire style is the roof. A Mansard roof is a hipped roof that is nearly flat on top and steeply sloped on the sides, generally covering the entire height of the top story of the house. Just below the roof is cornice with elaborate moldings and decorative brackets, which are evenly spaces.
3.
The exterior walls are wooden clapboard, and were painted either gray or white by Henry Usowicz, the late owner.
4.
Corner quoins are another feature of the Second Empire style. They are one inch by six-inch rectangular pieces of wood, painted white, used to accentuate and decorate the corners of this house. Each corner has two boards. The ones on the front of the house overlap the side boards. Quoins on the corners of the walls also drawn the eye upwards toward the roof. There are white rectangular boards around each window.
5.
The porch is a combination of two different styles, and it is single-story. The deck consists of tongue and groove boards that are painted gray. The columns are six inches square and have a decorated capital on top of each one. The columns are separated by segmental arches. The columns and arches are painted white.
6.
The deck-to-ceiling window on the back wall of the porch is borrowed from the Italianate style of windows. The window consists of four panels of glass on each side for a total of eight panes of glass. The front entranceway has decorative molding on three sides. There are pilasters on both sides of the door.
7.
Ornamental elements include a three-story curved banister.
8.
Original oak parquet and pine floors, tin ceilings, ornamental moldings, original wooden doors and decorative radiators with covers.
[Ord. No. O-10-33]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 120-124 West 8th Street meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
On March 28, 1963, Solon Humphreys and his wife, Ellen, purchased a large tract of land from David LaTourette. That land includes the now landmarked home at 104-106 West 8th Street. The property consisted of land between Newark Bay Road (now known as Avenue A) in the northerly line of the lands formerly owned by Jasper Garretson, who said the land then belonged to the Central Railroad of New Jersey. The lot bounded northerly by the lands of Solon Humphreys, and easterly by land owned by David LaTourette. The Humphreys lived nearby on a Newark Bay estate called "Pepperidge."
b.
Former owner Solon Humphreys was a prominent citizen and businessman in Bayonne, New York and the United States. Mr. Humphreys arrived in New York from Canton, Connecticut, in 1840. In 1846, he left New York as an agent for former New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan to found Humphreys and Thatcher, a business in St. Louis. In St. Louis, he married Mary Ellen Walsh, who was known as Ellen. The Humphreys family moved to Bayonne in 1853. He became a partner in the firm of E.D. Morgan and Company in January 1854. Morgan was engaged in the coffee, tea, and sugar trade. The company also expanded to include banking. Solon Humphreys was introduced to the railroad business when Morgan secured legislation to form the New York Central Railroad in 1853. He developed a national reputation in railroad finance, and was involved prominently for many years in Western railroads. He was Treasurer and Director of the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre and Pacific Railroad. He served as President of the Wabash Railroad. Humphreys and Morgan were involved in the Erie Railroad. He was a member of the American Board of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, a director of the Metropolitan Bank, and Vice President and Treasurer of the New York Chamber of Commerce.
c.
Solon Humphreys was one of the founders of Trinity Parish in Bergen Point in Bayonne. He served on the Map and Grade Commission that was appointed by the Bayonne Township Committee. The Commission revised Bayonne's original road designs with suggested new layouts for the Township. Mr. Humphreys was one of the original incorporators of the Mechanics Trust Company, the first bank in Bayonne, in 1872. He was President and Director of the Bayonne and Greenville Gaslight Company, President of the Bayonne Hospital Association, and founder of the Bayonne Workingmen's Library.
d.
The proper meets Criterion B and Criterion C of the historic preservation standards. Criterion B: Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. Criterion C: Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.
[Ord. No. O-10-17]
The house located at 120-124 West 8th Street, known as Block 285, Lot 19, is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-10-17]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-11-12]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The structure is a decorative street clock manufactured by the Brown Street Clock Co., Monessen, PA and, in the words of the New York City Landmarks Commission, "A handsome cast-iron street clock represents an increasingly rare sampling of a type of street amenity that once proliferated. They are in most cases, masterpieces of cast-iron workmanship, beautifully designed and prominent sidewalk landmarks. As an essential part of a city's urban fabric, they make a very special and significant contribution to the landscape." The clock case sits atop a stylized Corinthian column over a classical pedestal base on a square concrete foundation;
b.
It is in the public interest to preserve the historic, architectural and aesthetic elements of the Bayonne Street Clock within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-11-12]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the clock's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
Features key to the clock's design and construction significance include:
1.
The clock case sits atop a stylized Corinthian column over a classical pedestal base on a square concrete foundation. Raised lettering on the pedestal base identifies its origin as "Brown Street Clock Co. - Made in Monessen, PA." The wording on the base does not indicate the year of the clock's construction.
2.
The glass for the two clock faces was made by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. The thirty-inch circular clock dials were made of opal-ribbed glass and were custom-designed with the jeweler's names on them. Dials could be ordered with either Arabic or Roman numerals. Two electric lights installed behind the translucent dials illuminated them at night. Each clock was also decorated with two small cast iron lion heads.
3.
Street clocks make a significant contribution to the pedestrian character and to the unique personality of the streets and sidewalks in which they stand. When associated with commercial establishments such as banks or jewelry stores, they become symbolic elements that identify the establishments and set them apart from otherwise routine and conforming facades.
4.
The pedestal base and the dial casing of a Brown Street Clock were made of cast iron, and the fluted column between them was made of two-ply, 22 gauge galvanized steel. The clocks weighed between 1,300 and 1,625 pounds when crated for shipment. The master movement was located in the base and kept running for eight days with one winding. The mechanism featured quality cast brass plates, a Graham deadbeat escapement, maintaining power on cable barrel, and a cast iron motion works mounting bracket.
5.
Among its important landmark qualities, the Bayonne Street Clock or Abramson's Clock is a piece of street furniture that forms part of our community's historical and urban fabric. The clock enhances and maintains the intimacy and scale of the Town Center shopping district. It is an excellent example of cast-iron workmanship exhibiting a handsome, classically inspired design. It represents a small extant sample of a clock type that once proliferated in American cities well into the 20th century. An increasingly rare street amenity, the clock makes a very special and significant contribution to the Broadway streetscape.
6.
The porch is a combination of two different styles, and it is single-story. The deck consists of tongue and groove boards that are painted gray. The columns are six inches square and have a decorated capital on top of each one. The columns are separated by segmental arches. The columns and arches are painted white.
[Ord. No. O-11-12]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Bayonne Street Clock meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
It was purchased by local jeweler Maurice Abramson (1908-1993) from another Bayonne jeweler Samuel Cooper (1873-1964) and moved to its current site from Cooper's store at 698 Broadway. Cooper was a prominent merchant; a member of the Elks, Masons, and Rotary Club; active with the YWCA, Boy Scouts, and the Police Athletic League (PAL); a director of the Mechanics Trust Company Bank; a Hudson County jury commissioner; and a member of the Bayonne Historical Society. History does not record from whom Samuel Cooper first purchased the street clock or when he had it installed in Bayonne, but it is possible that it arrived in Bayonne in the 1920's
b.
The next owner of the street clock, Maurice Abramson, had been an art student at the National Academy of Design where he studied under the painter Leon Kroll and received the prestigious Julius Hallgarten Prize. After the death of his father Abram in 1934, Maurice took over the family jewelry business at 480 Broadway. After World War II ended, Maurice decided to expand the business by buying a nearby building at 484 Broadway. He hired architects Charles Saul Telchin and Wilbur Carl Johanson, AIA, to design an inviting Art Deco interior and exterior to attract customers to the new store, which opened on Saturday, October 12, 1946.
c.
Abramson had the street clock installed curbside at 484 Broadway and had the mechanism electrified so that he would not have to climb a ladder every eight days to wind it. He had the two clock dials painted to say "Abramson's," and he added neon lighting around the dials and the store name "Abramson's Jewelers" in neon over the top of each clock face to further advertise his business. A March 1950 local newspaper ad for the 25th Anniversary of the store states, "We are still identified by the large clock on the curb in front of our store."
d.
The clock was restored in several steps over a period of years after vandalism and wear and tear had taken their toll on it. When the restoration was completed, the clock was donated to the City of Bayonne by the late Frank Anderson (1939-2009), who then owned Abramson's Jewelers. Under an agreement with the City, the two neon signs that said "Abramson's Jewelers" were removed from above the clock case and replaced with a painted sign that says "Est. 1869 — Bayonne" while "Abramson's Jewelers" is now painted on both of the clock dials. Previously, the dials only had the single name "Abramson's" painted on them. The restored clock was unveiled on Wednesday, November 21, 2001.
e.
The property meets Criterion C of the criteria for listing on the National Register of Historic Places: C. "Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction" and Criterion G. (subsection 37-8.1g) of the historic preservation criteria of Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances: "Property is associated with a unique location of singular physical characteristics that make a district or site an established or familiar visual feature."
[Ord. No. O-11-12]
The Bayonne Street Clock located at curbside at 484 Broadway at the front of Block 205, Lot 6 is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-11-12]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-12-04]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The brown brick structure is a commercial/apartment property built in 1899 for William Suhl who owned other property on West 8th Street. Suhl hired architect Augustus (August) Schmidt to design the double building that now stands on the site albeit with contemporary alterations. Two early images of the facade reveal the original exterior design. The buildings were renovated some years later with new windows, aluminum siding and the glass blocks that were in vogue in the 1930s. The rigid glass blocks were set into the facade to provide privacy in the office space within. Glass blocks were a feature of Art Moderne architecture. It is in the public interest to preserve the historic and architectural and aesthetic elements of 29 West 8th Street within the parameters of the Historic Preservation Ordinance of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-12-04]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
Features key to the dwelling's architectural significance include:
1.
The Romanesque Revival three-story, symmetrical three-bay row building faces south and is attached to adjacent building on both east and west sides. The double building is composed of Numbers 29 and 29A West 8th Street with a common facade that gives the appearance of a single property. Each building has a separate entrance leading to separate stairwells.
2.
The building still shows an essence of its original Romanesque Revival style in spite of alterations. The first floor is symmetrical and shows four wood doors, which reflect the dual use of the building. Two doors at the center of the building are separated by a pilaster and constitute the main entrances to each half of the building. They have two vertical panels on the lower 2/3 while the top 1/3 has glass panes in a semi-circular design. There is also a blind panel in the transom area above the doors. The doors are recessed from the first floor plane and have wood pilasters at both sides and the center between the doors. These pilasters have a fluted shaft and a simple capital whose only decoration is a rosette. There is also a paneled base.
3.
At both ends of the facade's first floor, the pilasters are repeated, but the latter are slightly wider than the center three pilasters. They are next to the other two doors that are simpler in design. The storefront areas are filled with glass blocks on top of brick. This is a more recent alteration, which could have been done in the era when the use of glass block started in the Modernistic style (1920-1940). The glass block curves towards the doors and is characteristic of the mentioned style. It could also be considered historic, since it was most probably installed over more than 50 years ago.
4.
Between the first and second stories, there is a short roof that separates these floors along the entire facade. It has a cornice underneath with moldings and dentils and is supported by seven brackets, which was common in the Italianate style. The brackets are wood and the center and end brackets are more elaborate and complex than the others.
5.
The windows of the second floor are paired windows, separated and flanked by stone columns. The center column has a square shaft while the flanking columns (pilasters, since they are embedded in the wall plane) have a circular shaft. The shaft is flat with no decoration and sits on a simple pedestal which is separated from the shaft by two moldings. The capitals are elaborate and of the Corinthian style, one of the few elements of classical influence in this building. However, the column itself has no classical proportions and its short shaft is of the type used in other styles such as the Romanesque. The capitals have semicircle arches that have moldings and brick at the inner semicircle. These projected moldings have the egg and dart design in the exterior, a flat band, a miniature dentil semicircle and flat band again.
6.
The arch has an intricate and almost beefy key at the center top, whose proportion is, again, not classical, since it is big compared to the size of the arch. These second story middle bay windows, project from the general background plane and have their own roof that sits on moldings and dentils. The windows have a stone sill base, also known as a corbel, a term used in masonry. It sits on top of brickwork that recedes in steps as it goes down. The top sash has a rhomboidal pattern, which makes these windows singular, since this pattern is rarely used in American architecture. The bottom shaft has only one pane.
7.
Near the top of the facade, projecting hoods provide a roof over two-story oriel bay windows that are characteristic of the Queen Anne style. This feature is currently covered with asphalt siding and follows the shape of the bay windows below. It is separated by simple moldings from the rest of the facade. The bay windows are entirely covered with horizontal aluminum siding. There is also siding at the top of the center bay, which slightly protrudes from the plane of the brick and partly covers a stone band below. This overlapping and the double hung aluminum windows of the bay window indicate that these materials are not part of the original design. The stone band at the top of the central brick area features scrolls and a key stone at the center of paired windows on the second floor. There are also three rosettes with carved floral motifs, symmetrically located and painted white at present, as well as a floral inspired high relief ornament, one at the center of this bay and two others symmetrically located near the line that separates the center bay from the single bays.
8.
The stretcher bond brickwork in the background between the bay windows, as well as the exposed brick of the rest of the facade at both sides of the bay windows, has been painted. The windows of the center bay are made of wood and are double-hung. The wood of these windows is in relatively good condition. They are most likely part of the original design as opposed to the windows of the bay windows that may be part of a more recent installation. The set of two-paired windows on the center bay is the focal point of the design of this facade. They are peculiar due to their non-standard shape and size. These are small vertical windows, some of which have panes that resemble medieval or Gothic church windows. They have a brick background that originally may have covered the entire facade. The top windows of the center bay are double hung, 12 over four glass panes, small, rectangular and vertical. They have stone sills which are on top of the roof of the second floor windows below.
9.
The roof, not visible from the street, is flat and slopes towards the rear of the building. The roof has four brick chimneys, two of them close to the street facade. The roof's profile is exposed on both its east and west sides, since it is taller than the adjacent buildings.
[Ord. No. O-12-04]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 29/29A West 8th Street meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The building is part of a streetscape that was associated with two earlier Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) train stations across the street that comprised Depot Square.
b.
The property is located in the historic Bergen Point section of downtown Bayonne. The property's immediate context includes other significant building, such as the Mechanics' Trust Company Bank Building at 19-21 West 8th Street (now a Head Start site), the footprint of the Eighth Street Station of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which ran along Avenue E from 1864 to 1978, and New Jersey Transit's 8th Street Light Rail Station, completed in January 2011. It is also one of the buildings constructed in the proximity of the Jersey City and Bergen Railroad and the Dummy Railroad, which were filled in.
c.
The property of 29/29A West 8th Street is historically significant for its association with the development of trade and business in the vicinity of West 8th Street, also known as Depot Square. The appearance of a hotel at the site coincides with the establishment a wood train station for the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) during the Civil War era on the south side of 8th Street (then Sixteenth Street). A second train station, built of stone and designed in Romanesque Revival style by Frank V. Bodine, opened in 1892 replacing the original wood station.
d.
Two different structures were built on this site in the 19th century. The first, a three-story wooden structure, housed three hotels consecutively - Stringham's, St. Charles and Bayonne — for a period of approximately 30 years. Constructed by John N. Van Boskerck circa 1869, it was owned by Patrick W. Connolly, an undertaker, and James R. Stringham.
e.
The replacement brown brick structure is a commercial/apartment property built in 1899 for William Suhl who owned other property on West 8th Street. Suhl hired architect Augustus (August) Schmidt to design the double building that now stands on the site albeit with contemporary alterations. Two early images of the facade reveal the original exterior design. The buildings were renovated some years later with new windows, aluminum siding and the glass blocks that were in vogue in the 1930s. The rigid glass blocks were set into the facade to provide privacy in the office space within. Glass blocks were a feature of Art Moderne architecture.
f.
The 1873 Hopkins Map shows only two buildings on West 8th Street, and the second structure is far to the east of the hotel and close to Avenue D (now Broadway). The structure that appears to be the original wooded hotel has the same shape and size footprint on later maps and is just west of the "dummy road" where the "dummy railroad" ran. The site is likely the lot for Stringham's Hotel. James R. Stringham and his wife, Catalina Stringham, owned the property for 15 years. Edward Stringham was the clerk of the hotel.
g.
Changes on the block occurred, circa 1885-1893, when Bayonne approved the beginning of the laying of tracks on certain streets, such as 16th Street (now 8th Street) by the Jersey City and Bergen Point Railroad Company to operate a trolley system. It replaced horse-drawn trolley cars that the company ran through the City. When the railroad property was sold to Mechanics Trust by the railroad, Edward Faitoute Condict Young, a prominent Jersey City financier was president. Stringham's Hotel was renamed the St. Charles Hotel under the proprietorship of Charles T. Munn, circa 1887-1892. At the time, the property was owned by Caroline M. Haskins and her husband Charles M. Haskins, a banker, of 80 Broadway in New York City. Munn had several interests in the Bayonne community. He owned the "Apple Grove" on Avenue C and East First Street, circa 1878. He served as a timekeeper for the New Jersey Athletic Club in the Kill Van Kull Association's Tenth Annual Regatta held on the Staten Island Sound. He served as Postmaster, County Freeholder, Republican Assembly candidate, and City Council candidate.
h.
In the early morning of March 2, 1892, a fire found in the basement caused the evacuation of the St. Charles Hotel. The building was covered by insurance, and the renovation of the hotel began quickly. A Bayonne Herald & Greenville Reporter article, on March 19, 1892, reports work underway to repair the fire damage.
i.
In May 1893, the renovated St. Charles Hotel had both a new name, The Bayonne Hotel, and a new proprietor, W.S. Emery who had 20 years experience managing hotels in Europe. The Bayonne Hotel remained in operation at the site for only a short time. William Suhl of 276 Boulevard purchased the hotel on West 8th Street from Caroline M. Haskins on November 22, 1898. In 1898, Suhl announced plans to erect a new building on the site. Born in Germany, Suhl was a Bayonne resident from 1868. He had a prominent restaurant at 25 West 8th Street.
j.
Suhl decided to purchase and to raze the hotel, which with its saloon and restaurant had probably been competition for his own business at 25 West 8th Street on property he bought in 1886 from Sarah A. Davis. Suhl's new brick building at 29/29A West 8th Street with two store fronts and apartments above would insure better revenue from both of his properties on the block.
k.
Augustus (August) Schmidt, the architect, had offices on West 8th Street circa 1899 when he was hired by William Suhl to construct the three-story brick structure at 29 West 8th Street. Schmidt was the first architect to start a business in Bayonne. He designed several residential, governmental, and organizational buildings in Bayonne.
l.
Suhl's building at 29 West 8th Street was mentioned in a New York Times article on August 29, 1907. Congressman Eugene W. Leake, Democrat from the Ninth Jersey District, opened an office in Bayonne for the purpose of meeting with his constituents. He placed a sign in the window of the Annett-Mahnken Realty Company, listed at 29 West 8th Street. The realty company was listed in issues of The Bayonne Directory from 1910 to 1915. Other occupants were the United States Express Company and P.F. Botzong, Esq.
m.
The occupancy of 29/29A West by two attorneys, Horace Roberson, May 5, 1858-January 1955, and his nephew Horace K. Roberson, March 12, 1892-June 1986, further contributes to the structure's prominence; and whereas: Horace Roberson began his involvement in public service and local politics shortly after arriving in Bayonne in the late 1880s. He was elected for a term as School Trustee (1891), appointed to a two-year term as City Treasurer (1894), and was elected City Councilman (1898). He served as counsel for the Centerville Building and Loan Association (later First Savings and Loan Association). Roberson was also a charter member of the Bayonne Kiwanis Club, Chair of the Bayonne Red Cross for 50 years, and president of the Board of the Peddie School in Hackettstown, NJ. He resided at 97 West 8th Street.
n.
An outspoken member of the Republican Party, he was a member of the County Committee and Vice-President of the Bayonne City Republican Association. He became the judge of the Bayonne District Court in 1901 and the Bayonne City Commission in 1905. In 1940, he became Director of Revenue and Finance, under Mayor James J. Donovan (1939-1943). He died in January 1955 at age 96.
o.
Horace King Roberson, the son of Horace Roberson's brother William King Roberson, moved to Bayonne in 1910. Three years later, he graduated from New York University Law School and passed the bar exam while working for his uncle Horace Roberson. Like his uncle, he was a Republican and the only Republican member of the Bayonne City Commission as Director of Public Safety. He was appointed Municipal Court Judge and city recorder in 1933. Roberson achieved a degree of notoriety as a critic of the Hudson County political "Boss" Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City.
p.
In 1939, Roberson formed an alliance with Commissioner Bert Daly, a former Hague supporter. Their anti-Hague ticket was elected by the voters of Bayonne in the municipal election with the slogan "Home Rule — Not Hague Rule". In the 1939 election, the anti-Hague ticket headed by former Freeholder Donovan scored the most sweeping victory ever rolled up in the City of Bayonne. Roberson was re-elected to the City Commission on May 11, 1943.
q.
Roberson was sworn in as Hudson County prosecutor on April 30, 1946, and served until February 1953. He served as president of the Bayonne Hospital Board of Trustees from 1954 to 1985. The patient care building was named the Horace K. Roberson Pavilion when it opened. He was also a charter member of the First Savings and Loan founded in 1945. Roberson had a long-time association with the Bayonne YMCA, serving on its Board of Directors and was active with the Bayonne Kiwanis from its founding in 1921. He served as counsel to the former Bayonne Trust Company and the First Savings and Loan Association, among other banking firms. He purchased the building at 29/29A West 8th Street from Anthony and Marie Fanurik in 1951. He lived at 97 West 8th Street and died on January 21, 1986 at age 93.
r.
The present owner Leonard P. Kiczek, former Mayor of Bayonne (1994-1998), purchased the West 8th Street building in 1988. His occupancy of the building adds to its local significance.
s.
This building is historically important for two reasons. One is its association with the different train stations and the other is that it forms a compact group with other buildings of the same era along the streetscape. The current facade of 29/29A West 8th Street gives evidence of a number of renovations that resulted in materials that may be covering original architectural details instead of replacing them. Parts of the original facade very likely remain underneath, which is significant to historic preservationists. The glass block windows of the commercial storefronts could potentially be replaced with plate glass again. In cases where original material is no longer available, historic preservation allows for replacement with the same type, style, quality of material to complete or maintain the original design. The original style of the building is difficult to determine in that it has a somewhat eclectic design incorporating elements of several different styles. The pair of oriel bay windows that extend two stories high was characteristic of the Queen Anne style. The unusual molded projecting hoods at the top that provide a roof for the bay windows below are indicative of Italianate style. The festoons, colonettes and cornice of the first floor, and the first floor itself could also be considered Italianate. However, the feature that stands out is the design of the second and third floors of the center windows, whose size and proportions are closer to the Romanesque style.
t.
The current building, constructed in 1899, meets the latest guideline for preservation of a building over 75 years old. It is an archaeological site on which a wooden hotel significant to the Bergen Point community once stood before the building we see today was built. Designed by August Schmidt, the "First Architect of Bayonne," the building is of mostly brick construction; some original details may still exist beneath modernizations.
u.
The local historic designation of the building rests on Criteria A and B of the National Register of Historic Places:
1.
Criterion A: Under this standard, a property must make a contribution to the pattern of American history. The building was constructed opposite a railroad station at Deport Square that served as the focus of the commercial and industrial development of Bayonne at the turn of the twentieth century.
2.
Criterion B: Under this standard, a property must be associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. The current building housed long-time occupants Roberson & Roberson who were of historical significance to the city and the county. As attorneys, they made contributions in the fields of politics and public service.
[Ord. No. O-12-04]
The property located at 29 West 8th Street, also known as 29/29A West 8th Street, and designated as Block 283, Lot 14, on the tax map of the City of Bayonne is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-12-04]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-13-20]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
43 West 33rd Street is located on the north side of West 33rd Street, between Avenue C and Broadway. This building is part of a three-unit set of row houses (Nos. 43, 45, and 47 from east to west). These residential units are each on properties that are about 20 feet wide and 90 feet deep. They have a continuous front yard and continuous porches. The three units abut each other and are presumed to have common party walls between them. No. 43 is built at the lot line on its east side, where there is a gap of about a foot to the wall of the adjacent building.
b.
43 West 33rd Street is a two-bay building. This building and the other two in the row are identical in shape, size, and location of openings. They are two-story-and-a-basement high, as described by a 1912 Sanborn Map, which is shown with no change on a 2006 Sanborn Map. A visual observation in February 2013 revealed an attic whose ceiling insinuates the shape of the roof as a sided gable. The 1912 Sanborn Map indicates that this is a brick construction, which makes it stand out on the block where it is located, since brick was used in less than 25% of the buildings of this block.
c.
The main facade of the building is set back about 20 feet from the front property line. The facade is asymmetrical and has two bays; one of them includes a wood stoop that leads to the wood deck of a porch which continues to the main entrance or main door of the house. This porch is of the dropped type, that is, it is attached to the house, not as part of the main roof or extension of it as in other cases. This is a full-width, one-story porch that continues the whole length of the three-unit row house.
[Ord. No. O-13-20]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited to, the following:
a.
Features key to the dwelling's architectural significance include:
1.
Stylistic elements that coincide with the time of its assumed construction, mainly of the American Victorian inspiration in vogue at the end of the 19th century. It could also be classified as American Queen Anne, a popular style in the years 1880 to 1910, which is one of the Victorian subcategories, because of the following elements: three-story, three-sided bay windows; full-width, one-story porch or veranda; turned porch posts; windows and door with large colored glass panes surrounded by smaller multi-colored glass panes. There are other elements that could be considered of Greek-Italianate style, such as the entablatures of the porch and the one at the top of the house, which have cornice, frieze, and architrave (the porch lacks the latter) with brackets and modillions in between; the triangular pediments above all windows; and door with bull's eye decoration. These are a local interpretation of the Italianate style.
2.
The main facade of this building is set back about 20 feet from the front property line. The facade is asymmetrical and has two bays; one of them includes a wood stoop that leads to the wood deck of a porch which continues to the main entrance or main door of the house. This porch is of the dropped type, that is, it is attached to the house, not as part of the main roof or extension of it as in other cases. This is a full-width, one-story porch that continues the whole length of the three-unit row house.
3.
The porch roof is held up by three posts; two of them are turned porch posts or "spindle posts." The third one has a square section which is a replacement of a previous turned post (as related by the present owner). The porch has a low railing or balustrade (about 26 inches high) on three sides of the porch, with simple balusters of square section on two sides; the third side, that separates this porch from the next porch, has an alternate square pattern on the side, which was the previous design of all sides.
4.
The white wood turned porch posts have a square base or pedestal, a two-part shaft and brackets at the top. The shaft has four side circular motifs, or bull's eye, at mid-height. The capital is made of triangular brackets parallel to the facade, with curved lines and a circular cut-out at the center. These posts are located at each side of the stoop. The third post that holds up the porch roof has a simple square section shaft. This post has the same wood brackets as the other two posts, but one of them is turned towards the house since it is at the property line.
5.
The porch has a straight and simple cornice, which is held by equally spaced modillions under the soffit of the cornice, where there is also a second type of brackets perpendicular to the facade, one at each post, which extend below the porch cornice with horizontal incised lines. The central bracket shows a decoration that is similar to Greek guttae, a sort of water drip of triangular shapes. The brackets and modillions have a pattern of square cut-out holes on their front side, while the lateral sides have an incised curved decoration, which is similar to the brackets and modillions at the top of the house, which will be described later.
6.
The porch has ample room before it gets to the brick wall, which is assembled in a stretcher bond and is, at present painted with a reddish orange color. The rest of the elements of the house, the stoop, railings, windows, cornices are painted white. The main wood double door has a light blue color, while the wood deck is painted grey. The door has tall proportions, about eight feet high, and it is divided in three parts. The bottom part has wood panels and decorative insets. The middle part has a single large pane of glass. The top part has two large yellow panes surrounded by small red, blue, and yellow squares around the perimeter.
7.
One of the most visible features of this building is the three-sided bay window that runs all three floors. There is a window at each side and at each floor. The windows are double-hung and have multicolored panels at the top sash except for the basement. The color of the panels are red, blue, and yellow, and they are arranged as squares and rectangles around a large yellow glass pane, which has peculiar triangular panes at mid-height of the window, which could have been called diamond if they would have not been slid half module, so what we see are two triangles joined at their apex at the center of the window. This type of window is known as a Stained Glass Queen Anne or Cottage Style window. The look of multiple mullions of varying colored antique or muffle glass can be very spectacular when sun shines from behind. Due to the era, these windows were largely installed in Queen Anne houses, from which they are named, but they are also called "cottage" windows. This window style, the result of emerging technology, was a completely new style of window that did not exist in previous historic styles.
8.
The house is crowned by a cornice, which has the same elements of an entablature, such as architrave, frieze, and cornice. The architrave has moldings that step up, in a narrower proportion if compared to classical design. The frieze has modillions that are larger than those at the porch cornice. The main element of the top cornice are the large brackets that are similar to those at the porch, which indicates that they are from the same period, making this building of historic integrity.
9.
The roof is imperceptible from the street since the top cornice of the building extends high enough to block any view of it. An aerial photo (Bing 2012) shows a rectangular roof, where the short sides face the street and the rear yard. The rectangular shape is only broken by the roof on top of the bay window which follows its three-sided shape. The roof slopes towards the street and the rear yard, having a ridge at mid-point between them, creating the side-gable shape, which is not visible since, on the west side, the roof continues at the same height as the other two buildings; on the east side, the adjacent building's roof is some feet higher than the 43 West 33rd Street house.
10.
There are gutters at the lower lines of the roof and parallel to the street. The gutter on the street side is hidden behind the cornice, though a downspout on the west side of the main facade indicates how this side of the roof is drained. The roof shows some penetrations including two dormers, a skylight, a chimney, and some vents. The dormers have long and low sloped roofs, and they are located at both sides of the ridge, looking south and north respectively. There is also a skylight on the west side of the roof, a close distance to the ridge and south of it. It has wire glass and it is of the hipped type, with metal structure and hardware. The other element of the roof is a brick chimney (not in use) whose west side is on the same plane as the west side wall of this building and reaches a height of several feet above the roof.
11.
The porch and the rear extension have their own roofs. The porch's roof has a gutter which is painted white and blends with the moldings of the porch cornice.
12.
The basement or ground level of the house contains a separate one-floor apartment. It formerly was space for the dining room and the kitchen behind it when the house was a one-family occupancy. The main floor and second floor today constitute a second apartment. There is a living room at the front with a dining room behind it at the back of the original main floor footprint. With this placement, both rooms get windows for light and air. A rectangular addition that took the place of the original back porch before 1912 now provides a bathroom and a kitchen at the rear of the main floor.
13.
The second floor retains a front bedroom (southeast), a small front antechamber (southwest), a back bedroom (northeast), and a small back antechamber (northwest), all originally placed to have windows for light and air and arranged around the second floor landing. A door from the front bedroom to the front antechamber has been removed, so that the antechamber may be used as a small bedroom or closet accessible only from the second floor landing. The back antechamber is only accessible from the second floor landing, and it is now being used as a bathroom.
14.
The attic, which originally hosted a maid's room and probably storage space, was renovated by current owner artist Jan Gary Gorman to provide two studios for her work and her late husband's. Each of the new rooms in the attic has an original dormer with a window for light and air. A large almost commercial-style skylight above the attic staircase landing provides light and air for the entire stairwell.
15.
The row house style of construction was a familiar architectural design in the Eastern seaboard cities of the nineteenth century; however, it was not very frequently used in Bayonne. Unlike the downtown section of Jersey City that contains whole blocks of row houses, Bayonne only has isolated instances of the architecture.
16.
Typically, attached wooden houses had wooden porches, while brick row houses usually had brick, limestone, granite, or concrete stairs and stoops, but in this case the Isbills brick row houses had ornate wooden porches.
17.
The owners of the 43 West 33rd Street row house have conscientiously maintained not only the original ornate wooden details of their porch to the brick structure, but also the lintel decoration and the unusual red, blue, and yellow colored glass in the Queen Anne windows and transom borders, making it a prime example of a Bayonne row house in near-original condition. Other examples have been either moderately or totally modernized, loosing many of their original architectural details.
[Ord. No. O-13-20]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 43 West 33rd Street meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. (Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places.
b.
The row house at 43 West 33rd Street illustrates the output of prolific local builder Edmond Isbills. It clearly shows how the Isbills family combined their expertise in masonry and carpentry to provide designs that were unique to their skill sets and to their own style of architecture. When Edmond Isbills died at 90 years of age, he had lived in Bayonne for more than 50 years, and had many properties to his credit. His obituary noted: "In his long career as builder Mr. Isbills erected many of the best known residences in the city. He was active in business until several years ago, when advancing in age he retired." ("Head of Isbills' Family Is Dead," Bayonne Times, October 9, 1924, pp. 1-2.).
c.
The property represents the embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering.
d.
The property is identified with the work of a builder, designer, artist, architect, or landscape architect whose work has influenced the development of the municipality, state, or nation.
e.
The property embodies elements of design, detail, material, or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative.
[Ord. No. O-13-20]
The property located at 43 West 33rd Street, Block 139, lot 2 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, and known as the Edmond Isbills Row House is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne, noted for meeting the national architectural standards of Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places, and the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria D, E and F in the Historic Preservation Ordinance.
[Ord. No. O-13-20]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-14-08]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
16 East 33rd Street is located on the south side of East 33rd Street, between Avenue E and Broadway in Bayonne, NJ. The row house is about 162.5 feet from Broadway; Block No. 146, Lot No. 39. It is the center unit of a five-unit row of houses (Nos. 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 from west to east). These residential units each sit on a property that is about 18.75 feet wide by 82.50 feet deep. They have a continuous front yard. The five units abut each other and are presumed to have common party walls between them. 16 East 33rd Street cannot be described without mention of the other attached four units. All five exteriors are identical in shape, size and location of openings. They are two-story, two-bay and basement high, as shown on the 1912 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82) with no change on the 2006 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82).
b.
The 1912 Sanborn Map color key indicates that the row houses are made out of brick, making them a distinctive property on a block where brick was used in less than 15% of the buildings. 16 East 33rd Street has the Italianate-style inspiration that coincides with the time of its assumed erection, circa 1878, as per the historic narrative description of this document. No. 16 and No. 18 have plaques on their facades each bearing the (erroneous, but close) date of 1885. The Italianate style was in vogue between 1840 and 1885, and the style of No. 16 fits in this period. The following Italianate characteristics can be observed in this row house: large eave overhang with brackets, tall and narrow windows, paired windows, segmented arches over windows, belt course and inverted U-shape crowns above windows and door. It has other elements that are shared with other previous or contemporary styles, such as bay windows and six-panel double doors. It must be noted that these are not the classical shapes of the Italianate style but a variation or local interpretation of them. Also, the facade, built on two planes, gives the impression of towers — another characteristic of the Italianate style.
c.
The facade of row house No. 16 is set back about 15 feet from the front property line. It is asymmetrical and has two bays, one narrower than the other. The narrow bay includes a stone stoop with eight risers that lead to the main entrance of the house. No. 16 and No. 20 have elaborate heavy cast iron railings, balusters and newel posts with geometric and natural motifs. There are acanthus leaves on the newel post and miscellaneous types of leaves under the handrails and base of each baluster. Cast iron has been used in nearby urban settings such as Jersey City and New York City, and mass produced in the nineteenth century, so it is an element that belongs to the same era.
[Ord. No. O-14-08]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
The facade is arranged in two planes, one per bay. The plane that projects further towards the street is wider and has the bay window and the paired windows above it. The recessed plane, about the length of a brick, contains the main entrance and the second floor window. The pattern of the brick wall is assembled in a stretcher bond of a reddish color. The double door of the main entrance is made of a dark wood color. The door has tall proportions and is recessed from the brick plane. It is divided in three sets of panels. The bottom panels have decorative insets, which are rectangular pyramids that may be related to similar motifs on the bay window. Between the bottom panels and the middle panels there are wood decoration reliefs with scrolls and incised detailing.
b.
The middle panels have a kind of shelf or sill at the bottom and follow the same pattern as the panels below, using the pyramid theme but elongated. The top panels have glass panes surrounded by a wood molding; the same molding is repeated around all panels.
c.
The door has a stone lintel as do the windows, but each is different depending on the size of the fenestration. These lintels are "supported" by small brackets, similar to those at the entablature and the bay windows, giving the facade a decorative unity. All three have a decorative keystone with incised detailing representing natural forms, such as leaves and flowers. The end of each lintel has a vertical and rectangular shape that sticks up and down; the windows have bull's eyes or targets at the center of these ends, while the door has incised leaf decoration. The door lintel is different since the bottom has diagonal lines that ascend towards the keystone giving the impression of a segmented arch. The bottoms of the window lintels have small pyramidal decorations, again, becoming a theme on this facade.
d.
One of the most visible features of No. 16, as well as the adjoining units, is the three-sided first floor bay windows that are made almost entirely of wood. These bay windows are each painted a different color and crowned by an entablature with a cornice and a frieze, with moldings and modillions (four per side) respectively. The windows are one-over-one double hung and have simple moldings around them, curved at the top, or "segmented," which is an Italianate touch. All three windows have a continuous sill with moldings below. Under the sill, which has seven decorative pyramids each, there is a framed panel. The first-floor bay window sits on a wide horizontal band or belt that separates it from the basement level. The bay window continues down to the basement in a simpler arrangement where the windows are smaller, since the basement wall elevates itself just about half of its height. These windows have stone sills and lintels. A peculiar detail about the stone lintel is that the bottom of it shows a drapery-like effect since it is cut in a zigzag pattern, round at the bottom.
e.
The house is crowned by a wood entablature with cornice, frieze and architrave, which, at present, shows a different color at each of the buildings of this row house unit. The cornice has moldings and cantilevers beyond the facade plane and follows the in-and-out planes of the house. Between the soffit and the frieze is crown molding that has a rectangular fill-void pattern. The main element of the entablature is the large brackets. There are three of them at each one of the protruding planes, as well as a bracket at each turn towards the recessed plan, which has two modillions. These brackets and modillions have two vertical incised lines that run along the face.
f.
There is curve-incised detailing on the side, similar to other historic buildings in Bayonne and surrounding areas, but different from a strictly Italianate design. The frieze of the advancing plane has a sort of beam whose center seems to have an inverted key stone (though the material is wood) with scrolls on its sides and a peculiar round motif or a small hemisphere at the center. This motif can also be seen at the bottom of the modillion. The recessed plane frieze has a flat molding with cutouts, a circle over a triangle, all rounded up, which is indicative of the Queen Anne style. The roof cannot be seen from the street since the top cornice of the building extends high enough to block any view of it. An aerial photo (Bing 2013) shows a flat rectangular roof. This rectangle is about 50 feet long where the southeast is cut about five feet by 16 feet.
g.
The short sides of this rectangle face the street and the rear yard. The roof slopes towards the rear yard. The roof shows some penetrations including two chimneys on their east walls and a skylight or hatch at midpoint near the west wall. The bay window has its own roof, which at present shows bituminous material and no gutter, which may be a sign that the roof has not been modified except for the waterproofing materials; and
h.
The Italianate style of No. 16 and the adjoining row houses, has maintained most of its original elements and therefore retained its historic integrity that is worth preserving.
i.
The Schuyler Row House at 16 East 33rd Street exemplifies Criterion C of the standards qualifying properties for National Register listing, "C. Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction." The property also complies with the following criteria found in the Bayonne Ordinance O-98-51:
1.
(D). Embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering;
2.
(E). Identification with the work of a builder, designer, artist, architect, or landscape architect whose work has influenced the development of the Municipality, State, or Nation.
3.
(F). Embodiment of elements of design, detail, material, or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative.
[Ord. No. O-14-08]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 43 West 33rd Street meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The Schuyler Row House at 16 East 33rd Street is an excellent example of a late Victorian Italianate-style brick row house with modified features from other styles, designed to appeal to the commuter residents of the first decade of home construction in the City of Bayonne. As a real estate developer, Jacob Rutsen Schuyler made a significant contribution to the property values of the City by building attractive neighborhoods at various strategic locations on the peninsula where he had acquired property. The 1873 Hopkins Map shows Schuyler by then owning all the lots from Bayonne Avenue (now 33rd Street) to Oakland Avenue (now 32nd Street) including Willow Street from Avenue D to Avenue E as well as the northerly side of Maple Avenue (now 31st Street) also from Avenue D to Avenue E. An item in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register on August 3, 1878, states that: "Mr. Schuyler is building five fine houses on Bayonne Avenue." This refers to the five row houses that we see today from 12 to 20 East 33rd Street of which No. 16 is being nominated as a landmark. On October 26, the newspaper reports: "Mr. J.R. Schuyler's houses, on Bayonne Avenue, are approaching completion and will be a valuable addition to that section of the city." It appears that the five row houses were created as rental properties. In some cases they would temporarily house wealthy real estate customers while permanent "dream homes" were being designed and built for them in Bayonne. At other times, they provided temporary housing for highly-skilled workers who circulated between the various plants that Bayonne industries such as Tidewater Oil and Babcock & Wilcox often maintained at multiple sites throughout the country. Thus, these row houses were still the property of J.R. Schuyler when he died in 1887, and a number of tenants had resided in them during his ownership.
b.
Items in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register and The Bayonne Times show that J.R. Schuyler continued to build houses on his surrounding property up until 1884 when serious health issues began to impact his ability to continue his real estate projects. After his death in 1887, his children maintained the East 33rd Street row houses as rental properties for many years only selling them in 1896. The Schuyler children sold 16 East 33rd Street to local grocer Rienzi Cadugan (1841-1918) and his wife Emilie in September 1896. The Cadugans sold 16 East 33rd Street to Elizabeth J. Duncanson in 1903. In the 1910 U.S. Census, it was occupied by hotel keeper George D. Sears and his wife Charlotte so it still appears to be a rental property under Duncanson ownership. According to the City Directory of 1914, it was occupied by William A. Maddex who was an agent for the Tide Water Oil Company.
c.
Jacob Rutsen Schuyler (1816-1887) was born in Belleville, Essex County, New Jersey, the son of John Arent Schuyler (1780-1817) and Catherine Van Rennselaer (1781-1867). His father owned a copper mine in Belleville. He was a lineal descendant on his father's side of a Dutch immigrant Philip Pieterus Van Schuler, who left Amsterdam, Holland, in 1653 and settled at Fort Orange, New Netherland, which is now Albany, New York. J. Rutsen Schuyler married Susannah Haigh Edwards (1825-1870) a great-granddaughter of Protestant preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). J. R. and Susannah Edwards Schuyler are listed with their children in the 1860 U.S. Census as living in the First Ward of Jersey City. They moved to the Township of Bayonne in the early 1860s. A Hudson County deed dated February 3, 1864, conveyed 18.5 acres of land and premises to Jacob R. Schuyler from Lucinda the widow of Henry C. Burdett (1813?-1863).
[Ord. No. O-14-08]
The property located at 16 East 33rd Street, Block 146, lot 39 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, and known as the Schuyler Row House is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne, noted for meeting the national architectural standards of Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places, and the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria D, E and F in the Historic Preservation Ordinance.
[Ord. No. O-14-08]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-14-39]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
14 East 33rd Street is located on the south side of East 33rd Street, between Avenue E and Broadway in Bayonne, NJ. It is a unit of a five-unit row of houses (Nos. 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 from west to east). These residential units each sit on a property that is about 18.75 feet wide x 82.50 feet deep (as per an 1873 Hopkins Map). They have a continuous front yard. The five units abut each other and are presumed to have common party walls between them.
b.
14 East 33rd Street cannot be described without mention of the other attached four units. All five exteriors are identical in shape, size and location of openings. They are two-story, two-bay and basement high, as shown on the 1912 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82) with no change on the 2006 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82). A visual observation in March 2013 confirms that we still see the same shaped buildings.
c.
The 1912 Sanborn Map color key indicates that the row houses are made out of brick, making them a distinctive property on a block where brick was used in less than 15% of the buildings.
d.
14 East 33rd Street has the Italianate-style inspiration that coincides with the time of its assumed erection, circa 1878, as per the historic narrative description of this document. No. 16 and No. 18 have plaques on their facades each bearing the (erroneous, but close) date of 1885. The Italianate style was in vogue between 1840 and 1885 (Virginia and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, 1988) and the style of No. 14 fits in this period. The following Italianate characteristics can be observed in this row house: large eave overhang with brackets, tall and narrow windows, paired windows, segmented arches over windows, belt course and inverted U-shape crowns above windows and door. It has other elements that are shared with other previous or contemporary styles, such as bay windows and six-panel double doors. It must be noted that these are not the classical shapes of the Italianate style but a variation or local interpretation of them. Also, the facade, built on two planes, gives the impression of towers — another characteristic of the Italianate style.
[Ord. No. O-14-39]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
The facade of row house No. 14 is set back about 15 feet from the front property line. It is asymmetrical and has two bays, one narrower than the other. The narrow bay includes a stone stoop with eight risers that leads to the main entrance of the house. A contemporary wrought iron railing has replaced the cast iron railings, balusters and newel posts found at Nos. 16 and 20.
b.
The facade is arranged in two planes, one per bay. The plane that projects further towards the street is wider and has the bay window and the paired windows above it. The fact that this plane is more prominent and breaks the monotony of a flat surface brings to mind the shape of a tower, which fits in the context of the Italianate style. The recessed plane, about the length of a brick, contains the main entrance and the second floor window. The pattern of the brick wall is assembled in a stretcher bond of a reddish color. The green-painted double door of the main entrance is made of wood. The door has tall proportions and is recessed from the brick plane. It is divided into three sets of panels. The bottom panels have decorative insets, which are rectangular pyramids that may be related to similar motifs on the bay window. Between the bottom panels and the middle panels there are wood decoration reliefs with scrolls and incised detailing. The middle panels have a kind of shelf or sill at the bottom and follow the same pattern as the panels below, using the pyramid theme but elongated. The top panels have glass panes surrounded by a wood molding. The same molding is repeated around all panels.
c.
The door has a stone lintel, as do the windows, but each is different depending on the size of the fenestration. These lintels are "supported" by small brackets, similar to those at the entablature and the bay windows, giving the facade a decorative unity. All three have a decorative keystone with incised detailing representing natural forms, such as leaves and flowers. The end of each lintel has a vertical and rectangular shape that sticks up and down; the windows have bull's eyes or targets at the center of these ends, while the door has incised leaf decoration. The door lintel is different since the bottom has diagonal lines that ascend towards the keystone giving the impression of a segmented arch. The bottoms of the window lintels have small pyramidal decorations, again, becoming a theme on this facade.
d.
One of the most visible features of No. 14, as well as the adjoining units, is the three-sided first floor bay windows that are made almost entirely of wood. These bay windows are each painted a different color and crowned by an entablature with a cornice and a frieze, with moldings and modillions (four per side) respectively. The windows are one-over-one double hung and have simple moldings around them, curved at the top, or "segmented," which is an Italianate touch. All three windows have a continuous sill with moldings below. Under the sill, which has seven decorative pyramids each, there is a framed panel. The first-floor bay window sits on a wide horizontal band or belt that separates it from the basement level. The bay window continues down to the basement in a simpler arrangement where the windows are smaller, since the basement wall elevates itself just about half of its height. These windows have stone sills and lintels. A peculiar detail about the stone lintel is that the bottom of it shows a drapery-like effect since it is cut in a zigzag pattern, round at the bottom, giving the stone a cozy touch.
e.
The house is crowned by a wood entablature with cornice, frieze and architrave, which, at present, shows a different color at each of the buildings of this row house unit. The cornice has moldings and cantilevers beyond the facade plane and follows the in-and-out planes of the house. Between the soffit and the frieze is crown molding that has a rectangular fill-void pattern. The main element of the entablature is the large brackets. There are three of them at each one of the protruding planes, as well as a bracket at each turn towards the recessed plane, which has two modillions. These brackets and modillions have two vertical incised lines that run along the face. There is curve-incised detailing on the side, similar to other historic buildings in Bayonne and surrounding areas, but different from a strictly Italianate design. The frieze of the advancing plane has a sort of beam whose center seems to have an inverted key stone (though the material is wood) with scrolls on its sides and a peculiar round motif or a small hemisphere at the center. This motif can also be seen at the bottom of the modillion. The recessed plane frieze has a flat molding with cutouts, a circle over a triangle, all rounded up, which is indicative of the Queen Anne style.
f.
The roof cannot be seen from the street since the top cornice of the building extends high enough to block any view of it. An aerial photo (Bing 2013) shows a flat rectangular roof. This rectangle is about 50 feet long where the southeast is cut about 5x16 feet. We must note that the footprint shown on an 1873 Hopkins map is the same as the present general layout. The short sides of this rectangle face the street and the rear yard. The roof slopes towards the rear yard. The roof shows some penetrations, including two chimneys on their east walls, and a skylight or hatch at midpoint near the west wall. The bay window has its own roof, which at present shows bituminous material and no gutter, which may be a sign that the roof has not been modified except for the waterproofing materials.
g.
The property meets Criterion C of the standards for the National Register of Historic Places: Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
h.
The Schuyler House at 14 East 33 Street also complies with the following criteria found in the Bayonne Ordinance O-98-51:
1.
(D). Embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering;
2.
(E). Identification with the work of a builder, designer, artist, architect, or landscape architect whose work has influenced the development of the Municipality, State, or Nation;
3.
(F). Embodiment of elements of design, detail, material, or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative.
[Ord. No. O-14-39]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 14 East 33rd Street meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The area of significance for the property is its architecture. Its period of significance was 1878 to 1901 during local popularity of row houses and beginning of decline of use of Italianate style. The architect/builder was J. Rutsen Schuyler.
b.
The Schuyler Row House at 14 East 33rd Street is an excellent example of a late Victorian Italianate-style brick row house with modified features from other styles, designed to appeal to the commuter residents of the first decade of home construction in the City of Bayonne.
c.
As a real estate developer Schuyler made a significant contribution to the property values of the City by building attractive neighborhoods at various strategic locations on the peninsula where he had acquired property.
d.
After the Cadmus farmlands were purchased in 1859 by a group of real estate speculators, Schuyler began watching for opportunities to acquire desirable lots from that land near the CNJ Train Station at Bayonne Avenue. The 1873 Hopkins Map shows Schuyler by then owning all the lots from Bayonne Avenue (now 33rd Street) to Oakland Avenue (now 32nd Street) including Willow Street from Avenue D to Avenue E as well as the northerly side of Maple Avenue (now 31st Street) also from Avenue D to Avenue E.
e.
There is no evidence that Schuyler attempted to build on any of these lots until after he retired from Schuyler, Hartley & Graham in 1876 and until the home construction industry started to recover in 1878 from the economic downturn of 1873. An item in the "Bohemianisms" column of the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register on August 3, 1878, states that: "Mr. Schuyler is building five fine houses on Bayonne Avenue." This refers to the five row houses that we see today from 12 to 20 East 33rd Street of which No. 16 is listed as a local landmark (2014). On October 26, 1878, the newspaper reports: "Mr. J.R. Schuyler's houses, on Bayonne Avenue, are approaching completion and will be a valuable addition to that section of the city."
f.
It appears that the five row houses were created as rental properties. In some cases, they would temporarily house wealthy real estate customers while permanent "dream homes" were being designed and built for them in Bayonne. At other times, they provided temporary housing for highly-skilled workers who circulated between the various plants that Bayonne industries such as Tidewater Oil and Babcock & Wilcox often maintained at multiple sites throughout the country. Thus, these row houses were still the property of J.R. Schuyler when he died in 1887, and a number of tenants had resided in them during his ownership.
g.
Items in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register and The Bayonne Times show that J.R. Schuyler continued to build houses on his surrounding property up until 1884 when serious health issues began to impact his ability to continue his real estate projects.
h.
After his death in 1887, his children maintained the East 33rd Street row houses as rental properties for many years only selling them in 1896. The sale may have been triggered by the news reported in the Bayonne Herald earlier that year on January 11, 1896, that their neighbor William L. Morris had sold his Newark Bay estate to Jersey City lawyer E.K. Seguine, who was expected to resell the property to a business that would erect a factory on the site.
i.
The Schuyler children sold 14 East 33rd Street, as well as the adjacent row house No. 16, to local grocer Rienzi Cadugan (1841-1918) and his wife, Emilie, in September 1896. In the 1900 U.S. Census, No. 14 was occupied by telegrapher Robert J. Wilson. The Cadugans later sold No. 14 to Trustee Robert Duncanson, Jr. for Elizabeth J. Duncanson in 1903.
j.
The Schuyler children continued to hold the rest of their father's property until a large auction sale of "The Schuyler Property" on April 20th, 1905. This may have been triggered by the fact that Edward Ogden Schuyler, who had moved to Summit, NJ, in 1904, had passed away in January 1905 leaving a wife and two children (Bayonne Herald, January 7, 1905).
k.
In 1920, Robert Duncanson, Jr. sold No. 14 to Harold and Mary R. Smith. It remained in the Smith family until 1947 when it was purchased by Police Officer Frederick C. and Mrytle Milden. Their occupancy appears in the City Directory of 1951.
l.
Jacob Rutsen Schuyler (1816-1887) was born in Belleville, Essex County, New Jersey, the son of John Arent Schuyler (1780-1817) and Catherine Van Rennselaer (1781-1867). His father owned a copper mine in Belleville. He was a lineal descendant, on his father's side, of a Dutch immigrant Philip Pieterus Van Schuler, who left Amsterdam, Holland, in 1653 and settled at Fort Orange, New Netherland, which is now Albany, New York.
m.
American Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler, whose daughter Elizabeth Schuyler married Alexander Hamilton, was also a lineal descendant of that first Dutch settler but via another son.
n.
J. Rutsen Schuyler married Susannah Haigh Edwards (1825-1870), a great-granddaughter of Christian preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), who is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian, and one of America's greatest intellectuals.
o.
J.R. and Susannah Edwards Schuyler are listed with their children in the 1860 U.S. Census as living in the First Ward of Jersey City. They moved to the Township of Bayonne in the early 1860s. A Hudson County deed dated February 3, 1864, in Liber 106, page 666, conveyed 18.5 acres of land and premises to Jacob R. Schuyler from Lucinda the widow of Henry C. Burdett (1813?-1863). The deed implies several things from which some reasonable conclusions may be drawn. First, J.R. Schuyler is already identified in the deed as a resident of Bayonne, so the Schuyler family had probably been living in a rental property in Bayonne before this purchase. The 1864 deed states that the property had previously been deeded to Henry C. Burdett in January 1854 by Michael and Albert W. Zabriskie, and it refers to "All that certain tract or parcel of land and premises. . ." which implies that there already was a house on the property in 1864.
p.
The Burdett surname usually indicates French Huguenot ancestry with the original spelling being "Bourdette." The 1850 and 1860 U.S. Census list Burdett as New York-born and respectively identify his profession as a bookkeeper and later as a cashier. The 1850 and 1862 New York City Directories document him as an accountant at 279 Broadway, which was then the New York headquarters of The Bradstreet Company (later Dun & Bradstreet). Burdett's 1863 obituary implies that he had many friends and contacts in Manhattan. There is nothing to indicate that he was involved in Bayonne real estate. The 1860 U.S. Census shows that the three oldest Burdett children were born in New York, but the two youngest children, born after the Bergen Point land purchase in 1854, were born in New Jersey. Thus, it appears that the Schuyler Mansion may have been built as early as the spring of 1854, but as the Burdett Mansion for a then growing Burdett family.
q.
Vintage photographs of the mansion from 1914 and 1915, after the Schuyler heirs sold the homestead to the Pavonia Yacht Club, show a sprawling Second Empire or French Mansard style house off Pavonia Court above the shore of Newark Bay. It was then quite different from the modernized building that now serves as the Robbins Reef Yacht Club.
r.
Susannah Edwards Schuyler died at Bergen Point in 1870 at age 44 shortly after the birth of her tenth child, a daughter Angelica Van Rensselaer Schuyler. The other Schuyler children were: Sarah Edwards, Jacob Rutsen, Rutsen Van Rensselaer, Katherine Van Rensselaer, Robert Edwards, Charles Haigh, John Arent, Susanna Edwards, and Edwards Ogden. Only six of the 10 Schuyler children survived to adulthood.
s.
J. Rutsen Schuyler was a junior member of the firm Smith, Young, and Company, which sold "Military & Fancy goods" in Manhattan. He became the senior member of the firm Schuyler, Hartley & Graham founded in 1854 (Figures 4, 5, and 6), which sold similar merchandise from two shops at 19 Maiden Lane and 22 John Street near Wall Street. The company was called upon to provide arms and military goods for the North at the outbreak of the Civil War. Much like Abercrombie & Fitch during the Spanish-American War, Schuyler's firm emerged from the Civil War as a great financial success. He retired from this business in 1876.
t.
When the City of Bayonne was incorporated in 1869, Schuyler was elected by the voters to serve as a Council Member and then elected by the council members to serve as the first Council President for two terms from 1869-1870 and 1871-1872. During those years, he developed a working relationship and lasting friendship with the first Mayor of Bayonne — Henry Meigs, Jr.
u.
Rutsen Schuyler's brother, John Arent Schuyler, Jr., married Frances Elizabeth Bleecker who was a first cousin of Mayor Meigs' wife Mary Noel Bleecker. Thus, Meigs and Schuyler could also be considered "extended family."
v.
In early 1871, J.R. Schuyler built a large, brick three-story multi-use public building called the Schuyler Building at the northwest corner of Avenue C and West 8th Street. It featured a large room called Schuyler Hall that became a popular meeting place for educational, fraternal, social, and religious organizations in Bayonne.
w.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the late-19th century, as well as brother of author Harriett Beecher Stowe, gave a lecture in Schuyler Hall as reported by The Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register on December 3, 1881. He had also lectured at the First Reformed Church in Bayonne a year earlier on December 1, 1880.
x.
In 1872, J.R. Schuyler was one of the incorporators of the Mechanics Trust Company, along with other Bayonne merchants and businessmen Henry Meigs, Solon Humphreys, Rufus Story, Francis I. Smith, Hiram Van Buskirk, James W. Trask, Erastus Randall, and George Carragan.
y.
Schuyler and his colleagues Randall, Meigs, Van Buskirk, and Humphreys are credited as the founders of the Bergen Point Gas-Light Company. An ad in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register of March 30th, 1878, identifies A.B. Warner, President; J.R. Schuyler, Vice President; and Alexander Crombie Humphreys, Secretary, of the Bayonne and Greenville Gas Light Company on Oak Street at the corner of Hobart Avenue.
z.
Schuyler was a vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church at Bergen Point. In 1879, he assumed financial responsibility for the cost of having the church repaired and enlarged. Jersey City architect Lewis H. Broome was hired to handle the exterior work, and Edward J. Neville Stent of New York handled the interior decorations. Regrettably, the church has been destroyed by fire twice since the improvements that Schuyler funded.
aa.
Items in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register show that J.R. Schuyler continued to build houses on his property up until 1884 when health issues began to affect him. Schuyler suffered strokes in 1884 and in 1887 and never fully recovered after the last stroke. He later fell, injuring his head and causing his death at age 70 years old. Schuyler died leaving an estate that owned property at nine different locations in Bayonne, including the row houses on East 33rd Street. His real estate investments resulted in streets such as Schuyler Place and more recently Schuyler Place West that are named in his honor, as well as Edwards Court where his son, Edwards Ogden Schuyler, owned a house designed by architect Charles Edwards. Hartley Place is thought to be named after Schuyler's business partner, the philanthropist Marcellus Hartley.
bb.
After Schuyler died, the Schuyler Building served first as a Masonic Hall and then temporarily as a Bayonne High School, but it eventually fell to the wrecker's ball. The land on which it once stood now serves as Edward F. Clark Park named in honor of a former Mayor of the City of Bayonne.
cc.
The shorefront Schuyler Mansion was purchased in 1913 by the Pavonia Yacht Club as their club house for their members. Later it became home to the Robbins Reef Yacht Club building, which relocated from New York Bay to Newark Bay. The Robbins Reef Yacht Club still exists today but with considerable modernization of both its interior and its exterior facade.
dd.
Built in 1878, the 135-year old property at 14 East 33rd Street retains most of its original architectural details. While the row house style of construction was popular on the Eastern seaboard, it was not frequently used in Bayonne. Unlike the downtown section of Jersey City that contains blocks of row houses, Bayonne only has isolated instances of the architecture. The Italianate-style row house at 14 East 33rd Street and the adjoining houses enhances the streetscape. It is a unique reminder of the Late Victorian Era, setting it apart from the design and fabrication of other structures in the neighborhood. The long wooden bay windows and doorway at the entrance give the property its elegance and curb appeal.
ee.
It is also significant because of its builder and first owner, J. Rutsen Schuyler, and his role in local and national history. His selection of the architectural design is representative of the era of his influence in the development of the City of Bayonne. A successful New York merchant, Schuyler "adopted" Bayonne and contributed to the City with his real estate development and support of its political, economic, religious and social institutions.
ff.
Many of the wood houses that Schuyler built in the vicinity of Bayonne Avenue have been modified and updated over the years. Only the brick row houses that Schuyler produced have been able to closely maintain their original appearance of 135 years ago. Thus, they are the most intact legacy that the City has from its first Council President.
[Ord. No. O-14-39]
The property located at located at 14 East 33rd Street (Block 146, Lot 40) on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, and known as the J. Rutsen Schuyler Row House is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne, noted for meeting the national architectural standards of Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places, and the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria D, E and F in the Historic Preservation Ordinance.
[Ord. No. O-14-39]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-14-40]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
770 Avenue C is located on the east side of Avenue C between 33rd and 34th Street in Bayonne, New Jersey. 770 Avenue C is a two-bay brick building which cannot be described without mention of the other two buildings in this three-unit row house. It is one of a set of residential row houses (Nos. 770-768-766- north to south) which abut each other, have a continuous front yard as well as continuous porches. They are presumed to have common party walls between them. All three buildings are two-story, two-bay with below ground basements and attics and are, for the most part, similar in shape, size and location of openings. The row houses stand out among the other free-standing wood and brick houses on the block in a residential area. The unit is on property which is about 22.19 feet wide x 162.50 feet deep, (as listed on the Deed).
b.
770 Avenue C has Italianate-Style elements that coincide with the time of its assumed erection, circa 1886. The Italianate Style, inspired by the architecture of Italy, was one of the most popular Victorian-era housing styles from the mid-to-late 1800s and was in vogue when the house was constructed. The following characteristics of the Italianate Style can be observed in 770 Avenue C: it is a building of two stories, rectangular almost square in shape with a full-brick facade; it has a large imposing eave overhang with brackets and dentils; it has a single-story column-supported porch with metal railing; it has heavy projecting stone window lintels and sills in the repetitive form; and it has two bays with double-hung windows in sets of three, evenly spaced. It should be noted that the above may not be the classical shapes of the Italianate style but rather a variation or local interpretation of it.
c.
In 1886, Eliza Mallet contracted with builder Samuel Odell to build the Mallet Row Houses at 766-768-770 Avenue C. Eliza's daughter, Frances, was married to Edmond Isbills who, in 1885, had built row houses at 39-41-43 West 33rd Street. This connection could account for the similarities in the two sets of row houses, similarities that include the Italianate Style, the red and white color theme, the similar design in steps and porches, the double-hung bay windows with prominent lintels and sills, the stained glass windows and the double (entrance) door.
d.
The present owner, Edward Roake, has offered the following information which adds credence to the comparison: the original porches were wood and similar in size to those presently on the Isbills row houses; the original doors on the Mallet row houses were double doors similar to those presently on the Isbills row houses; and the original stained glass windows were similar to those on the Isbills row house at 43 West 33rd Street. In subsequent years, the porches on the Mallet houses were made larger; the double doors were replaced with single doors and the stained glass windows were removed.
[Ord. No. O-14-40]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the house's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
a.
A cement sidewalk leads to a set of five brick steps (similar to those on row houses 39-41-43 West 33rd Street) that may not be original to the structure. The steps bring you to a full-width one story common cement porch with contemporary metal railing and columns. The main facade of the building is rectangular with two bays. The exterior of the house was red brick originally and was subsequently painted red sometime prior to the 1950s. To the left of the steps are two small garden plots and a sidewalk leading to four entrance steps to the basement as well as to the alley and north side of the house.
b.
The porch is of the dropped type, that is, it is attached to the house, not as part of the main roof or extension of it as in other cases. It is a full width one-story porch that continues the whole length of the three-unit row houses. The porch roof, of wood and shingles, is held up by two metal columns each decorated with an ornamental rose and leaf design. A white gutter runs along the roof to the ground. There is a low metal railing or balustrade, approximately 32 inches in height, on two sides of the porch. The third side has no railing and leads to the next porch. The porch has ample room before one gets to the front brick facade, assembled in a stretcher bond and painted red. All railings, window sills and lintels, doors, etc. are painted white.
c.
A step-up stone leads to a white metal storm door and the white wooden entrance door. Above the door is a transom, original to the house, with four panes of clear glass. Present owner, Edward Roake, states that the panes were originally of etched glass and are stored in the basement, along with other stained glass. According to Mr. Roake, the original wooden entry door was a double door similar to that on 43 West 33rd Street (Gorman house). A dip is still visible in the stoop of 770 where the "locking bar" would have been inserted to hold the right door of the double door closed. He also states that the Mallet row houses originally had the Queen Anne Cottage colored glass windows that are present today in the row house at 43 West 33rd Street, owned by Jan Gorman and designated a local landmark.
d.
The original porches on the Mallet row houses were reportedly wooden and narrower than the current cement and brick porches and similar in style to the porch on the row house at 43 West 33rd Street. The original wooden porches were removed by the owners of the three row houses (770, 768 and 766) in 1963 and replaced with cement and brick porches. The surface of each porch differs: 770 is grey concrete; 768 is red concrete and 766 is a varying slate pattern. The metal railings were also added in 1963.
e.
One of the most visible features of the building is the three-sided double-hung bay windows that run on both floors. Each window has a white stone sill and lintel giving definition to the facade. The pattern is repeated on the second floor. Symmetry is accented with a double hung window directly over the entrance door on the first floor.
f.
The house is crowned by an entablature with a decorative white cornice supported by a series of long and short brackets, a continuous band of dentils and a raised rectangular panel design.
g.
The roof is not visible from the street as the cornice blocks any view of it. There is a system of gutters, painted white, leading from the roof to the sidewalk. A decorative pediment with a window can be seen in a break in the cornice over the adjoining center row house (768 Avenue C). A chimney is visible near the front left of the roof.
h.
The north (alley) side of the house was covered with stucco and painted red in 2000.
i.
There are seven windows on the north side. The front two basement windows are original and have been covered with 1/2 inch Plexiglas. A careful look at the front basement window will reveal wear marks from where the coal deliveries were made to the original coal burning furnace. The third basement window is in the rear of the house in the cinder block area and was added at the time the original addition (described below) was torn down and reconstructed. There are two double-hung windows on the first floor which have been covered over from the interior of the house and there are two smaller double-hung windows on the second floor.
j.
There is a one-story lean-to addition with a deck at the rear of the house which was added in 1975. The owner states the following: Prior to this one-story lean-to, there was an addition that included an enclosed porch on the first floor with a glass-enclosure at the basement level — similar to a green house with a few feet high of dirt on each side and an aisle path down the middle; the stairs leading from the yard to the first floor were and still are wooden; the rear patio of the house is made from the slate that was found in the yard left over from fireplaces and original sidewalks, both extinct. At the time of purchase, there was a well behind 768 Avenue C that was open and working and subsequently covered over with a concrete pad. Today, a walkway of wooden planks leads to the main yard area.
k.
Access to a below ground level basement is from the front of the house. The basement is unfinished with a concrete floor which includes a 31 feet by 18 feet room in the front of the basement, a 15 feet by 18 feet middle room used as a laundry room and an 11 feet by 18 feet room in the rear of the basement.
l.
The main (first) floor has an 18 feet by 31 feet combined living room and dining room, a 15 feet by 18 feet kitchen, and an 11 feet by 18 feet den. The second floor has a 15 feet by 18 feet front bedroom (originally the master bedroom and a nursery), a 12 feet by 12 feet middle bedroom, a 12 feet by 12 feet rear bedroom, a six feet by eight feet bathroom and a six feet by 17 feet hallway. The first and second floors have 10 feet high ceilings with the exception of the bathroom which has an eight feet ceiling. There is an exposed brick wall which runs along the inside wall of the second floor hallway. The original gas fixture from the master bedroom was removed in 1975-76 and is stored in the basement.
m.
In the summer of 2013, the second floor hallway skylight was re-opened and a new working skylight was installed. The attic has two eight feet by 12 feet rooms with closets under the eaves of each room and ceilings of approximately seven feet.
n.
In possession of the present owners are the stained glass windows from 766 Avenue C; the original transom from 770 Avenue C, the original slate fireplace mantels which had been removed prior to the present owner; the original gas fixture from the master bedroom (removed in 1975-76).
o.
The Mallet Row House meets Criterion C of the U.S. Interior Department's standards for historic preservation: Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
[Ord. No. O-14-40]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that 770 Avenue C meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
This Italianate-Style row house has maintained most of its original elements and therefore has kept a historic integrity worthy of preservation. While this style of house construction was popular on the Eastern seaboard, it was not frequently used in Bayonne. This Mallet row house and the two adjoining houses enhance the streetscape and the neighborhood. It is a reminder of the Late Victorian Era setting it apart from the design of the other houses in the neighborhood. It is also significant because of its builder, Samuel Odell, its first owner, Eliza Mallet, and the historic importance of the Mallet name.
b.
There are two periods of significance for the house: 1) the era of 1885 to 1919, and 2) 1969 to date with the resurgence of popularity of row houses and town houses, as well as the historic preservation movement of the 1960's.
c.
Mallet Row House History.
1.
The 1850 U.S. Census lists carpenter Samuel Odell, age 23, living in the Pamrapo section of the City of Bayonne with hotel proprietor, Anthony P. Salter, near the houses of local oystermen Thomas Van Boskirk, and John Van Boskirk.
2.
In 1862, Samuel Odell enrolled in the 21st Regiment, New Jersey Infantry, Company C, for Civil War military service. The 1880 U.S. Census shows him living in Bayonne with his wife and six children. In 1893, he erected a carpenter shop at Grand and Forty-First Streets in Bayonne.
3.
On April 29, 1884, George Snyder, grantor, transferred the property to Eliza Mallet.
4.
In 1885, the year before the Mallet Row Houses were built, Edmond Isbills, constructed the row houses around the corner at 39-41-43 West 33rd Street. Eliza Mallet's daughter, Frances, was married to the well-known prolific builder, Edmond Isbills. There are a number of noticeable similarities in the architecture of these two sets of row houses. This family connection could lead one to believe that Isbills may have had an influence on Odell and the design of the Mallet Row Houses.
5.
Circa 1886, Eliza Mallet, mother of Edwin Mallet, Mary Mallet Dobson and Frances E. Mallet Isbills, contracted with local builder Samuel Odell to construct three contiguous row houses on Avenue C between Huron Street (extinct) and Bayonne Avenue (now 33rd Street) at a cost of approximately $8,000. Today these houses are known as 766, 768 and 770 Avenue C and are referred to as "The Mallet Row Houses." The architect, Richard W. Brock, drew up plans for the row houses for Eliza Mallet as well as the plans for 764 Avenue C, the two-family house next to the Mallet Row Houses. His advertisement in the Bayonne 188-1890 City Directory read: "R.W. Brock - Builder - and General Woodworker - No. 11 East 42nd Street - Bayonne, NJ - First Class Work Built to Architect's Designs.
6.
Mrs. Mallet took out a loan on some of the property a few years after it was completed to make improvements to the middle house at 768 Avenue C. The changes included additional attic rooms, which could have indicated that either a large family or a family with servants was occupying the middle house.
7.
The original owners, Elizabeth/Eliza and James Mallet, lived in a wooden house at 764 Avenue C while the row houses were being built.
8.
On July 14, 1906, Frances E. (daughter of Eliza Mallet) and Edmund Isbills, her husband, granted the property to Mary A. (daughter of Eliza Mallet) Dobson.
9.
On October 10, 1919, Frank M. Dobson granted the property to Nora C. Clew.
10.
On March 16, 1920, Nora C. Clew, widow, granted the property to Emil G. Straub and Rose, his wife.
11.
On December 10, 1973, Elizabeth Frommer, Teresa Trainor, Emil Straub executors of Rose Straub, Frank and Helen Straub, Carol and William Hap, and William and Dorothy Straub granted the property to Edward and Michelle Roake.
d.
Mallet Family History.
1.
James Mallet may be a descendant of William Malet (sic), an historical figure accepted by scholars as being one of the few individuals who can be proven to have been at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 fighting with William the Conqueror of Normandy. He was the first known bearer of the Malet surname.
e.
By the late 18th century, the uniform attached houses or row houses were a familiar architectural design on the Eastern seaboard, but not often used in Bayonne. Unlike the downtown section of Jersey City that contains whole blocks of row houses, Bayonne only has isolated instances of these row houses. It was affordable housing for most working class people, popular because it made the best use of the land in a densely-populated City. Also, constructing a row of identical houses at once was economical. Local brownstone and red brick were popular choices for the facades.
f.
The Italianate Style found at 770 Avenue C was found mostly north of the Mason-Dixon Line and sometimes referred to as the "American-style." Structures in this style ranged from modest row houses to mansions and were often referred to as "a simple box with a lot or ornamentation." Its adaptability made it nearly a national style in the mid-1800s.
g.
The Mallet Row House at 770 Avenue C illustrates the talents of local builder Samuel Odell, a skilled mason and carpenter who was able to provide designs that were unique to his skill sets and to his own individual style of architecture. It also illustrates the influence local builder Edmond Isbills may have had on other local builders, such as Odell, during this time period.
h.
The house is an example of Criterion C under the Applicable National Register Criteria in that it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period and method of construction. The type it embodies, that of the Italianate Style, was popular in the U.S. during the late 1880s; the time period it embodies is from 1885 to 1919 when there was a resurgence of popularity of row houses and town houses in the U.S.; and the method of construction used was that which focused on two to three story buildings of brick and stone, with imposing projections such as cornices, stone sills and stone lintels.
i.
The house is an example of Criterion D (local ordinance) in that It embodies the distinguishing characteristic of a type or architecture, The Italianate Style, in that it is a two-story building with a basement and full-brick facade with large double-hung windows, heavy stone window lintels and sills and an imposing projecting cornice embellished with moldings and supported by scroll-shaped brackets. All of the above are typical examples of the Italianate Style popular between 1840 and 1890.
j.
The house is identified with the work of a builder, Samuel Odell, and an architect, Richard W. Brock, whose work has influenced the development of the City of Bayonne.
[Ord. No. O-14-40]
The property located at 770 Avenue C, Block 139, lot 47 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, and known as the Mallet Row House is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne, noted for meeting the national architectural standards of Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places, and the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria D, E and F in the Historic Preservation Ordinance.
[Ord. No. O-14-40]
This designation shall be noted on the Zoning Map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-15-46]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The VFW Post #226 building is located one block north of the historic Bergen Point section of Bayonne, the City's downtown district. The Post's immediate context includes other significant buildings, such as the local, State, and National landmark Bayonne Community Museum at the corner of 9th Street and Broadway (formerly the Bayonne Community Trust Bank), a Head Start building at 7 West 9th Street, and the former Mechanics' Trust Bank building at 19-21 Eighth Street (now a Head Start building). Together they constitute the extended footprint of the Eighth Street Station of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (1864 to 1978) and the recent construction of the New Jersey Transit's 8th Street Light Rail Station (January 2011) modeled on the former railway station. They are within the location of the Eighth Street Station Rehabilitation Area Plan.
b.
The facade and main entrance, on the southerly side of West 9th Street, is 50 feet wide with a side elevation 100 feet deep. The building faces north on West 9th Street. A first-floor extension (left side) to the building was added in the early 1960s as was the ground-level entrance to its left. It is constructed to the lot line on the left side; an alley is to the right of the building. There is a handicap ramp and a metal railing leading from the first floor to the ground on the right side of the building. Most of the left side is not visible due to the garage that abuts it.
c.
The appearance of the two-story commercial-style building is not original to the time of its construction circa 1919. The building was constructed by John R. Proctor, an electrical contractor. Neither the architect nor contractor are known. Proctor's intent to construct a one-story building appears in a notice posted in the engineering magazine Iron Age (Vol. 102, Part 1, July-December 1918, p. 673):
A one-story machine repair shop and office, 19 feet by 76 feet, will be constructed at 16-20 West Ninth Street, Bayonne, NJ by John R. Proctor, Inc., engineer, 721 Broadway, Bayonne.
d.
Two maps give an early look at Ninth Street before-and-after the building construction. The 1912 Sanborn map indicates that no building existed on the site and the 1934 Plat map confirms the construction of Proctor's building albeit two stories.
e.
In the early 1960s, the building was expanded to the end of the property line and modified with a new entrance at the right side of the facade. Stucco applied by the Anchor Stone Co. covers the original red brick and white stone building.
f.
The building-including the front facade, right side, left side and rear and addition — is of mixed decorative stucco finishes in light tan and medium brown color tones. Stucco, a durable material of Portland cement, sand and water, is an economical material that usually lasts the life of the building. A variety of textures can be achieved depending on the aggregates used as is evidenced on the VFW building.
g.
On the front facade, the medium brown stucco is embedded with small cracked pieces of stone. There are three rectangular panels of light tan stucco embedded with smooth stones. The left panel contains a window on the second floor and red, white and blue signage with the post insignia on the first floor. The middle panel contains a window on the second floor and the original entrance (double) door on the first floor. The right panel contains a window on the second floor and an empty panel which resembles a frame on the first floor.
h.
There are decorative faux columns of medium brown stucco on the front facade and on the right and left side of the building. Also prominent on the right and left sides of the building near the roofline is a band of medium brown stucco. The stucco on the left side, the right side and the rear of the building is of a different texture than the stucco on the front facade. The plaster texture is lighter and smoother and resembles one of the following two types of plaster texture: "Spanish" or "California."
i.
There are three sections of visible siding on the building: one section of light green siding, approximately eight feet by eight feet in a half-triangular shape on the upper left side of the building above the entrance to the museum; one triangular section of white siding (three horizontal rows) near the roof line of the rear of the building and to the right of this section is a half-triangular section of white siding (10 rows).
j.
The building has no architectural ornamentation except for a rectangular cornice centered below the roofline and flat roof featuring the letters "VFW" in red, white and blue in an inserted light tan panel. (Image #8) The panel is centered over a blue awning on the first floor with the post name on it. There are two flags - the American flag and the POW/MIA flag (Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flag) above the awning. The front steps, with a railing and overhead awning, leading from the sidewalk to the first floor, was the original entrance into the building and once led to the Post's canteen that is no longer in use. The post's name and address appear over the stairway.
k.
There are three windows in the front of the building, two (that are visible) on the left side of the building and seven on the right side of the building. On the first floor, the window to the right of the original entrance has been covered with framed stucco. The window to the left of the original raised entrance is covered with a red, white and blue sign with "Veterans Military Museum," the post insignia and the signage "Joyce-Herbert V.F.W. Post 226" on it.
l.
The contemporary double-door of glass at the left of the building is at ground level and is not original to the building. On the facade above the door is the signage "VFW 226 AUX" in red, white and blue.
m.
Beyond the ground floor entrance ramp to the first floor, one enters the museum room. (Image #10) Along the back wall (facing south) of the room is the VFW Insignia flanked with portraits of Fireman 3rd Class (US Navy) Martin A. Joyce and US Army Corporal William Herbert who died in World War I, for whom the post was named. (Images #11, #12, #13) The vast collection donated by Bayonne veterans and their families includes uniforms, weaponry, medals, citations, photographs, print media and thousands of items dating back to the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, and the Gulf War to the current military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
n.
A second large room on the first floor (to the right of the museum room) which once had a stage, has seating for programs, presentations and social gatherings. At the back (facing north) of the room is a bar area that served as the Post's canteen, which one entered from the original 9th Street entrance. Additional rooms and spaces include a kitchen, museum office, archive, curator's workshop and repair room.
o.
The second floor has a storage area, two file rooms, and offices, including one for the commander. It was originally used as a rental hall with a kitchen.
[Ord. No. O-15-46]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the VFW Post #226 building meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.
b.
Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.
c.
Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
d.
Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
e.
The property at 16-18 West 9th Street is historically significant for its association with the peak years of the City's era of industry and invention. It was built for the electrical engineer John R. Proctor who owned it during the post-World War I era. His work and inventions complimented industries such as the Atlas Steel Barrel Company that may have contributed to the oil refineries like Standard Oil at Constable Hook and the defense industry during World War II.
f.
Since its purchase by the VFW Post 226 in 1941, the building has been dedicated as a civic center for the City's veterans who served actively in occupied or war zones and is representative of their role in America's foreign engagements. It is also a depository for the material legacy donated by Bayonne women and men of the US military and their families. It is representative of how Bayonne experienced the military experiences of its residents.
g.
The origins of the veterans' post date back circa 1919 at the end of the Great War (World War I) when Bayonne war veterans were said to have met in two automobiles at the 8th Street Train Station. The group decided to organize and applied for a charter from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States that they received on October 8, 1919. The document with the motto, "Fortitude and Loyalty," and names of 36 charter members is displayed at the museum. The post offered comradeship to returning soldiers from active service.
h.
The national VFW organization is well known for the "Buddy Poppy" campaign to raise funds for veterans, the founding of the Veterans' Administration, and GI Bills for the 20th and 21st centuries, among other benefits programs.
i.
Post 226 (the 226th chapter established in the US) was named for Martin Aloysius Joyce, Fireman, 3rd Class, US Navy, and William Herbert, US Army Corporal, 310th Infantry Regiment, 78th Division. Joyce died aboard the USS Delaware on January 25, 1918, as a result of injuries received on board ship during heavy sea. He was the first Bayonne resident killed during the war. Herbert was the last local resident killed two weeks before the end of the war from shrapnel wounds. He is buried at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France.
j.
The building, briefly owned by Mechanics' Trust Co. and the Square Holding Corporation at 30 Journal Square, was previously owned by John R. Proctor. According to the 1910 and 1930 US Census, Proctor was born in Scotland in 1880 and emigrated to the US in 1882. He lived in Bayonne at Avenue B with his wife, Marie, and two sons John R. Proctor, Jr. and Aurion M. Proctor. Other residences for Proctor listed in Bayonne City Directories are 24 West 29th Street (1911) and 24 Avenue C (1914-15).
k.
In 1915, Proctor received a contract for electrical work at the Mechanic Trust Co. on West 8th Street, which eventually became his neighbor and the banking institution that he used for his property/banking transactions. By 1918, Proctor seemed to be financially positioned to build his business on the vacant property at 18-20 West 9th Street. His company was incorporated with Lewis R. Ransom "with the capital of $30,000 to manufacture metal products and rubber specialties (Iron Age, October 29, 1917). An ad in Industrial Development and Manufacturers Record (May 4, 1922) indicated that he specialized in "Lighting, Power, Heating, Sanitary and Water Supply Systems for Municipal and Industrial Properties" with offices at 130 Liberty Street, New York City as well as 721 Broadway, Bayonne. As a businessman, he involved himself in the community as he was elected by the Bayonne Chamber of Commerce for a two-year trustee, 1921-1923 (Bayonne Times 8 April 1921). He also launched a career as an inventor that continued after his removal from the Ninth Street property. Proctor succeeded in obtaining a number of US patents related to his business such as a clamping ring (1935), seal for bond rings (1938, 1942) for the welding of flange to drum head sheet for the sewerage system for Sayreville, NJ.
l.
Between 1938 to 1942, several of his inventions, with Robert Campbell of Staten Island, were developed and patented for the Atlas Steel Barrel Corporation, a division of Bethlehem Steel Corp, located at Second Street in Bayonne. Among them were a clamping ring for open-ended containers, locking rings for container closures, and bung fixtures for hollow receptacles of sheet metal:
Patented Apr. 1, 1941 2,236,649
UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE
CLAMPING RING
John R. Proctor, Bayonne, N.J., assignor to Atlas Steel Barrel Corporation,
Bayonne, N.J., a corporation of New Jersey
Application May 16, 1935, Serial No. 21,890.
m.
In 1944, the Rheem Manufacturing Company purchased Atlas Steel, giving Rheem a drum plant in Bayonne, New Jersey, replacing the Newark plant which was sold in 1942. Rheem was noted for its ability to produce durable rolled flat steel for containers for petroleum products, chemicals, dyes, oils and liquid food as well as defense materials, like heavy artillery shells.
n.
From its opening at West 9th Street, VFW Post 226 was a popular meeting place offering support to returning veterans. It had a Ladies' Auxiliary for many years, the largest marching band in New Jersey, an annual military ball, a canteen and was known as "the swinging-est post" in town. The Post was re-dedicated in 1951.
o.
In 2005, Post Commander Glen J. Flora transformed the Post facility into a veterans' museum with the assistance of Vice Commander Joseph Kennedy, Museum Curator, and Jackie George, Esq., Commander's Aide, Tour Coordinator.
p.
It is now a depository for a "collection" of Bayonne military and veterans' artifacts donated to the museum. It dates back to the Civil War and Spanish-American War through World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the recent American operations in the Gulf War, Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan. Visitors have an opportunity to view the vast collection of uniforms, shoes, belts and buckles, rifles and knives, medals, citations, photographs, models and print media, among its holdings.
q.
The museum opened to the public in 2006 and has served the community as a learning center. Students, civic organizations and visitors from Bayonne and surrounding areas have attended the exhibits.
r.
Over 2,000 children from Bayonne, Jersey City, Newark, Camden, the Big Brothers, Sea Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts have viewed the collection. Other attendees include veterans residing at Lyons Hospital and an Australian documentary film maker. In 2015, Margaret Mary Doria completed the making of chair covers in red, white and blue for the meeting room and received the Girl Scout Gold Award for the project. She and Julianne Spiniello previously prepared a brochure about the museum to help promote visitation to the site.
[Ord. No. O-15-46]
The Municipal Council further finds that, although the building has neither architectural nor aesthetic significance it should be designated as a local landmark for the following cultural and historical impact that it has for the City, State and nation:
a.
VFW Post #226 is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of American history.
1.
The structure on the property was constructed ca. 1918-1920 for the John R. Proctor Company, Inc. whose proprietor was an electrical engineer and inventor of devices for the Atlas Steel Barrel Company.
2.
John R. Proctor received several patents related to inventions for the Atlas Steel manufactured steel barrels that were supplied to Bethlehem Steel for both industrial and military use.
3.
In 1941, the building was purchased by VFW Post 226 for use as a social club for veterans.
4.
In 2006, the Post became the Bayonne VFW Veterans Museum that expanded its significance as a local depository and an educational center for Bayonne's military history.
b.
The Post's Veteran Museum qualifies as a landmark property "dedicated" to all the women and men from Bayonne who served during the nation's foreign wars. When one enters the museum, one revisits the significant military participation for which the City is known. Artifacts that represent those who served, including military uniforms, helmets, ship models, weaponry, medals, insignia, photographs and print articles, fill the room.
c.
One of the earliest items is a memorial photograph of Civil War Corporal Patrick Larkin, Co. B - 5th NJ Infantry and a metal military insignia from the Spanish-American War. Ship models include: USS Arizona, USS Bayonne, USS New Jersey, PT 109, and James Ford Rhodes. Also, a World War I Admiral cape may be seen on display at the museum.
d.
There are also donated items from Cornelius Gallagher (former US Congressman), Barry Dugan (former Hudson County Freeholder), former Bayonne mayors Dennis Collins and Richard Rutkowski, US Army Lt. Col. Jack Smith, and uniform of Susan Sokolowki, US Army (Iraqi Operation). Every branch of the military is represented; for example, George Pepe is identified as the first Bayonne resident to enter the US Air Force Academy. Angelo A. Squiterri, (1916-1983) who received the World War II Distinguished Service Cross is remembered.
e.
One of the most important veterans in the City of Bayonne, was James J. Donovan, who was Bayonne's Mayor from 1939-1943. Mayor Donovan served in the Medical Corps in World War I and earned the Distinguished Service Cross in World War I, the United States' second highest military honor, for his bravery at Grand Prix, France, in October 1918. He also received the Italian Cross from the Italian government at New York City Hall in 1919. Mayor Donovan was responsible for the Navy Base/Military Ocean Terminal, one of the most strategically important bases on the East coast, while providing many jobs for Bayonne citizens.
f.
The VFW Post 226 Museum also proudly displays commemorative items of Bayonne's three Medal of Honor Recipients: Stephen R. Gregg (1945), Nicholas Oresko (1945) and William Shemin (2015).
[Ord. No. O-15-46]
The property located at 16-18 West 9th Street, Block 283, Lot 27 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, and known as the Joyce-Herbert Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #226 Veterans' Museum/The VFW Post 226 Veterans Museum is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne, noted for meeting the standards of the National Register of Historic Places:
a.
Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.
b.
Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.
c.
Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
d.
Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history; and the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria A and B in the Historic Preservation Ordinance.
[Ord. No. O-15-46]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Ord. No. O-16-67]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
20 East 33rd Street is located on the south side of East 33rd Street, between Avenue E and Broadway in Bayonne, NJ. It is a unit of a five-unit row of houses (Nos. 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 from west to east). These residential units each sit on a property that is about 18.75 feet wide x 82.50 feet deep (as per an 1873 Hopkins Map). They have a continuous front yard. The five units abut each other and are presumed to have common party walls between them.
b.
20 East 33rd Street cannot be described without mention of the other attached four units. All five exteriors are identical in shape, size and location of openings. They are two-story, two-bay and basement high, as shown on the 1912 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82) with no change on the 2006 Sanborn Map (Volume 10, plate 82). A current visual observation confirms that we still see the same shaped buildings.
c.
The 1912 Sanborn Map color key indicates that the row houses are made out of brick, making them a distinctive property on a block where brick was used in less than 15% of the buildings.
d.
20 East 33rd Street has the Italianate-style inspiration that coincides with the time of its assumed erection, circa 1878, as per the historic narrative description of this document. The Italianate style was in vogue between 1840 and 1885 (Virginia and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, 1988) and the style of No. 20 fits in this period. The following Italianate characteristics can be observed in this row house: large eave overhang with brackets, tall and narrow windows, paired windows, segmented arches over windows, belt course and inverted U-shape crowns above windows and door. It has other elements that are shared with other previous or contemporary styles, such as bay windows and six-panel double doors. It must be noted that these are not the classical shapes of the Italianate style but a variation or local interpretation of them. Also, the facade, built on two planes, gives the impression of towers-another characteristic of the Italianate style.
e.
The facade of row house No. 20 is set back about 15 feet from the front property line. It is asymmetrical and has two bays, one narrower than the other. The narrow bay includes a stone stoop with eight risers that leads to the main entrance of the house. Number 20 has elaborate heavy cast iron railings, balusters, and newel posts with geometric and natural motifs. There are acanthus leaves on the newel post and miscellaneous types of leaves under the handrails and base of each baluster.
f.
The facade is arranged in two planes, one per bay. The plane that projects further towards the street is wider and has the bay window and the paired windows above it. The fact that this plane is more prominent and breaks the monotony of a flat surface brings to mind the shape of a tower, which fits in the context of the Italianate style. The recessed plane, about the length of a brick, contains the main entrance and the second floor window. The pattern of the brick wall is assembled in a stretcher bond of a reddish color. The double door of the main entrance is made of a dark wood color. The door has tall proportions and is recessed from the brick plane. It is divided into three sets of panels. The bottom panels have decorative insets, which are rectangular pyramids that may be related to similar motifs on the bay window. Between the bottom panels and the middle panels there are wood decoration reliefs with scrolls and incised detailing. The middle panels have a kind of shelf or sill at the bottom and follow the same pattern as the panels below, using the pyramid theme but elongated. The top panels have glass panes surrounded by a wood molding. The same molding is repeated around all panels.
g.
The door has a stone lintel, as do the windows, but each is different depending on the size of the fenestration. These lintels are "supported" by small brackets, similar to those at the entablature and the bay windows, giving the facade a decorative unity. All three have a decorative keystone with incised detailing representing natural forms, such as leaves and flowers. The end of each lintel has a vertical and rectangular shape that sticks up and down; the windows have bull's eyes or targets at the center of these ends, while the door has incised leaf decoration. The door lintel is different since the bottom has diagonal lines that ascend towards the keystone giving the impression of a segmented arch. The bottoms of the window lintels have small pyramidal decorations, again, becoming a theme on this facade.
h.
One of the most visible features of No. 20, as well as the adjoining units, is the three-sided first floor bay windows that are made almost entirely of wood. These bay windows are each painted a different color and crowned by an entablature with a cornice and a frieze, with moldings and modillions (four per side) respectively. The windows are one-over-one double hung and have simple moldings around them, curved at the top, or "segmented," which is an Italianate touch. All three windows have a continuous sill with moldings below. Under the sill, which has seven decorative pyramids each, there is a framed panel. The first-floor bay window sits on a wide horizontal band or belt that separates it from the basement level. The bay window continues down to the basement in a simpler arrangement where the windows are smaller, since the basement wall elevates itself just about half of its height. These windows have stone sills and lintels. A peculiar detail about the stone lintel is that the bottom of it shows a drapery-like effect since it is cut in a zigzag pattern, round at the bottom, giving the stone a cozy touch.
i.
The house is crowned by a wood entablature with cornice, frieze and architrave, which, at present, shows a different color at each of the buildings of this row house unit. The cornice has moldings and cantilevers beyond the facade plane and follows the in-and-out planes of the house. Between the soffit and the frieze is crown molding that has a rectangular fill-void pattern. The main element of the entablature is the large brackets. There are three of them at each one of the protruding planes, as well as a bracket at each turn towards the recessed plan, which has two modillions. These brackets and modillions have two vertical incised lines that run along the face. There is curve-incised detailing on the side, similar to other historic buildings in Bayonne and surrounding areas, but different from a strictly Italianate design. The frieze of the advancing plane has a sort of beam whose center seems to have an inverted key stone (though the material is wood) with scrolls on its sides and a peculiar round motif or a small hemisphere at the center. This motif can also be seen at the bottom of the modillion. The recessed plane frieze has a flat molding with cutouts, a circle over a triangle, all rounded up, which is indicative of the Queen Anne style.
j.
The roof cannot be seen from the street since the top cornice of the building extends high enough to block any view of it. An aerial photo (Bing 2013) shows a flat rectangular roof. This rectangle is about 50 feet long where the southeast is cut about five by 16 feet. We must note that the footprint shown on an 1873 Hopkins map is the same as the present general layout. The short sides of this rectangle face the street and the rear yard. The roof slopes towards the rear yard. The roof shows some penetrations, including two chimneys on their east walls, and a skylight or hatch at midpoint near the west wall. The bay window has its own roof, which at present shows bituminous material and no gutter, which may be a sign that the roof has not been modified except for the waterproofing materials.
k.
Most of the original elements of the Italianate style of No. 20 have been maintained and, therefore, it retains historic integrity that is worth preserving.
[Ord. No. O-16-67]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the property meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons:
a.
The property meets Criterion C of the standards for the National Register of Historic Places: Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
b.
The Schuyler House at 20 East 33 Street also complies with the following criteria found in the Bayonne Ordinance O-98-51:
1.
(D). Embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering;
2.
(E). Identification with the work of a builder, designer, artist, architect, or landscape architect whose work has influenced the development of the Municipality, State, or Nation;
3.
(F). Embodiment of elements of design, detail, material, or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative.
c.
The area of significance for the property is its architecture. Its period of significance was 1878 to 1901 during local popularity of row houses and beginning of decline of use of Italianate style. The architect/builder was J. Rutsen Schuyler.
d.
The Schuyler Row House at 20 East 33rd Street is an excellent example of a late Victorian Italianate-style brick row house with modified features from other styles, designed to appeal to the commuter residents of the first decade of home construction in the City of Bayonne.
e.
As a real estate developer Schuyler made a significant contribution to the property values of the City by building attractive neighborhoods at various strategic locations on the peninsula where he had acquired property.
f.
After the Cadmus farmlands were purchased in 1859 by a group of real estate speculators, Schuyler began watching for opportunities to acquire desirable lots from that land near the CNJ Train Station at Bayonne Avenue. The 1873 Hopkins Map shows Schuyler by then owning all the lots from Bayonne Avenue (now 33rd Street) to Oakland Avenue (now 32nd Street) including Willow Street from Avenue D to Avenue E as well as the northerly side of Maple Avenue (now 31st Street) also from Avenue D to Avenue E.
g.
There is no evidence that Schuyler attempted to build on any of these lots until after he retired from Schuyler, Hartley & Graham in 1876 and until the home construction industry started to recover in 1878 from the economic downturn of 1873. An item in the "Bohemianisms" column of the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register on August 3, 1878, states that: "Mr. Schuyler is building five fine houses on Bayonne Avenue." This refers to the five row houses that we see today from 12 to 20 East 33rd Street of which No. 20 is nominated as a local landmark (2014). On October 26, 1878, the newspaper reports: "Mr. J.R. Schuyler's houses, on Bayonne Avenue, are approaching completion and will be a valuable addition to that section of the city".
h.
It appears that the five row houses were created as rental properties. In some cases, they would temporarily house wealthy real estate customers while permanent "dream homes" were being designed and built for them in Bayonne. At other times, they provided temporary housing for highly-skilled workers who circulated between the various plants that Bayonne industries such as Tidewater Oil and Babcock & Wilcox often maintained at multiple sites throughout the country. Thus, these row houses were still the property of J.R. Schuyler when he died in 1887, and a number of tenants had resided in them during his ownership.
i.
Items in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register and The Bayonne Times show that J.R. Schuyler continued to build houses on his surrounding property up until 1884 when serious health issues began to impact his ability to continue his real estate projects.
j.
After his death in 1887, his children maintained the East 33rd Street row houses as rental properties for many years only selling them in 1896. The sale may have been triggered by the news reported in the Bayonne Herald earlier that year on January 11, 1896, that their neighbor William L. Morris had sold his Newark Bay estate to Jersey City lawyer E.K. Seguine, who was expected to resell the property to a business that would erect a factory on the site. The Schuyler children sold 20 East 33rd Street to Rienzi and Emilia Cadugan in September 1896.
k.
Jacob Rutsen Schuyler (1816-1887) was born in Belleville, Essex County, New Jersey, the son of John Arent Schuyler (1780-1817) and Catherine Van Rennselaer (1781-1867). His father owned a copper mine in Belleville. He was a lineal descendant, on his father's side, of a Dutch immigrant Philip Pieterus Van Schuler, who left Amsterdam, Holland, in 1653 and settled at Fort Orange, New Netherland, which is now Albany, New York.
l.
American Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler, whose daughter Elizabeth Schuyler married Alexander Hamilton, was also a lineal descendant of that first Dutch settler but via another son.
m.
J. Rutsen Schuyler married Susannah Haigh Edwards (1825-1870), a great-granddaughter of Christian preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), who is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian, and one of America's greatest intellectuals.
n.
J. R. and Susannah Edwards Schuyler are listed with their children in the 1860 U.S. Census as living in the First Ward of Jersey City. They moved to the Township of Bayonne in the early 1860s. A Hudson County deed dated February 3, 1864, in Liber 106, page 666, conveyed 18.5 acres of land and premises to Jacob R. Schuyler from Lucinda the widow of Henry C. Burdett (1813?-1863). The deed implies several things from which some reasonable conclusions may be drawn. First, J.R. Schuyler is already identified in the deed as a resident of Bayonne, so the Schuyler family had probably been living in a rental property in Bayonne before this purchase. The 1864 deed states that the property had previously been deeded to Henry C. Burdett in January 1854 by Michael and Albert W. Zabriskie, and it refers to "All that certain tract or parcel of land and premises..." which implies that there already was a house on the property in 1864.
o.
The Burdett surname usually indicates French Huguenot ancestry with the original spelling being "Bourdette." The 1850 and 1860 U.S. Census list Burdett as New York-born and respectively identify his profession as a bookkeeper and later as a cashier. The 1850 and 1862 New York City Directories document him as an accountant at 279 Broadway, which was then the New York headquarters of The Bradstreet Company (later Dun & Bradstreet). Burdett's 1863 obituary implies that he had many friends and contacts in Manhattan. There is nothing to indicate that he was involved in Bayonne real estate. The 1860 U.S. Census shows that the three oldest Burdett children were born in New York, but the two youngest children, born after the Bergen Point land purchase in 1854, were born in New Jersey. Thus, it appears that the Schuyler Mansion may have been built as early as the spring of 1854, but as the Burdett Mansion for a then growing Burdett family.
p.
Vintage photographs of the mansion from 1914 and 1915, after the Schuyler heirs sold the homestead to the Pavonia Yacht Club, show a sprawling Second Empire or French Mansard style house off Pavonia Court above the shore of Newark Bay. It was then quite different from the modernized building that now serves as the Robbins Reef Yacht Club.
q.
Susannah Edwards Schuyler died at Bergen Point in 1870 at age 44 shortly after the birth of her tenth child, a daughter Angelica Van Rensselaer Schuyler. The other Schuyler children were: Sarah Edwards, Jacob Rutsen, Rutsen Van Rensselaer, Katherine Van Rensselaer, Robert Edwards, Charles Haigh, John Arent, Susanna Edwards, and Edwards Ogden. Only six of the 10 Schuyler children survived to adulthood.
r.
J. Rutsen Schuyler was a junior member of the firm Smith, Young, and Company, which sold "Military & Fancy goods" in Manhattan. He became the senior member of the firm Schuyler, Hartley & Graham founded in 1854 (Figures 4, 5, and 6), which sold similar merchandise from two shops at 19 Maiden Lane and 22 John Street near Wall Street. The company was called upon to provide arms and military goods for the North at the outbreak of the Civil War. Much like Abercrombie & Fitch during the Spanish-American War, Schuyler's firm emerged from the Civil War as a great financial success. He retired from this business in 1876.
s.
When the City of Bayonne was incorporated in 1869, Schuyler was elected by the voters to serve as a council member and then elected by the council members to serve as the first council president for two terms from 1869-1870 and 1871-1872. During those years, he developed a working relationship and lasting friendship with the first mayor of Bayonne-Henry Meigs, Jr.
t.
J. Rutsen Schuyler's brother, John Arent Schuyler, Jr., married Frances Elizabeth Bleecker who was a first cousin of Mayor Meigs' wife Mary Noel Bleecker. Thus, Meigs and Schuyler could also be considered "extended family."
u.
In early 1871, J.R. Schuyler built a large, brick three-story multi-use public building called the Schuyler Building at the northwest corner of Avenue C and West 8th Street. It featured a large room called Schuyler Hall that became a popular meeting place for educational, fraternal, social, and religious organizations in Bayonne.
v.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the late- 19th century, as well as brother of author Harriett Beecher Stowe, gave a lecture in Schuyler Hall as reported by The Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register on December 3, 1881. He had also lectured at the First Reformed Church in Bayonne a year earlier on December 1, 1880.
w.
In 1872, J.R. Schuyler was one of the incorporators of the Mechanics Trust Company, along with other Bayonne merchants and businessmen Henry Meigs, Solon Humphreys, Rufus Story, Francis I. Smith, Hiram Van Buskirk, James W. Trask, Erastus Randall, and George Carragan.
x.
Schuyler and his colleagues Randall, Meigs, Van Buskirk, and Humphreys are credited as the founders of the Bergen Point Gas-Light Company. An ad in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register of March 30th, 1878, identifies A.B. Warner, President; J.R. Schuyler, Vice President; and Alexander Crombie Humphreys, Secretary, of the Bayonne and Greenville Gas Light Company on Oak Street at the corner of Hobart Avenue.
y.
Schuyler was a vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church at Bergen Point. In 1879, he assumed financial responsibility for the cost of having the church repaired and enlarged. Jersey City architect Lewis H. Broome was hired to handle the exterior work, and Edward J. Neville Stent of New York handled the interior decorations. Regrettably, the church has been destroyed by fire twice since the improvements that Schuyler funded.
z.
Items in the Bayonne Herald and Greenville Register show that J.R. Schuyler continued to build houses on his property up until 1884 when health issues began to affect him. Schuyler suffered strokes in 1884 and in 1887 and never fully recovered after the last stroke. He later fell, injuring his head and causing his death at age 70 years old. Schuyler died leaving an estate that owned property at nine different locations in Bayonne, including the row houses on East 33rd Street. His real estate investments resulted in streets such as Schuyler Place and more recently Schuyler Place West that are named in his honor, as well as Edwards Court where his son, Edwards Ogden Schuyler, owned a house designed by architect Charles Edwards. Hartley Place is thought to be named after Schuyler's business partner, the philanthropist Marcellus Hartley.
aa.
After Schuyler died, the Schuyler Building served first as a Masonic Hall and then temporarily as a Bayonne High School, but it eventually fell to the wrecker's ball. The land on which it once stood now serves as Edward F. Clark Park named in honor of a former Mayor of the City of Bayonne.
bb.
The shorefront Schuyler Mansion was purchased in 1913 by the Pavonia Yacht Club as their club house for their members. Later it became home to the Robbins Reef Yacht Club building, which relocated from New York Bay to Newark Bay. The Robbins Reef Yacht Club still exists today but with considerable modernization of both its interior and its exterior facade.
[Ord. No. O-16-67]
The Municipal Council further finds that the building has architectural and aesthetic significance it should be designated as a local landmark for the following cultural and historical impact:
a.
Built in 1878, the 135-year old property at 20 East 33rd Street retains most of its original architectural details. While the row house style of construction was popular on the Eastern seaboard, it was not frequently used in Bayonne. Unlike the downtown section of Jersey City that contains blocks of row houses, Bayonne only has isolated instances of the architecture. The Italianate-style row house at 20 East 33rd Street and the adjoining houses enhances the streetscape. It is a unique reminder of the Late Victorian Era, setting it apart from the design and fabrication of other structures in the neighborhood. The long wooden bay windows and doorway at the entrance give the property its elegance and curb appeal.
b.
It is also significant because of its builder and first owner, J. Rutsen Schuyler, and his role in local and national history. His selection of the architectural design is representative of the era of his influence in the development of the City of Bayonne. A successful New York merchant, Schuyler "adopted" Bayonne and contributed to the City with his real estate development and support of its political, economic, religious and social institutions.
c.
Many of the wood houses that Schuyler built in the vicinity of Bayonne Avenue have been modified and updated over the years. Only the brick row houses that Schuyler produced have been able to closely maintain their original appearance of 135 years ago. Thus, they are the most intact legacy that the City has from its first council president:
[Ord. No. O-16-67]
City Council of the City of Bayonne designates the J. Rutsen Schuyler Row House at 20 East 33rd Street, Block 146, Lot 37 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne, be added by municipal ordinance to the Register of Historic Places of Bayonne, NJ, as it meets the local standards (City of Bayonne) of Criteria D, E and F as well as Criterion C of the National Register for preservation.
[Ord. No. O-16-67]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
The Electric Launch and Navigation Company, later known as the Electric Launch Company ("Elco"), was founded in Morris Heights, Bronx, N.Y. The company debuted at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The centerpiece of this exposition was a large water pool representing Columbus's voyages to the Americas. Featured in the Great Basin were 55 Elco launches, each 35 feet 10 inches long and energized by battery-powered electric motors. The boats carried over a million passengers, 30 at a time, on the waterways of the Exposition from April 15th through October 31st, 1893. Electric launches were novel, and that method of naval propulsion had never been tested on so large a scale. During the fair, each electric launch charged overnight and ran on average 13 3 1/2 mile trips each day with each trip taking approximately 45 minutes, delighting visitors.
b.
In 1900, Elco moved across the Hudson River and established a boat-building facility on 8th Street and Avenue A in Bayonne. The company continued to manufacture civilian pleasure boats including motorized launches, yachts, and other vessels but in 1915 this changed. Elco military boats manufactured at the Elco Naval Division facility in Bayonne, New Jersey were used in both world wars. In World War I, the company was contracted by the British Government to build motor launch (ML) vessels to combat German submarines. It was a naval architect named Irwin Chase who designed the 550 World War I sub-chasers for the British in 1915. In 1922 Chase became General Manager of Elco and his assistant in World War I was a designer, Glenville Sinclair Tremaine, who became the chief naval designer in 1923. The latter was joined by Alfred "Bill" Flemming. This team worked together at Elco during World War II most famously building patrol torpedo (PT) boats for the United States Navy.
c.
In 1938 the US Navy sponsored a design competition to small boat builders with a challenge to create a highly mobile attack boat. Not long after the U.S. entry into the war, there were roughly a dozen separate manufacturers of PT boats from the United States, Canada and Great Britain supplying the US Navy. Eventually, Elco and Higgins Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana were the dominant two builders with Elco producing the larger number. In the later years of the war the U.S. Navy standardized the design and construction of the PT boat. Two basic and distinctly different types of PT Boats were built for combat with the predominant PT, the eighty-foot long "Elco" boat, and the slightly smaller seventy-eight-foot long "Higgins" boat. By the end of World War II, 399 Elco PTs had been built and Higgins built approximately 200 PTs. Among the PT boats constructed in Bayonne was PT-109, commanded by naval lieutenant and future U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
d.
After the war, Elco went back to building pleasure boats, but by 1948 it was just a small branch of Electric Boat, a conglomerate handled by John Jay Hopkins. Hopkins felt that Elco was not a profitable enterprise, and in December of 1949 the work force was let go, and the equipment, supplies and plant in Bayonne were sold. After Elco left Bayonne, the structure was used by Englander Mattress and Efka Plastics. On September 3, 2001, a fire caused severe damage at the former Elco Naval Division factory. The industrial structure was vacant at the time of the fire, and had not been active for several years. Fire fighters battled the blaze that night and remained on site to apply water to remaining hot spots for two days after they contained the fire. The engineer's report concluded that the main industrial building should be condemned and demolished. This recommendation applied only to the main structure. The Elco Marina clubhouse, the dockside crane, and other free-standing structures nearby were not harmed in the fire and were excluded from the recommended demolition.
e.
The crane, recovered from the Elco Naval Division in Bayonne, lifted the PT boats from land and lowered them into Newark Bay. It serves as a reminder of the important role that Bayonne played in World War II, recalling the men and women employed by the Electric Launch Company (Elco), the servicemen who commanded and worked aboard the Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats that were built in Bayonne, and the innovation of the Electric Launch Company.
f.
The Elco Crane is in Richard A. Rutkowski Park at the Hackensack River Walk in Bayonne, on Newark Bay, west of 52nd - 54th Streets (Block 12, Lot 3). In 2003, the crane was removed from its original location on Newark Bay, to make way for the Boat Works housing development, which is located approximately two miles to the south of this park. The crane was dismantled and stored while this park was completed. The crane was reassembled at its current location in this park in 2006.
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
The Municipal Council further finds that the features key to the crane's architectural significance include, but are not limited, to the following:
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
The Municipal Council further finds and determines that the Elco Crane meets the criteria for historic designation for the following set forth in Section 37-40.1 above. Additionally, the crane meets Criterion A in that it evidences the ". . . Character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the Municipality, State, or nation" and Criterion C in that the crane is associated with a site of "an historic event which had significant effect on the development of the municipality, state, or nation."
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
The Elco Crane, currently located in Richard A. Rutkowski Park at the Hackensack River Walk in Bayonne, on Newark Bay, west of 52nd - 54th Streets (Block 12, Lot 3is hereby designated a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Added 12-13-2023 by Ord. No. O-23-61]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.
[Added 1-22-2025 by Ord. No. O-25-01]
[Added 1-22-2025 by Ord. No. O-25-01]
The Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne finds and determines the following:
a.
St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Parish of Bayonne was formed in 1913 out of the southern portion of St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish. St. Andrew's served the Irish population that had settled in the lower east side of Bayonne. A combined school-chapel building, designed by Jeremiah O'Rourke and Sons of Newark, was used for services from 1914 to 1923. It still exists to the immediate west of the present church building and houses the downtown Senior Citizen Center and served as a location of the former Story Court Branch of the Bayonne Public Library; and
b.
The present St. Andrew's Church building (Block 355, Lot 10 on the Tax Map of the City of Bayonne) was constructed between 1922 and 1923. It was designed in the neo-Gothic style; and
c.
The current St. Andrew's Church building featured two intricate steeples on either side of a large stained-glass rose window; and
d.
In 1923, 22 Munich-style stained-glass windows from the firm of Franz Mayer of Munich were installed. Those windows illustrate the life of Christ; and
e.
The exterior of St. Andrew's Church consists primarily of reddish-brown dress brick with limestone trim; and
f.
The exterior of St. Andrew's Church of Bayonne, New Jersey, bears some architectural similarity to Eglise Saint-Andre (Church of St. Andrew) in Bayonne, France; and
g.
In its Historic Sites Survey for the City of Bayonne that was released on July 27, 2000, the Cultural Resource Consulting Group published an entry on St. Andrew's Church which coded the building as "PE" and "LL." "PE" means "the property is potentially eligible for listing on the State and National Registers" of Histotric Places. "LL" means that "the property is eligible to be designated as a local landmark"; and
h.
On October 22, 2024, the Bayonne Historic Preservation Commission adopted a resolution recommending to the Planning Board of the City of Bayonne and the Municipal Council of the City of Bayonne the historic designation and preservation of the exterior of St. Andrew's Church through the passage of an appropriate ordinance.
[Added 1-22-2025 by Ord. No. O-25-01]
The Municipal Council finds and determines that the St. Andrew's Church meets the criteria for historic designation for the following reasons: the Church (1) has character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the municipality, state, or nation; (2) is an embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, architecture, or engineering; (3) is a site of a historical event which had significant effect on the development of the municipality, state, or nation; (4) is an embodiment of elements of design, detail, materials or craftsmanship that render a site architecturally significant or structurally innovative; (5) is a unique location of singular characteristics that make a district or site an established or familiar visual feature.
[Added 1-22-2025 by Ord. No. O-25-01]
St. Andrew's Church, located at 10 West 4th Street in Bayonne (Block 355, Lot 10) is hereby designated as a Historic Landmark in accordance with Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq., and Chapter 37, Historic Preservation, of the Revised General Ordinances of the City of Bayonne.
[Added 1-22-2025 by Ord. No. O-25-01]
This designation shall be noted on the zoning map of the City of Bayonne and filed with the City Tax Assessor.