Powerhouse promise: Unleash potential of Jersey City cultural heritage site | Legends & Landmarks

I walk past the hulking mass of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse at Washington, Greene, Bay and First streets filled with the deepest hope for Jersey City’s greatest architectural monument, even as its fate hangs in the balance.

I think, in the glory of the Powerhouse’s presence, about how, in 1906, a young architect set out to design the industrial colossus, where electricity would be generated by coal for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Company’s Hudson Tunnels, the first subway system under the Hudson River connecting Manhattan with Jersey City, Hoboken, Harrison and Newark (now the PATH system). At that moment John Saunders Oakman (1878-1963) — for whom 160 First St., a modern luxury condominium tower near the Powerhouse, is named — rewrote what the architectural type should look like, avoiding typical flat walls, planes and spans of unwieldy utilitarian bulk and instead making the coal-burning, smokestack-stanchioned station a multi-dimensioned industrial organism of high architectural art. Indeed, in 1907, the highly regarded Western Architect industry periodical took notice of this singular vision under construction, pointing out that it “avoids the factory building aspect too often found in such buildings.”

Every height and span of this remarkable building speaks to a historical narrative: from 1908, the year its ceremonial switching-on event was presided over by President Theodore Roosevelt; to circa-1929, when outside electric current was purchased by the railroad, throwing the Powerhouse into darkness and silence; to the late-1950s, when the groundbreaking railroad was roiled by a prolonged period of bankruptcy; to the early-1960s, when the tunnels and its assets were taken over by the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; to 1965, the year in which the Port Authority started occupying the vacant Powerhouse site to build modernized electricity-distributing equipment and infrastructure, including its main PATH substation, compressors, switchboards, and transformer yards; to 1999, the year I started fighting to save the building from demolition and erasure, a battle that is far, even today, from being over.

I ponder all this as I stare up at newly erected blockbuster buildings — luxury residential towers, commercial skyscrapers, multi-level parking plinths — looming in every direction, from the Hudson River walkway to Grove Street, and dominating the 21st-century urban streetscape stage I walk. And I think back to 1999, when I demonstrated outside the Powerhouse as the Port Authority and City Hall — for the City of Jersey City somehow, at some point, came into ownership of half the building — were initiating plans to knock it down. At that time, development was just starting to close in and surround the Powerhouse, and the presiding feeling among politicians and Port Authority officials was that the building was too archaic and expensive to revive and thus had no place in a modern Jersey City landscape. I, and a small yet growing faction of city activists, disagreed and decided to take action in true grassroots fashion, first forming a nonprofit coalition in order to have a collective and forceful voice, followed by applying for landmark designation on the National Register of Historic Places.

Everything, of course, was against us — the power, reach, influence and sense of entitlement of the Port Authority, and the City of Jersey City, at that time in the business of giving Jersey City’s heritage sites away in the name of so-called progress. Yet still we persisted, aligning ourselves with more community organizations and preservation institutions and spreading the word over the next few years on the architectural significance and cultural value of the Powerhouse. Through determination, spirit and a belief in Jersey City that no elected official or bi-state agency was capable, we felt, of possessing, we were able to derail demolition plans, build support and alter attitudes.

The Powerhouse would remain for the foreseeable future, even as stratospheric development in the district continued. Yet it remains as it was: abandoned, without plans for its revival and return.

City Hall will be solely responsible for transforming the building, and it should accept this challenge enthusiastically and show other cities how real preservation is supposed to happen, especially in a zone where new construction comes first.

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The city should include the community in planning the Powerhouse’s restoration and reuse. It should come up with creative solutions and strategies and align itself with developers who specialize in preservation projects of this size and scale. It should look to other preserved power station types across the country and world and model our Powerhouse on them. It should refute any past or current Port Authority-commissioned engineers’ reports — and there is never a shortage of them — and take a higher preservation road.

Launch a high-profile design competition that will rock the preservation industry. Invite local and world-recognized architecture studios to come up with realistic adaptive reuse concepts that respect this cultural heritage site so important that the arts district around it was named the Powerhouse Arts District in the early-2000s.

We wait for the moment when, if the City of Jersey City does everything right moving forward, the long-neglected architectural wonder will finally be given the renewal, rebirth and re-dedication it, and the public, deserve. That is what I think virtually out loud as I watch cranes hoisting tall strands of steel frame stanchion posts and pivoting, positioning and locking them in place across the street from the Powerhouse on a plot of city-owned triangular ground at the speedway-like intersection of Washington, Greene, and First streets.

John Gomez holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Columbia University and is the founder of the non-profit Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy (jclandmarks.org). As this is his final “Legends & Landmarks” column for The Jersey Journal, he wishes to express his utmost gratitude to Editor-at-Large Margaret Schmidt, a living Jersey City legend who as a reporter, editorialist, and editor has done more for local history and historic preservation over the decades than anyone he knows. He may be reached at [email protected].