The Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy has scheduled a slide show for 3 p.m. today (Sunday, March 9) at the Hoboken Historical Museum at 1301 Hudson St.
“The purpose of the slide show is to give a history of the Hudson & Manhattan Powerhouse and talk about efforts to restore it,” said John Gomez, president of the group. “It will be a two-hour program.”
The Powerhouse was first built in 1908 to generate power for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, which transported commuters to and from Jersey City and New York City. The Powerhouse, located near the Harborside Financial Center, was in operation until 1929.
“The coming of the Great Depression required the Hudson & Manhattan line to make some cutbacks,” explained Gomez. “The Powerhouse was one of them.”
Since then, the building has been largely unoccupied, except as a storage space and power generating location for the Port Authority. The Port Authority became the owner of the Powerhouse in 1962, when the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad went bankrupt.
Gomez said the Powerhouse had been slated for destruction in 1999 during the Schundler administration.
“The city, in cooperation with the Port Authority, were going to tear the Powerhouse down,” said Gomez.
The Conservancy and other community groups began an effort to save the Powerhouse, said Gomez.
“We made an effort to educate people about the significance of the Powerhouse,” said Gomez, adding that many people didn’t know the building was even there.
The Port Authority still owns the Powerhouse, but a development group called Perserred Real Estate Investments may want to buy and develop it.
Gomez expressed his hope that Perserred would be able to restore the building. “It is really quite an amazing building,” he said. “When Hudson & Manhattan Railroad built the Powerhouse, they created a work of art.”
However, restoration could get expensive.
The Port Authority still has a power generating facility right outside the building, facing Washington Avenue. It would have to be moved at a tremendous cost.
According to Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the power generation facility at the Powerhouse provides electricity for the entire PATH railway signal system. In addition, it powers all trains that run to PATH locations in New Jersey.
“The facility is a major power generator for the PATH system,” Coleman stated. “It would cost approximately $30 million to move the power generating facility to another location.”
Coleman said negotiations with Perserred had taken place in the past, but nothing was happening currently.
“I don’t want to rule out anything for the future,” said Coleman. “Right now nothing is happening.”
As of Friday morning, management at Perserred had not returned phone calls to their office in Pennsylvania.
‘Realistic’ view
Gomez is taking what he characterizes as a “realistic” view toward any possible restoration of the Powerhouse.
“The building could be converted into office space mostly,” Gomez suggested. “There could be retail, also. There could also be a public area for an art gallery, which would meld with the artistic community nearby. After all, that area has been named ‘The Powerhouse Arts District.’
“Because of the cost of restoration, you have to make it profitable for a developer to come in and restore the building,” Gomez added.
“The area used to be heavily industrial, but has been developed for residential and businesses,” said Gomez. “Before the Powerhouse is restored, the power facility would have to be relocated.”
Historic status
After 1999, the building “got lost in all the development,” said Gomez last week. “Many of the windows were broken and there was a lot of dumping there.”
The dumping came from construction projects that sprang up around the Powerhouse during the development boom during the 1980 and 1990s, Gomez commented.
“A lot of the garbage has since been cleaned up,” said Gomez.
In 2001, the Powerhouse preservation won a victory when the Powerhouse was named to the National Registry of Historic Landmarks.
“Getting the designation saved the Powerhouse from being torn down,” Gomez said. Gomez added that, as yet, the Powerhouse did not have municipal landmark status and that state-level status had not been given either.
“People get concerned over a property with landmark status,” said Gomez. “You can only do so much with the property once it has that designation. Some people feel it reduces the value of the property.”
Gomez gave Port Authority credit for being very cooperative with him and the developer interested in the site.
“The Authority has met with them several times and the discussions were always good,” Gomez added.