Dear Editor:
Last year, Mr. Torres posed the question in the Aug 3. issue of The Jersey Journal: What’s to become of empty Blue Chapel? The article quotes Brian Stack, mayor of Union City, saying, “we are giving some thought to seeking historic landmark status for the property.” As of today, more than a year later, the Blue Chapel is still not a state landmark, county landmark, or even local landmark. Residents in the neighborhood of the Blue Chapel still remain deeply concerned that a developer will come in and raze the chapel – a former cloistered monastery of Dominican nuns devoted to the Perpetual Rosary – in quest of mega-profits.
Since 2000, I have urged the mayor and board of commissioners of Union City to save the Blue Chapel from being pulverized, and to make sure that the cemetery on the grounds remains hallowed and undisturbed.
To date, only Kathie Pontus, the unrecognized historian of Union City, has come forth to plead with the Stack administration to preserve the Blue Chapel. Now, after a long hiatus, I take this opportunity to stand behind Ms. Pontus, and join hands with fellow Union City residents who are committed to oppose any plans that would not preserve the chapel in its entirety. The idea has been proposed to use the property as a retreat or park, in keeping with the numinous serenity that envelopes the chapel.
In the past two years, Mayor Stack, or Commissioner Irizarry, or Commissioner Fernandez have used the “p” word – preservation – and only after preservation advocates, such as myself, embarrassed the Stack administration for their lip service and mock performances, which began with the demolition of the historic and last remaining stadium in the city that had stood since the days of the Great Depression.
Let me give this challenge to Mayor Stack in your newspaper: Gather together officials from the state Office of Preservation, your city planner, Preservation NJ, and interested preservationists, and set in motion the process for conferring state (and possibly national) landmark status on the Blue Chapel. Mayor Stack and the commissioners will need to bring this up formally at a commissioner’s meeting, and follow up with funding to ensure the necessary groundwork and research are in place.
To date, this has not been done and, compared to other municipalities in Hudson County, Union City is conspicuous for not even being close to what Hoboken and Jersey City have achieved in terms of landmarked properties.
Union City once had a mayor fully committed to preserving old Union City buildings, a man named Bruce Walter. I have no doubt that if he were still mayor he would have had a plan in place to save the Blue Chapel and spare it from commercialization and crass exploitation in quest of the almighty dollar.
Now is not the time for empty promises. Now is the time for a purpose, a plan, and a long overdue landmark initiative for the Blue Chapel from our elected officials in Union City. A year has gone by and the mayor has spent too much time thinking about landmarking. The time has arrived for Mayor Stack to end his year of thinking about landmark status, and begin taking action, and not finish until the job gets done!
Tony Squire