For Mark Terzi, a local Boy Scout, history is more than what you find in textbooks. It is all around you, especially along the streets of Bayonne.
In doing a project for his pack, Terzi decided that he was going to learn and report on each of the city’s numerous historical sites, compiling a short history and a photograph or some other image of each place.
When he started, he knew Bayonne had a lot of landmarks and that some of the sites listed as historic have since been torn down. Even some of those houses he managed to get to and photograph for the report have since vanished, such as the historic Knights of Columbus house.
Terzi realized that each of these markers signified an important moment in time, even if the building no longer stood.
Some ideas intrigued him, such as the fact that Mark Twain, author of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and other books, sometimes visited Bayonne when the city served the New York area as a resort. Even the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, one of the nation’s founding fathers, lived in Bayonne.
Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, Giuseppe Garibaldi and other famous people made trips to the luxurious LaTourette House Hotel, a mansion once located in the Bergen Point section of the city.
Richard Bache Duane, an Episcopal clergyman and Franklyn’s relative, lived in the Duane House on Eighth Street.
“He lived there with his wife and seven children,” Terzi said.
“I knew that places like Bayonne High School were over 100 years old,” he added.
If he could take a picture of the historic site, Terzi did. But often he had to make use of the Bayonne Public Library’s reference room.
One by one, he searched out images that would allow him to show people the historic places that exist or used to exist throughout Bayonne.
“Some of the research was pretty hard,” he said. “I used the library and the Internet.”
Historic places such as Hendrickson’s Restaurant on Broadway still exist.
“Built in 1884, the building was very important at the time,” he wrote in his description. “The first floor was a saloon. The second floor was the town meeting hall, the Board of Education, and the police headquarters.”
The basement of the building served as the city jail.
The Knights of Columbus building was torn down last year to make way for a new building. The original building was donated to the club in 1910. It had a ballroom where the police and firefighters held their annual balls and events, such as performances of big Polka bands, as well as boxing and basketball matches. The building also provided the city with a pool hall and a bowling alley.
In some ways, the project was an eye opener for Terzi, connecting real people with historical objects in a way that tells a story about how Bayonne evolved out of its historic roots. It also allowed him to use his research skills, although history may not play a role in his future ambitions.
A student at Midtown Community School, Terzi hopes to become a NASCAR driver some day.