Photo Courtesy of Ava Caridad Do you recognize this scene in Bloomfield? If you don’t, it’s because most of these houses were demolished to build the Garden State Parkway.
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Bloomfield Councilman Rich Rockwell, a member of the Historical Society of Bloomfield, gave a well-researched presentation Oct. 25 on the changes the construction of the Garden State Parkway wreaked in Bloomfield. His talk, “The Toll the Garden State Parkway Had on Bloomfield,” was at the Church on the Green and included projected images.
Rockwell said preparations for the talk had taken two and a half years. He attributed his determination to a passion for old photographs and dedicated the program to his colleague Fred Branch, Bloomfield’s preeminent historian, who died in 2018.
“Fred hated the parkway,” Rockwell said, acknowledging Branch’s inspiration for the program. “I learned a lot about the parkway from him.”
Rockwell said most of his information came from maps and photographs, as well as newspaper articles. He made good use of the data he compiled. In 1900, he said, there were 300 New Jersey motor vehicles registered; in 1916, 109,000; in 1956, 2 million; and in 2006, 6 million.
“Following World War II, the New Jersey population grew twice as fast as the rest of the country,” Rockwell said. “This encouraged consumer culture and unprecedented consumer sprawl.”
At the time, the question facing authorities, according to Rockwell, was where to put all the cars people would eventually be driving. Consequently, in 1917, the New Jersey State Highway Department, precursor to the New Jersey Department of Transportation, was formed. The state wanted a north-south superhighway, designated Route 4, later named the Garden State Parkway. The state also wanted an east-west superhighway. Although proposed, it was never realized, but instead morphed into Route 80.
According to Rockwell, in 1950, the first parkway section opened in Cranford, and in 1952, a public referendum approved a highway from the New York state line, in the north, to Cape May. The concept for building the parkway was to construct it not along community borders but right through the communities, to make the thoroughfare more accessible to residents. The state reasoned that this was practical because studies said one-third of the state’s population would be within 3 miles of the parkway this way.
Rockwell’s presentation also included the screening of a propaganda movie favoring parkway construction. The movie juxtaposed families luxuriating on sandy beaches with sweaty families struggling to head south at a snail’s pace on N.J. roadways. In this film, viewers were treated to the sight of a traffic jam at congested Franklin Avenue and Broad Street.
A public referendum was held to determine the residents’ interest in the parkway. Rockwell displayed an editorial from a loyalist newspaper, most probably “The Independent Press”: “In the case of Bloomfield, we think that Route 4 would add to the advantages of variety to a residential community, bringing people to shopping centers from great distances, enhancing ratables and promoting well-being and prosperity for our community.”
Rockwell recalled that Branch was opposed to the construction, as were officials in East Orange and Irvington.
The parkway construction caused the destruction of 200 Bloomfield homes, Rockwell said. Overall, 450 properties were affected, and between 52 and 66 houses were moved. But around the same time, he said, there was a building boom, and the township, when the dust settled, had gained about 150 new homes.
During the parkway construction, with houses making way, a company called the Cleveland Wrecking Co. sold parts from destroyed houses.
“They were also selling houses,” Rockwell said. “I heard they were practically free, but you had to move it. In some cases, it cost as much to move as to build a new one.”
Rockwell also provided a list of homes that picked up stakes and moved to another part of town. Among the houses moved were 132 Newark Ave. and 253-255 Montgomery St. He noted one home in particular, which was built in 1719 and had its interior recorded for the Library of Congress. The site is now a parkway exit ramp.
Rockwell touched upon a promise in the parkway’s shadow, a drained Morris Canal as a route for a high-speed trolley system. It was never realized. Also, in Broadacres, just past the Brookdale ShopRite, Colgate-Palmolive proposed to construct four, 21-story apartment buildings — an idea that brought 1,200 people to a planning board meeting to squash it.
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