City Gardens: Trenton's Lost Punk Rock Mecca

Image
The building seemed to sag against the Trenton sky, its walls leaning in a way that looked both tired and dangerous. I was driving, searching for a lunch spot after a morning spent exploring the city's industrial skeletons, when I saw it. A questionable choice, maybe, but curiosity is a powerful guide. I pulled over. Getting inside was one of the sketchiest entrances I’ve ever attempted. But once my feet were on the dusty floor, the danger faded. An enormous space stretched before me. It was sparse, cleaned out. My footsteps echoed where a stage once stood, a fact I’d later confirm in a NNKH YouTube video about the building’s past life as an underground punk club. The video showed a vibrant scene, an electric place. But the ghosts of that life were mostly gone. The long, rounded bar, where thousands of hands must have slapped down crumpled bills, had vanished. The dust-coated wine and shot glasses that once lined its shelves were gone, too. The club’s glittering crown jewel, a l...
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Former Seth Boyden Housing Projects

 




It recently hit me that the abandoned Newark Seth Boyden Projects were being demolished to make way for 16,000 apartments in the area spurred by the incumbent Mayor of Newark Ras Baraka. I explored the Seth Boyden projects in 2019 with a penciled-in return for some time later. Well, that future next time never materialized. So into the archives I dug and found what I was looking for. 

Seth Boyden was Newark's first public housing built in 1939 after the Great Depression. Seth Boyden or Dayton Street Houses comprised 12 buildings totaling 530 apartments when it was closed down due to high maintenance costs and public safety issues in 2015.

During my time in the area, the grounds were evidently the dumping grounds of illegal dumpers and an inordinate amount of graffiti. Locals also used the wide-open projects for quicker access from one street to the next. A majority of the buildings were mostly empty and picked apart by long-gone copper scrappers. 

Now future development holds the promise of mixed rate and affordable apartments for Newark residents.


Status: Demolished Feb/Mar 2022






























































Source:


1. Eyewitness News, "Demolition begins on Newark's first housing project", February 17, 2022, ABC7NY

2. Yi, Karen, "Newark's demolition of South Ward housing project comes with promises of new development", February 18, 2022, Gothamist

Location: 741 Frelinghuysen Ave #811, Newark, NJ 07114, USA

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