Two articles:
Former Hackensack train station to be rebuilt
Friday March 29, 2013, 2:22 PM
BY JIM NORMAN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
For rail commuters who remember the Anderson Street station house in Hackensack that was destroyed in a fiery explosion four years ago, it will be déjà-vu all over again. Almost.
TARIQ ZEHAWI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERConstruction has begun to build a shelter at the Anderson Street Transit Train Station in Hackensack to replace the one that burned down several years ago.New Jersey Transit, which operates on the Pascack Valley Line between Spring Valley, N.Y. and Hoboken, has started work to replace the beloved former landmark building, which had been in continuous use since it opened in 1869.
“It won’t be an exact replica of the old station,” said Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Transit, “but it is designed to evoke the feeling of the original building.”
Unlike the building that was burned to the ground, the new one will not be made entirely of wood, Snyder said. Instead, it will have a façade featuring a low stonework base, topped by walls made of cement board that is textured to look like wood, she said.
But like the old building, the new station will have the same 46-foot by 20-foot waiting room, and it will be topped by a similarly pitched shingle roof, she said.
The interior of the new station will be equipped with benches for people waiting for trains. But don’t look for a ticket agent wearing a green eyeshade and sleeve garters; instead, automated ticket vending machines will be installed.
When the original building was destroyed, it had the distinction of being the second-oldest rail station in New Jersey, after the Main Street station in Ramsey.
When it was built, the track it sat next to was a spur from the Passaic Street station on the Hackensack and New York Railroad.
Through a succession of railroad consolidations, it was turned over to New Jersey Transit in 1983 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year.
NJ Transit succeeded in petitioning for its removal from the list of historic sites while design work on the new building was underway, because the rail agency did not want to be locked into an exact duplication of the old structure.
The new building is expected to cost $571,000, Snyder said.
Email: norman@northjersey.com
NJ Transit breaks ground on new building at Anderson rail station in HackensackFriday March 29, 2013, 4:33 PM
BY JENNIFER VAZQUEZ
NEWS EDITOR
Hackensack Chronicle
HACKENSACK - The original Anderson Street Railroad Station building, that was destroyed in a fire in 2009, is getting a second chance.
TARIQ ZEHAWIWorkers start on constructing a new facility at the Anderson Street Railroad Station. The original building was burned to the ground in 2009.The NJ Transit-funded project to replace the building will cost approximately $571,061, said Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman with the public transportation system. NJ Transit owns the station.
The updated facility will include a waiting room with three walls, with the opening facing the tracks; a covered area leading to Anderson Street; ticket machines inside the waiting room and historical lighting.
"We have broken ground," she said. "We are expecting for the project to be completed sometime late fall."
The original carpenter Gothic-style station was built in 1869 and was one of the stops on the Erie Railroad. It was listed in the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and national register in 1984 only to be removed from the Register of Historic Places in 2011 since the building on the property no longer existed.
According to City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono, before the fire destroyed the original building, the Anderson Street station was the "second oldest one in the state of New Jersey."
"We've been pushing for the station to be rebuilt," Lo Iacono said. "NJ Transit replaced it with an overhead."
Lo Iacono said that the overhead is the type of covering found at a bus stop and was the most immediate structure built after the fire.
"We are happy about this construction," Lo Iacono said. "We've been waiting for a long time. We can now get commuters out of the weather."
According to Snyder, the time between the fire in 2009 and the project breaking ground, roughly four years later, was necessary since all the work leading up to the new construction occurs in phases.
"It takes time," she said. "There was damage assessment, dealings with the insurance company before we could move the proceedings forward. It all comes in phases. We had to send out for bids, then we had to choose a general contractor."
Email: vazquez@northjersey.com