Miscellaneous Photos

[Editor]

Bob Leafe found these on ebay recently.  Thanks Bob.

[just watching]

Ooooh, great photos.   Looks like they are all around 1880 -1890.  I've identified the locations of almost all of them, so here goes:

(1) "Anderson Street" --- this is taken along the riverbank at or just south of the White Manna, looking north.  That's the old metal Anderson Street bridge in the distance.

(2) "F.R. Long" --- probably on Prospect Ave, unsure but the last name could be researched and this house can be identified if someone puts the time into it.

(3) "Golf Club" --- That's an easy one.  The Nellie K. Parker School occupies that piece of land, Central Ave between Maple Hill Drive and the Esplanade

(4) "Keoster's Residence" --- judging by the steepness of the hill, this has to be a side street leading up the Summit Ave, from the east.  Photo is looking south. This house might be the location of what is now the Methodist Church (Passaic & Summit), or it's Clinton Place leading up to Summit Ave.

(5) "NE View" --- that's the toughest one.  Could be Hackensack Ave as a narrow dirt lane, maybe near Bergen Tech.  But wasn't the cemetary there at that time.  Can anyone help me with this one ?

(6) "Old Ladies Home" --- that's definately on Passaic Street, NW corner of Passaic and Clarendon. It was only torn down 20 years ago, lots of us remember that building.  Photo is looking north

(7) "SE View" --- 90% sure this is taken from the vicinity of what is now the Whitehall on Prospect Ave, looking east down Clay Street, which is barely even a dirt road. Amazing.  I see part of one house on the left side of the photo. If that's Clay Street, the house in question must be between Third Street and Second Street, on the north side of the street.  Good chance that house is still standing, and can be identified.  If you click on the photo and enlarge, you'll see that the dirt lane (Clay Street) eventually becomes a street with houses on either side, in the distance.  Those houses would be Clay Street between Railroad Ave and Park Street.  You'll also see, in the distance on the right, a large structure that must be the Union Street School (Union & Myer).  Also adding to the evidence is the next photo, evidently taken from the same spot on the ridge, but looking in a different direction.

( "Surroundings" --- This is another easy one, because the Old Ladies Home is in the distance.  Click on the photo to enlarge, and you'll see that the building in the distance is definately the Old Ladies Home. This photo was taken from the vicinity of the Whitehall on Prospect Ave, looking north towards the Old Ladies Home. Most of the open fields are the vicinity of James Street, Berry Street, and Stanley Place around what is now Third Street and Second Street.  This is an absolutely shocking photo. Basically it shows a good part of what is now the Carver Park neighborhood before it was built. Therefore, that photo has significant historic value.  Not shown behind the foliage on the left side of the picture are the many small houses on DeWolfe Place. Those houses on De Wolfe Place were there at that time, in addition to five 2-family houses for factory workers on Prospect Ave, and an enormous 3-story brick Jewelry Factory on the south side of Berry Street between Prospect Ave and what is now Summit. The factory houses were all front on Prospect Ave (SW corner of Berry. They were torn down to build two upscale estates, that have since been converted to office use.)

WOW>>>>>Guys, thanks for digging up these photos and posting them.  Get me some more, and I'll identify them too.  Bob, can you find a photo of the Jewelry factory from that eBay collection. Are there more photos on the eBay collection, or did you buy them all.

[just watching]

I changed my mind on "NE View."

I think SE View, NE View, and Surroundings are all taken from nearly the same spot on the Prospect Ave ridge, but looking in slightly different directions.

The street in NE view is probably James Street as a dirt road, but it could be Berry Street.   Some of the houses are of distinctive shape, and could possibly be identified if they are still standing. If you put the "Surroundings" and "NE View" photos together and extrapolate, it looks like everything bounded by what is now Passaic Street, Railroad Ave, Berry Street, and approximately DeWolfe Place was an enormous grassy field, with one good size grove of trees.  The houses in the distance on the "NE View" photo are Park Street and Union Street around and south of Passaic Street.  That makes sense. There's a lot of houses in the distance, way too big a cluster to be at the northern end of Hackensack Ave.

[BLeafe]

Bob, can you find a photo of the Jewelry factory from that eBay collection. Are there more photos on the eBay collection, or did you buy them all.

I thought the link was posted. I didn't buy them. They're still on eBay until 10:22 tonight.................I hope you see this in time if you want them!

http://cgi.ebay.com/9-Original-Photos-1900ish-Hackensack-NJ-Home-School_W0QQitemZ140266135291QQihZ004QQcategoryZ14279QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The last I saw, they were up to $19.38.

Good luck!

[just watching]

Looks like someone purchased them for $26 and some change.  Bummer for me.  I hope it was one of you guys (Bob Leife or the Editor).  I would have bid higher and bought them.

In any case, I clicked somewhere on eBay and somehow got onto an "Activa" website that actually had MUCH HIGHER resolution versions of all the photos. Probably almost as good as the original photos.  I copied them all to my hard drive.  And I will copy them to a disk, so they can be printed out in 8 x 10 format.

The 3 photos are definately a Panorama of the Carver Park neighborhood from the hill, 100% sure of that now.  The old school in the distance (right side) on "SE View" is the OLD HIGH SCHOOL, not the Myer Street School.  I can tell by configuration of the chimney on the high-resolution picture. (There are two high school pic's on eBay that weren't posted on www.hackensacknow.com, and they show that exact hip roof and chimney configuration). Therefore, the dirt street on the left side of "SE VIEW" with a part of a front porch has to be James Street.  Why? The high-res version of the pictures clearly shows that there's way too much distance from the north (High Street) side of the old High School to that dirt street for that dirt street to be Clay Street.  Clay and High Streets are only 200 +/- feet apart. That dirt street is way more than 200 feet north of High Street.  So the dirt street has to be JAMES STREET, there's no other option.  Therefore, "NE view" photo shows BERRY STREET, and the rest of the SAME HOUSE on the north side of James Street (see the same porch on both photos !!!). And the pic called "Surrounding" is just to the left of "NE VIEW", because it has the Old Ladies Home in the background.  So it is a panorama. 

Seeing these old photos is not quite as good as being there 110 years ago and actually seeing it, but there's definately a "wow" effect.

I'll visit Hackensack soon to establish exact addressses of the houses still standing.  3 or 4 duplexes were recently built on that block of James Street, so the house in question may have been torn down just within the past 6 months or so. I'll see when I visit, and I'll post any more information.  And I'll take current pic's of anything still standing that is in the old photos, and ADD IT TO THE ALBUM ON DISK !!!  This is turning out to be what I call "fun research."

Let me know if either of you guys want a copy of that disk when it is done, I'll make an extra one and mail it to either of you.

[just watching]

Yes, my last guess was correct.  I visited the neighborhood and photo-documented various houses still standing from the 1900 photos.
In “NE View”, the house on the left is 283 Berry Street.  It has been so heavily renovated and improved that I first thought it was a newer house on the same lot.  It  now has a rear addition, an enclosed front porch, and the roof has been totally reframed and reshaped. Some windows have been sealed up and others added.  But the 3 large second floor windows and the square shape give it away.  That’s the house, for sure. A neighbor confirmed that a small second floor window was sealed up some years back. He found the photos amazing.
The house in the right forefront of “NE View” was torn down about 3 months ago.  It was on James Street facing the end of Third Street.  A new duplex is under construction.  I have a picture of the old house from 1990 in my files (a pure coincidence).  I can copy and send to the Editor, if he desires. The porch and rooflines were unaltered up until the demolition.  Except for it being the house in “NE View” and the porch in “SE View”, the house had no known historic value. 
Also identified were 321, 323, and 329 First Street in the background of “SE View”.  None of these houses have been substantially altered.  321 and 323 are very close together, and just to the north of what is now an auto body shop. 329 is the SW corner of James and First Street.
The small white clapboard church near First Street between Berry Street and Stanley Place is a mystery. The cupola on the roof shows it was a church.  But there’s houses there now. The church is long gone.
The rear half of the infamous pink boarding house at 211 Passaic Street is mostly hidden in the grove of trees beyond the field in “NE View”.  Other sources I’ve researched indicate that the structure was originally a single-family estate or farmhouse significantly set back from Passaic and First Streets, with no other houses around it.  The 211 house was later extended to Passaic Street, and converted into a 30 unit boarding house.  It was gutted by fire on 2/11/2006, and demolished earlier in 2008.  It’s almost inconceivable that the rear of 211 Passaic Street was once part of such a scenic and rural landscape.
I suspect that the pictures pre-date the significant demographic changes of the early 20th century. The residents of these houses around 1900 were probably working class Irish, Scottish, English, and Dutch.  The exception would be DeWolfe Place, those houses were left out of the photos.  DeWolfe Place is believed to have been part of the original hillside and hilltop community of African-Americans living there at the time. The community was just a couple dozen units at the most, and possibly associated with the church on Prospect Ave and Hamilton Place. That needs to be verified. This was prior to expansion of population into what is now called the Carver Park neighborhood, and the construction of other churches. 
There’s also a very small and mysterious house at 438 West Anderson Street, west of Summit Ave near the bottom of the hillside. It’s on a 20 or 25 foot wide lot, and painted green.  It’s only the size of a one-car garage and obviously far older than everything else in the entire neighborhood.  What’s that all about ?  What’s the history of that house, and were there once others like it ?