historic preservation – Page 2

No comments

Exhibition Design for the Old Essex County Jail

16 May 2019 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Activism, Newark History, Prison, Writing

Developed in collaboration with Newark Landmarks
and the master’s program in historic preservation at Columbia University

Warden’s House c.1967

Warden’s House in 2019

Jail entrance gate

Since 1971, the old Essex County Jail has sat abandoned and decaying in Newark’s University Heights neighborhood. Expanded in stages since 1837, this jail is among the oldest government structures in Newark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building needs investment and a vision for transforming decay into a symbol of urban regeneration. As a youth in Newark, I explored and painted this jail, and therefore feel a personal investment in the history of this place. Few structures in this city reflect the history of racial segregation, immigration, and demographic change as well as this jail.

In spring 2018, a graduate studio at Columbia University’s master’s in historic preservation program documented this structure. Eleven students and two architects recorded the jail’s condition, context, and history. Each student developed a reuse proposal for a museum, public park, housing, or prisoner re-entry and education center. By proposing eleven alternatives, the project transformed a narrative of confinement into a story of regeneration.

Inspired by this academic project and seeking to share it with a larger audience, I and Zemin Zhang proposed to transform the results of this studio into a larger dialogue about the purpose of incarceration. With $15,000 funding from Newark Landmarks, I translated Columbia’s work into an exhibition. I am grateful to Anne Englot and Liz Del Tufo for their help securing space and funding. Over spring 2019, I collaborated with Ellen Quinn and a team at New Jersey City University to design the exhibit panels and to create the corresponding texts and graphics. The opening was held in May 2019, and is recorded here.

My curator work required translating an academic project into an exhibit with language, graphics, and content accessible to the public. Columbia examined the jail’s architecture and produced numerous measured drawings of the site, but they did not examine social history. As the curator, I shifted the exhibit’s focus from architecture to the jail’s social history – to use the jail as a tool through which to examine Newark’s history of incarceration. As a result, much of my work required supplementing Columbia’s content with additional primary sources – newspaper clippings, prison records, and an oral history project – that tell the human story behind these bars. I worked with local journalist Guy Sterling to interview former jail guards and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka about his father’s experience incarcerated here during the 1967 civil unrest. The exhibit allowed viewers to hear first-hand accounts of prison life and to view what the Essex County Jail looked like in its heyday from the 1920s to 1960s. Rutgers-Newark organized seminars connected to the jail exhibit on the topic of incarceration in America, and what practical steps can be taken to change the effects of the growth of incarceration.

The finished exhibit was on display from May 15 through September 27, 2019. The exhibit makes the case for preserving the buildings and integrating them into the redevelopment of the surrounding area. The hope is that, by presenting this jail’s history in a public space where several thousand people viewed it per week, historians can build support for the jail’s reuse. Over the next year, an architecture studio at the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture and Design is conducting further site studies. Before any work begins, the next immediate step is to remove all debris, trim destructive foliage, and secure the site from trespassers. These actions will buy time while the city government and the other stakeholders determine the logistics of a full-scale redevelopment effort.

My interest in prisons drew me to this project. This jail’s architect was John Haviland, who was a disciple of prison reformers John Howard and Jeremy Bentham. In my MPhil thesis research about Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, I developed my exhibit research by looking at the social and historical context of John Haviland and early prisons. As I describe, Eastern State began as a semi-utopian project in the 1830s but devolved by the 1960s into a tool of control social and a symbol of urban unrest.

Launch Virtual Exhibit Website

Myles Zhang

Gabriela Figuereo (left) Liz Del Tufo Right (center) and Rob Kesack (right)

Sergio Rodriguez (left) with Zemin Zhang, Newark Preservation & Landmarks Committee director

Introductory Text from Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee

Current Site Photos with Installers CJ and Will

Left to Right: Myles Zhang, Zemin Zhang, Renée Steinhagen, Ellen Quinn

Current Site Photos with Maureen Beitler Photography Exhibit

The Urban Development of Newark: 1660-2016

17 August 2016 Browse All Work by Date, Newark History, Urban History

Audio from Freesound

As Newark celebrates the 350th anniversary of its founding in 1666, I created this series of drawings based on historical images and maps. As Newark develops from a small town to a bustling and industrial metropolis, the sounds shift from quiet woodlands to the din of the vibrant city with rising skyscrapers. This two minute time-lapse aims to represent history as a living and fluid process.

1280

1880

1920

1960

Today

No comments

Newark Metamorphosis

27 July 2016 Browse All Work by Date, Newark History, Writing

A story of urban change told through picture postcards

Developed in collaboration with the Newark Public Library
for a summer 2018 exhibition on the history of Newark’s built environment

An interactive map and photo project about Newark past and present, 1916 and today

Over the past century, Newark lost much of its architectural heritage and urban fabric. Along with cities like Chicago, Camden, and Detroit, Newark’s built environment evolved in response to population loss, urban renewal, and suburban growth. Explore the changing face of Newark in this interactive map with 150 comparative views of past and present streetscapes.

All historic images in this series are selected from the Newark Public Library’s collection of c.1916 postcards. All new photos were taken in 2016 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Newark’s 1666 founding. My images capture Newark around 1916, at a moment just before American cities entered the automobile era. Postcards were a medium of communication popular in the early twentieth century. Many postcards feature views of Newark’s important landmarks; others are of mundane street scenes and structures. Through color corrections, careful editing, and marketing, these postcards present a curated and idealized view of Newark as postcard artists, business owners, and city planners desired the city to be remembered.

Trouble navigating map? Watch video tutorial below. | View all images on a single page. | Spot a mistake? Contact Myles.

A city is more than its monuments, skyscrapers, and grand civic architecture. A city is a collection of structures, small and large, wood and stone, humble and grand. Newark has preserved its large monuments but has not maintained the cultural and urban fabric of its tenements, wood frame houses, warehouses, and single-family homes. Individually, these small-scale structures are humble and unimportant. Yet collectively, they constitute the living fabric of the city. Too many have been demolished in the name of progress, creating a cityscape radically different from the city’s height in the early twentieth century. For a short video about Newark’s evolving neighborhoods click here.

Launch map and read essay about urban change.

(Link opens in new window.)

Related Projects

Old Essex County Jail
My exhibit on a long-abandoned Newark landmark

Newark Vanishing
A reflection and art project about demolition in Newark

Growing up in Newark
Essay about my childhood experiences in this city

Newark, a century after 1916

Downtown Newark in 1912 and in 2016. Note how the building at right, under construction in 1912, is now abandoned in 2016.

In the turn of the century view of downtown Newark, one sees the architectural styles popular at the time: stone and granite victorian and gothic structures. At left, is Prudential’s old headquarters demolished in 1956. At left, is Newark’s central post office. Unlike today, the postal service was central to the functioning of society and was often the most important structure in a town. This post office happens to be in the Romanesque Style popular in the 1880s. After the post office outgrew this structure and moved elsewhere in 1934, the structure was soon demolished in the 1940s to 1950s to construct an unimpressive dollar store. All buildings in this image are currently demolished.

Prudential Insurance headquarters (left) and the City Post Office (right) c.1916. Both now demolished.

Prince Street in 1916 and 2016. The complete and total loss of a neighborhood.

Drawing by Winsor McCary, which first appeared in a 1928 article "Newark 58 Years from Today"- when Newark would be 150 years from the year of its 1836 incorporation as a city.

Drawing by Winsor McCary from a 1928 article “Newark 58 Years from Today” shows a futuristic city that never came to be.

Launch map and read essay about urban change.

(Link opens in new window.)

No comments

Murphy Varnish Lofts in Newark

11 June 2016 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Artwork

Murphy Varnish, built in 1886, is one of Newark’s oldest factories still standing. Its brick walls, terracotta ornament, and intricate brickwork reflect a time when industrial structures were more than just functional. Murphy Varnish reflects a time when industry was central to Newark’s wealth and key to its future success. It is a monument to industry, built to last (and landmarked since 1979 by the National Park Service). Recent renovation efforts promise to turn this derelict structure into a community of apartments.

The summer after my first year at Columbia University, I had the privilege of working with the Studio for Urban Architecture & Design (SUAD), the architects hired to redevelop this derelict factory into about forty residential units. During my time at SUAD, I observed firsthand the workings of a small architecture firm and the inspiring conversion of an old factory into something viable and living. As my internship neared its end, I photographed the historic factory and created a detailed watercolor drawing of the finished renovation.

During these three months, I learned that architecture is more than the creation of art and beauty for their own sake. It is a tool to build a stronger city through improving the built environment. For decades, Newark has seen architecture that does not value aesthetics or connect with the city’s rich history. Prefab, cookie-cutter homes are often built in Newark; they are out of place and context. These kinds of projects are set back from the street with little more than driveways and vinyl siding for the streetscape. Corporate monolith towers rise in the downtown; through catwalks and perimeter fences, their occupants need not engage with the city. Every morning and every evening, they can ride to and from Newark without setting foot outdoors or on city streets. For historic preservationists, much of the city’s old architecture was lost to parking lots, urban renewal, and urban blight.

In this context, Murphy Varnish is an exceptional outlier. In a city once home to thousands of small factories, Murphy Varnish is one of the few that remain. Old Newark maps show dozens of factories surrounding Murphy Varnish. In the past few decades, almost all of these industrial structures were demolished and replaced with empty lots and low-quality prefab homes. Now, Murphy Varnish stands alone in a residential neighborhood; it is a unique reminder of history that becomes all the more worth saving.

As I begin my second year of college, I return to campus with renewed appreciation for historic preservation. I return with deeper admiration for the tireless efforts of Newark activists and architects to preserve the city’s rich architectural heritage for future generations.

This project was made possible by a summer grant from Columbia’s Center for Career Education.

Murphy Varnish before work began

Neighborhood resident Angel and his dog Tigressa stand before Murphy Varnish

Murphy Varnish company trademark

Abandoned building on nearby NJ Railroad Avenue

This industrial land was condemned before construction was complete.

Murphy Varnish among empty fields and shoddy boxes

Murphy Varnish

Pedestrian passes by Murphy Varnish.

Bargain or Scam?

Angel

NO TRESPASSING GUARD DOG

248.5 Chestnut St.

Boxes and empty lots

A work in progress

Demolition

Emaciated tree trunks embedded in the factory’s perimeter fence

Fourth floor renovation

Third floor renovation

View from factory to Downtown Newark

Round window to Downtown Newark

Up the chimney

The finished conversion

Watercolor rendering of completed project

No comments

Say no to Edison ParkFast!

27 May 2016 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Activism

Newark’s parking and land use crisis

Edison ParkFast, among several Newark institutions such as Rutgers and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, engaged in the systematic destruction of our city’s heritage. In the James Street Commons Historic District, for instance, Edison ParkFast and Rutgers are the single largest contributors to demolition of historic properties from 1978 to the present. Both demolished dozens of historic Newark homes and factories. As Edison ParkFast continues to consolidate its properties into ever larger parcels, the question arises: How will this entity develop this land? Will future development respect old Newark and our history?

Too often, the name of progress is invoked to justify the destruction of old. New development, from Newark’s $200 million sports arena to Panasonic’s $200 million new headquarters, reveal that our new architecture is often out of time, place, and scale. Not often enough do Newark leaders realize that progress is enriched by using the past as the foundation for redevelopment efforts. One can walk through Brooklyn or preserved parts of Manhattan and compare those historic streetscapes to Newark. Newark once had the types and varieties of architecture that Brooklyn still does, but Newark followed the short-sighted path of demolition and urban renewal.

Click here for interactive map of Newark past and present.

Here is a speech I gave before the Newark City Council on 19 May 2016 in protest to Edison’s anti-urban practices:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Newark City Council.

My name is Myles. I am a proud, lifelong Newarker.

Newark is a city surrounded by asphalt.

To the south lies our port and airport, comprising 1/3 of Newark’s land area. Our airport handles 40 million passengers a year. Our port handles over a million containers of cargo a year. Both pollute our air.

Our city is surrounded by highways: Route 78 to the South, The Parkway to the West, Route 280 to the North, and McCarter Highway to the East. Millions of car travel these congested highways every year.

Our urban core is buried in asphalt. Thousands of commuters per day. Millions of cars per year.

Edison Parking is beneficiary of this pollution. Their 60 thousand parking spots are valued in the billions. They make millions on the land of buildings they demolished often illegally. They pay no water bills; their water runs off their lots and into our sewer mains. For a company so wealthy; they contribute little to the health of our city.

One in four Newark children have asthma, far above the national average. Chances are that your children or the friends of your children also have asthma.

I, too, have asthma. Always had. Always will.

Enough is enough. It is time to develop our city sustainably. Public transportation. Public bike lanes. Public parks. Sustainable infrastructure.

Edison Parking is not a sustainable corporation. When our zoning board approves of the illegal demolition of our historic architecture, they are complacent in this violation of our law. When our zoning board sits silently as Edison Parking uses our lands for non-permissible zoning use, they are not upholding the laws they are subject to.

It is time to change. You, as our elected officials, are in a position to enact the change your public needs. You, as informed citizens of Newark, are responsible for holding corporations accountable to our laws.

This is not a question of complex ethics or morality. It is a matter of common sense. Edison Parking has and continues to demolish our heritage, pollute our air, and violate our laws. Edison parking is breaking its responsibility to the public. Will you hold them accountable?

Please consider the city you want for our children and our future.

Thank you.

Comparative views of my neighborhood, past and present

These views compare my neighborhood in the 1960s and today, hinting at the kind of human scale urban fabric demolished.

Central Avenue between Broad & Halsey in 11959, demolished by Edison Parking

Central Avenue between Broad & Halsey in 1978, demolished by Edison Parking

Corner of Central & Washington in 1959, demolished by Edison Parking

Washington Street between Bleecker & Central Avenue in 1978, demolished by Edison Parking

Mulberry & Market in the 1950s, currently owned by Edison Parking

86-88 University Street, demolished by Rutgers

Washington Street School for the Dead in 1978, demolished by Rutgers

Eagle Street in 1978, demolished by Rutgers

15 Burnett Street in 1978

University Street in 1978, demolished by Saint Michael’s Hospital for emergency parking

Park & Clinton Avenues in the early 1900s, currently a parking lot for Sacred Heart Cathedral

Temple B’Nai Abraham, demolished to construct parking for the Essex County Hall of Records

The 18000-seat Tivoli Theater in Roseville section of Newark, demolished to constuct low-income housing project

No comments

Pictures of Newark

12 January 2016 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Artwork

As a lifelong citizen of Newark, I spent much of the past few years painting and photographing my changing city. Pictures features a selection of my work, complemented by classical music. Five of Modest Mussorgsky’s pieces from his composition Pictures at an Exhibition are selected, each of which represents the feel of a certain part of Newark. The following five locations are featured:

1. THE PASSAIC RIVER – music: Mussorgsky’s Promenade

2. OLD ESSEX COUNTY JAIL – music: With the Dead in the Language of Death

3. MOUNT PLEASANT CEMETERY – music: Promenade

4. DOWNTOWN NEWARK – music: Mozart’s Death March (k 453a)

5. PORT NEWARK – music: Promenade

Growing up in Newark, I am inspired and saddened by the inner city. I am inspired by Newark’s hope of renewal after decades of white flight, under-investment, and urban neglect. I am saddened by the loss of my city’s historic architecture and urban fabric to the wrecking ball of what is called progress.

Curious about the history of the old Essex County Jail? Explore this interactive exhibit.

Featured work from this film

Port Newark

Newark Broad Street Station

Industrial zone in the New Jersey Meadowlands

The Chimney Falls – 2008

Essex County Jail

This way to freedom

Gulf Station

After hours in Port Newark

Essex County Jail

Pulaski Skyway

Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Drawbridge”

Sunset on the Passaic River

A sense of scale

Waiting for demolition at the “Little Annie Bridge”

Downtown Newark

Rusting barge

Symmetrical bridges cross the Passic River

City in autumn

Craneway Street

Big tires, bigger nation

Roman Ruins

Corbin Stret

Old drawbridge at Port Newark

No comments

Urban Garden in Newark

24 November 2015 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Activism

By Maia and Myles Zhang

In time, we will wind our way and rediscover the role of architecture and man-made forms in creating a new civilized landscape. It is essentially a question of rediscovering symbols and believing in them once again. […] Out of a ruin a new symbol emerges, and a landscape finds form and comes alive.

– John Brinckerhoff Jackson, A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time (1994)

.

In the past 60 years, my home city of Newark, NJ has lost 40% of its population and nearly 50% of its buildings.

The timely and needed development of Newark’s land is prevented through a combination of flawed government policy, economic downturns, risk-averse landowners, and lax enforcement of land use laws. As a result, hundreds of acres of prime urban land remain undeveloped as vacant parking lots. There are over 300 acres of paved surface parking lots in my neighborhood (link to interactive parking map). This sub-optimal and low-density land use has consequences for city government (undeveloped lands are taxed less), housing (Newark has a shortage of quality affordable housing), and the environment (parking lots burden the city’s sewer system with surface runoff). American cities are unique in the world for being so built around, and effected by, the car.

One of Newark’s larger vacant parcels was an electric factory and has sat empty for nearly 40 years — 25 years as a decaying warehouse and 15 more years as wasteland filled with yellow crabgrass and decomposing trash. For five years, rusting demolition equipment and a towering pile of brick, steel, and construction debris moldered in the center of the lot — visible to the millions of commuters who pass this site yearly, watching day by day as the building gradually deteriorated into weeds.

Then our family decided to experiment with ways to bring a semblance of new life to this tired soil: a garden. Our proposal to cover this raw earth in spring flowers was denied by the site’s owner, who was afraid community access would weaken his ownership stake as an absentee landlord. Undeterred, on a quiet weekend with few commuters passing by, we slipped behind the barbed wire fence to sow under the smiling sun. The wondrous flower mixture danced out of the plastic seeder, humming a soothing rhythm. Thanks to more nourishing rain, hope germinated from the infant seeds. Soon, sprouts began popping up hesitantly. At first, the green shoots looked no different from the weeds, but with time they grew taller and flowers bloomed — clover, sunflowers, daisies, and Queen Anne’s Lace. Where once commuters walked pass, now they would stop and take photos of our work, with the city skyline rising in background.

Every June, the sanitation workers come with their oily machines and sweaty equipment to level the land of the flowers we planted. With hatchets, they destroy the flowering fruits of our labor and re-expose the rubble strewn dirt. With chainsaws, they chop down the trees that sprout from the chain-link fence. They leave the mauled flowers and trees strewn on the ground where they fall. Over the following weeks, the flowers and leaves dry in the hot sun and return to the dusty earth tones of the dirt from which they sprang. However, each new year, the flowers return more resilient than before, and with more numerous and larger blossoms. In earlier years, the seeds’ return required our help and gentle watering. These days, they return unaided, attracting the occasional bird. The cycle repeats… “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”

Learn more about this project on GoFundMe.

This project was also featured in the spring 2018 edition of Sine Theta magazine.

.

Westinghouse demolition

Westinghouse demolition near Newark Broad Street Station

The Wesinghouse before demolition

The Westinghouse in the 1940s

“On Top” painting by Maria Mijares in 2008

Rubble in 2009

The chimney falls

Newark Broad Street Station

Now an urban garden

Urban Garden with Broad Street Station in Background

Urban Garden with Rutgers Law School in Background

Urban Garden Banner with Broad Street Station

No comments

Not Built to Last

3 March 2015 Browse All Work by Date

This short film features Anchor Stone Blocks. They are a unique set of vintage, German-made, modular, stone building blocks from the late nineteenth century.

No comments

Public Speech: parking vs. preservation

24 September 2014 Browse All Work by Date, Newark Activism

As featured by NJ.com in spring 2019

Update: Following a case filed by New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center on behalf of PLANewark, Edison Parking admitted that they demolished this building without seeking proper permission from city and state agencies. Edison was in negotations out of court with PLANewark about ways to mitigate the damage they caused.

.

On a warm Sunday in August 2014, bulldozers started tearing away at a historic, turn-of-the-century loft space. Although the first floor was sealed with cinder blocks, the upper floor was adorned with large Chicago-style windows, intricate white terracotta carvings, and Greco-Roman ornament. The building was so sturdy it took demolition crews hours of pounding and smashing to weaken the structure. When the outside walls fell, they exposed sturdy concrete floors over a foot thick and thousands of steel re-bars for added durability.

Situated on the corner of Washington and Bleecker Street, the two-story structure stood in the heart of the James Street Commons Historic District. Normally, such a structure would never be demolished but… The property’s owner is Edison ParkFast, one of the largest landowners in Newark and a company with a business model linked to gentrification and lawlessness. Its owner, Jerry Gottesman, spent $1 million to oppose the High Line because he feared the public park would decrease his property values. Gottesman’s company also owns Manhattan Mini Storage, whose billboards in New York City cynically read – “Bloomberg is gone. Time to put the bikes away.” To profit from blight, this landbanker buys cheap land, waits for its value to improve, and then profits without investing anything to improve the community. While waiting, Edison ParkFast generates huge revenue from surface parking – often ten dollars an hour for one parking spot. Multiply the results by 60,000 parking spots daily!

Illegal Demolition

Illegal Demolition

In fact, demolition is in Edison’s selfish self-interest. Real estate is taxed according to the value of the structure, not the land. Therefore, Edison’s huge land holdings share almost no tax burden. Meanwhile, developed properties – whose residents might have invested thousands in upkeep and preservation – are taxed disproportionately higher than Edison’s lots. Edison doesn’t even pay for storm water runoff, which is calculated by a property’s water consumption. In other words, the public subsidizes surface parking. Under the current land-use policy that financially incentivizes demolition, Edison’s greed and urban blight is rewarded.

Edison’s evasion of the law is a high art. In this case, the building Edison destroyed is on the National Register of Historic Places and is protected by local and Federal law. All the same, this parking mongol quietly acquired surrounding land. Then, Edison removed the historic property’s windows and poked holes in its roof to cause water damage. Finally, Edison hired an unlicensed engineer to inspect the property. Edison then obtained a demolition permit from Newark’s corrupt Engineering Department, without approval from the Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission. In one weekend, this historic building and its many stories were purged from history.

When the public noticed the illegal demolition, it was too late. The Landmarks Commission called an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis. Sitting directly behind me was a heavy suburban lady, working for Edison. Upon learning no city code enforcement officers were present, she whispered under her breath, “Yes! Excellent!” and promptly left the meeting.

Joined by many outraged citizens, I spoke before the Commission:

My name is Myles. I am a life long Newark resident.

Parking is a travesty. I have seen:
– Too many viable buildings demolished in the name of progress.
– Too many parking lots erected to serve commuters indifferent to Newark.
– Too many vacant lots awaiting non-existent development.

This blight of so-called “development” must stop. Newark is a city with a strong history. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous developers’ utter disrespect for our heritage threatens our urban identity.

Newark has future potential. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous land banking slows down the development our city so desperately needs.

Newark is a lawless city. Its buildings are testament to that:
– Parking developers have no right to illegally demolish historic structures. They do so anyway.
– Parking developers have no right to channel millions of gallons of storm water runoff without paying a cent. They do so anyway.
– Parking developers are not above the law. They think they are anyway.

Those who break the law must be held accountable.

Letting unscrupulous destruction continue without government oversight is permitting lawlessness to continue.

Letting Edison Parking demolish our architectural heritage is telling them, “Go ahead, do it again.”

A thief does not think he will be caught. A thief does not stop until he is punished.

I realize Newark’s Historic Preservation Commission does not have the power to levy fines or jail these surface-parking criminals. But this commission has:
– The power to lobby for stronger legislation that will protect our neighborhoods.
– The power to prevent continued parking construction.
– The power to force corrupt city officials to do their job.

I admire the invaluable service you have rendered this city so far. I encourage you to do more. I encourage you to fight these ignorant developers. Even if victories may be Pyrrhic, at least there is the comforting knowledge that one fought greed, corruption, lawlessness, and ignorance.

Progress Inc.

Polhemus House demolition

In 1978, the James Street Commons were made a historic district. In the Federal approval process, each building was meticulously identified and photographed. Each time I review these images, I remember demolished buildings and our lost heritage. Edison ParkFast is not alone. Other institutions in this historic district also contribute to the destruction of public assets and, therefore, to the loss of their own city’s identity. For instance, a few years ago, Rutgers University schemed a land-swap with Jerry Gottesman. Rutgers owned a historic Art Deco building from the 1930s. Edison owned a parking lot. Rutgers exchanged their building for the parking lot, knowing full well this transaction would doom the old building to rubble. As a result of this short-sighted practice and the frequent demolition of Newark’s architectural fabric, Rutgers has painfully transformed itself into an inferior commuter school, with inadequate housing in the immediate area for students and faculty to live and walk to work.

Commercial buildings on Washington Street (demolished by Edison ParkFast)

Meatpacking district (demolished by so-called developer Marc Berson

Plane Street homes (demolished by Edison ParkFast)

Orange Street homes -(demolished by Rutgers University)

School for the Deaf (demolished by Rutgers University)

High Street warehouses (demolished by the New Jersey Institute of Technology)

1880s fire alarm box (removed by the City of Newark)

Eagle Street brownstones (demolished by Rutgers University)

1828 Lloyd House (sold by preservationists to Rutgers University and consequently demolished without public approval))

45 Bleecker Street (demolished by Rutgers University)

No comments

Detroit: visual essay

24 August 2014 Artwork, Browse All Work by Date

Detroit represents the shortcoming of American-style, car centric urban development. Wide highways slashed through decaying neighborhoods now serve a city devoid of people in whole neighborhoods. In a city that lost 60% of its population since its 1950 height, extensive infrastructure designed to serve millions of people now serves thousands. After Detroit’s July 1967 civil unrest, over 200,000 whites fled Detroit in fewer than five years. Now over 50,000 homes lie vacant and decaying.

During WWII, Detroit was dubbed “the arsenal of democracy” for all the military equipment that rolled out of its auto factories. Planes from Detroit went on to bomb European cities. In a form of fitting, yet ironic, justice Detroit, too, has been bombed. Except this time, it’s a city destroyed from within by the American forces of racism, the automobile, and anti-urban government policies.

Renaissance Center (colloquially known as Detroit’s Death Star)

The Caroline Crosman School (built 1911)

Drink liquor then “Save Your House.”

Black Power mural welcomes visitors.

Your rights?

Attempts to rectify Detroit’s fallen status fall short. Everywhere there are fields of surface parking lots, where there were once businesses, people, and wealth. A near-empty monorail system circles a quiet downtown. Downtown is a skyscraper graveyard full rotting Art Deco architectural gems and empty storefronts. Renaissance Center soars above downtown, secluded from the aging and indebted city. The imposing appearance of the nearby Greektown Casino abuts the ominous city jail. Suburban residents travel to Detroit for sports games at Comerica Field; they return afterwards by car to their safe, quiet, and white communities.

Ten-year-old pumps his own gas

Man repairs fan

The atypical homeless lady: white and blond

Man waits to cross Woodward Avenue

Homeless shields himself from the camera’s stare

Detroit represents flaws in American culture across levels: government policies that encouraged suburban development at the expense of cities; corporations that developed America’s love of car culture; planners who designed cities and city life around the car. Most of all, Detroit represents the failure of American democracy to end racial segregation. Over fifty years after the end of legal racial segregation, Detroit is a city divided along borders of race and class.

Detroit’s fitting Latin motto is: “Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus.”
We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.

Recycling center

Toy car crash

Is this advertisement for Obama’s campaign of HOPE and CHANGE an ironic critique of progress?

Drink liquor then “Save Your House.”

Your rights?

Industry and religion

Ford’s River Rouge Factory

Power lines at River Rouge

Lone home in a former neighborhood

Lone home, weedy lots

Nobody knows Detroit’s exact number of abandoned structures.

Former auto body shop

Freshly painted business on empty street

Freshly-painted service station near site of Detroit’s 1967 civil unrest

Candy store littered with used needles

On Devil’s Night (October 30) thousands of homes fall prey to arsonists.

Yoga shop abuts demolition site

Demolition of Brewster Douglas Homes

These columns once supported the roof of an industrial temple, the Packard Auto Plant.

Once active railway abuts the Packard Auto Plant.

The Packard Motel has very good internet ratings.

Michigan Central Station was once the world’s tallest train station at seventeen stories.

Renaissance Center (colloquially known as Detroit’s Death Star)

Vacant skyscrapers

Graffiti lion perched on derilict factory.

Homeless man begs for alms at empty intersection.

Teddy bear pinned to wreckage of burnt home.

Man waits to cross Woodward Avenue

Man repairs fan

Homeless shields himself from the camera’s stare

The atypical homeless lady: white and blond

Ten-year-old pumps his own gas

The Caroline Crosman School (built 1911)

“This is the most fun I’ve ever had in school.” (graffiti from abandoned Caroline Crosman school)

“This place is beautiful.” (graffiti from abandoned Caroline Crosman school)

Ideal vs. reality

Detroit Baptist Church

Developed in collaboration with Newark Landmarks and the master’s program in historic preservation at Columbia University

Related content

Read my January 2021 article in The Newarker magazine.

Read this July 2020 article from Jersey Digs about my exhibit and the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s proposal to reuse this jail site.

Hear my September 2019 interview about this jail and exhibit from Pod & Market.

A story of urban change told through picture postcards

Related Projects

Newark, a century after 1916

As I begin my second year of college, I return to campus with renewed appreciation for historic preservation. I return with deeper admiration for the tireless efforts of Newark activists and architects to preserve the city’s rich architectural heritage for future generations.

This project was made possible by a summer grant from Columbia’s Center for Career Education.

Murphy Varnish before work began

A work in progress

The finished conversion

Newark’s parking and land use crisis

Here is a speech I gave before the Newark City Council on 19 May 2016 in protest to Edison’s anti-urban practices:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Newark City Council.

My name is Myles. I am a proud, lifelong Newarker.

Newark is a city surrounded by asphalt.

To the south lies our port and airport, comprising 1/3 of Newark’s land area. Our airport handles 40 million passengers a year. Our port handles over a million containers of cargo a year. Both pollute our air.

Our city is surrounded by highways: Route 78 to the South, The Parkway to the West, Route 280 to the North, and McCarter Highway to the East. Millions of car travel these congested highways every year.

Our urban core is buried in asphalt. Thousands of commuters per day. Millions of cars per year.

One in four Newark children have asthma, far above the national average. Chances are that your children or the friends of your children also have asthma.

I, too, have asthma. Always had. Always will.

Enough is enough. It is time to develop our city sustainably. Public transportation. Public bike lanes. Public parks. Sustainable infrastructure.

It is time to change. You, as our elected officials, are in a position to enact the change your public needs. You, as informed citizens of Newark, are responsible for holding corporations accountable to our laws.

This is not a question of complex ethics or morality. It is a matter of common sense. Edison Parking has and continues to demolish our heritage, pollute our air, and violate our laws. Edison parking is breaking its responsibility to the public. Will you hold them accountable?

Please consider the city you want for our children and our future.

Thank you.

Comparative views of my neighborhood, past and present

These views compare my neighborhood in the 1960s and today, hinting at the kind of human scale urban fabric demolished.

1. THE PASSAIC RIVER – music: Mussorgsky’s Promenade

2. OLD ESSEX COUNTY JAIL – music: With the Dead in the Language of Death

3. MOUNT PLEASANT CEMETERY – music: Promenade

4. DOWNTOWN NEWARK – music: Mozart’s Death March (k 453a)

5. PORT NEWARK – music: Promenade

Featured work from this film

By Maia and Myles Zhang

– John Brinckerhoff Jackson, A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time (1994)

.

In the past 60 years, my home city of Newark, NJ has lost 40% of its population and nearly 50% of its buildings.

This project was also featured in the spring 2018 edition of Sine Theta magazine.

.

Westinghouse demolition

Now an urban garden

This short film features Anchor Stone Blocks. They are a unique set of vintage, German-made, modular, stone building blocks from the late nineteenth century.

.

Joined by many outraged citizens, I spoke before the Commission:

My name is Myles. I am a life long Newark resident.

Parking is a travesty. I have seen: – Too many viable buildings demolished in the name of progress. – Too many parking lots erected to serve commuters indifferent to Newark. – Too many vacant lots awaiting non-existent development.

This blight of so-called “development” must stop. Newark is a city with a strong history. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous developers’ utter disrespect for our heritage threatens our urban identity.

Newark has future potential. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous land banking slows down the development our city so desperately needs.

Those who break the law must be held accountable.

Letting unscrupulous destruction continue without government oversight is permitting lawlessness to continue.

Letting Edison Parking demolish our architectural heritage is telling them, “Go ahead, do it again.”

A thief does not think he will be caught. A thief does not stop until he is punished.

I admire the invaluable service you have rendered this city so far. I encourage you to do more. I encourage you to fight these ignorant developers. Even if victories may be Pyrrhic, at least there is the comforting knowledge that one fought greed, corruption, lawlessness, and ignorance.

Detroit’s fitting Latin motto is: “Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus.” We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.

Myles Zhang

Featured Projects

Trending Topics

Developed in collaboration with Newark Landmarks
and the master’s program in historic preservation at Columbia University

Read this July 2020 article from Jersey Digs
about my exhibit and the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s proposal to reuse this jail site.

Parking is a travesty. I have seen:
– Too many viable buildings demolished in the name of progress.
– Too many parking lots erected to serve commuters indifferent to Newark.
– Too many vacant lots awaiting non-existent development.

Detroit’s fitting Latin motto is: “Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus.”
We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.