- Rats: A residential Jersey City neighborhood that is also home to industrial warehouses has been inundated with rats for months, an invasion some residents blame on the massive cleanup on the nearby Garfield Avenue chromium site.

- Port Authority Scraps Bus Depot Plans: Commuters will continue to face a long line of empty buses snarling traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel after the Port Authority scrapped plans to build a new bus garage in Manhattan. Port Authority officials say they can’t afford the $800 million project because recent toll increases were lower than proposed.

- 2013 Council Election: While Jersey City’s politicos are focused on November’s special election to fill two vacancies on the City Council, city teen Demetrius Terry is concentrating on the May 2013 city election.

- Car Accident: Five Jersey City females were injured, two of them seriously, when the 21-year-old driver of the SUV they were in lost control of the vehicle yesterday morning and slammed into a utility pole.

- Failed Meat Cleaver Attack: A naked, meat cleaver-wielding man was arrested Friday morning after he streaked by a police officer while chasing another man.

Today’s Best Bet:

Statue of Liberty historian Barry Moreno will give a talk on the legendary landmark at NJCU today, followed by a reception featuring the student illustrations of Ellis Island created by NJCU students last semester (3 pm).

In Statewide News:

- Christie & the White House: Gov. Christie’s political advisers are working to determine whether they could move fast enough to set up effective political operations in Iowa and New Hampshire in the wake of a relentless courtship aimed at persuading him to plunge into the race for the Republican presidential nomination. As he continues to mull a run for the White House, the Ledger looks to his past races for clues into his thinking, while Politicker wonders who the state GOP would run in the 2013 election.

- ARC Tunnel Bill Settled: New Jersey and the federal government have agreed to settle their tab for money spent on the canceled ARC commuter rail tunnel between Secaucus and New York for $95 million — about a third of the $271 million bill Gov. Christie was originally sent.

- Charter Schools: When the Christie administration last week announced it approved just four new charter schools out of nearly 60 applicants (one of which is in Jersey City), it came with a message of quality over quantity from Gov. Chris Christie’s top education officials. But there were clearly a few factors in play, from the politics of the upcoming legislative election to the changing rules in the department itself.

- Solar Power: New Jersey has passed California as the No.1 producer of solar energy in commercial markets, according to a recent solar trade report. But unless New Jersey changes the way the industry is financed, the system will crash and the state will never be able to maintain its lead, said Lyle Rawlings, founder and president of the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association.

The bill appropriates a total of $10,850,780 from Historic Preservation Funds in order to provide grants awarded by the New Jersey Historic Trust.

Two local sites will receive capital preservation grants: the historic Brennan Courthouse (seen at right) will get $750,000 and the Powerhouse will receive $250,000. And two additional sites — the West Bergen historic district and Paulus Hook Park — will each get a $50,000 site management grant.

“It’s important to recognize that rehabilitating our historic treasures serves an economic purpose in addition to attracting tourism, spurring neighborhood revitalization and encouraging economic growth in our state,” Christie said as he signed the bill yesterday. “Preserving these cultural and historical sites is critical to ensuring that future generations have the opportunity to learn more about New Jersey’s place in history.”

Two sites are were recommended for capital preservation grants; the historic Brennan Courthouse (seen at right) is in line for $750,000 and the Powerhouse is slated to get $250,000. And two additional sites — the West Bergen historic district and Paulus Hook Park — were each recommended for a $50,000 site management grant.

The four local sites are among 58 projects slated for more than $10 million in funding statewide; they will have to be ratified by the Garden State Preservation Trust on May 4, and then move on to the state legislature for approval.

“The Historic Trust continues to make great strides in preserving New Jersey’s important cultural and historic sites,” Gov. Christie says in a statement. “These grant awards are indicative of our comprehensive efforts to grow the Garden State economy by spurring investment, generating jobs and attracting tourism opportunities to these areas.”

Photo: Jon Whiten

As various factions have battled over who should pay to relocate the electrical transformers inside Jersey City’s Powerhouse, the health of the historic structure has become ever more precarious. With this in mind, the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) and the Port Authority today are kicking off a stabilization project for the 100-plus-year-old structure. This JCRA says the project is designed to halt further decline of the building while the Port Authority relocates the transformers.

Architectural firm Beyer, Blinder and Belle was tapped to helm the stabilization effort, which is set to include the replacement of windows and roof and the installation of new drainage systems to mitigate any further deterioration of the structure. The process is anticipated to take three to five months, and comes with a $3.4 million price tag, which will be picked up by the city, the JCRA and the Port Authority.

Once the stabilization in complete in October 2009 and the transformers are removed, the city expects the redevelopment of the site to get underway. The $90 million redevelopment, which is expected to be complete by 2013, is slated to bring 180,000 square feet of gallery, restaurant and office space to the building.

“The building will again play a key role in the continued escalation of the city’s renaissance, both economically and culturally,” JCRA executive director Robert Antonicello says.

Officials hope the Powerhouse will anchor a revived arts district of the same name, which as recently as six years ago was a thriving center for the arts in Jersey City. Ever since the artists who called the bustling 111 1st St. home were forced out in 2004, the Powerhouse Arts District, despite the best efforts of some businesses and residents, has largely been an “arts district” in name only.

The iconic Powerhouse, which also faced demolition in the late 1990s, was saved by community groups led by the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, and the building was ultimately put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

For more on the stabilization plan and the redevelopment, check out this new site from the JCRA. For more on the history of the Powerhouse, check out JCI publisher Shane Smith’s piece in NEW magazine.

- Tris McCall takes us on a nearly citywide bike tour and political sign count. And he takes issue with the Journal‘s Manzo endorsement.

- Budding political insider Saulo Diaz has a theory about why state Reps are coming out for Healy. It’s unsubstantiated, but hey – it’s just as plausible as a lot of the stuff Augie Torres runs in his columns.

- The Brownstone Diner gets love for the second week in a row, this time from Diner Cakes.

- Jersey City Construction reports that the Powerhouse is due for some fixin’ up come June.

- Draw & Quarter is looking for contributors.

Editor’s note: This story appeared in the Fall/Winter 2008/09 issue of NEW. You can download the entire issue here.

Upon its opening in 1908 the Hudson and Manhattan Powerhouse was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the greatest engineering feats that has ever been accomplished.” Enduring decades of neglect after its closure, local kids called it “Frankenstein’s Castle.” And as the structure enters its second century, developers, the city, and the Powerhouse’s neighbors are pinning their hopes on its potential as a motor for the continued revitalization of the neighborhood that bears its name.

The function of the Powerhouse as the power source of a historic underwater railway — the precursor to today’s PATH lines to New York — was very much in keeping with the spirit of the Gilded Age, which had come crashing to its bitter end just a few years before the building’s construction was completed. But its exaggerated design was something new: sculpted Romanesque features and flowery embellishments were replaced by brick and steel, soaring to an astounding height and lit by an enormous skylight facing the wildly busy Hudson River.

The last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th had been a period of rapid industrial and commercial growth for Jersey City, and hopes ran high that the new railway would lead the city definitively out of Manhattan’s shadow. And as the commute between New York and Jersey City became dramatically shorter, the potential for real estate gains was hardly lost on property owners and would-be developers.

Regardless of the small revolution it made possible, the Powerhouse’s cutting-edge technology was soon obsolete, and in 1929 it ceased to provide power for the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad. In the years following, the H&M Railroad and its successor, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, used the Powerhouse mostly for storage space. Virtually all of the original machinery was discarded or used for scrap. By the late 1960s the building was all but abandoned, and dilapidation set in.

Over the next thirty years or so, the Powerhouse was the subject of sporadic attention: in the early ’80s, as part of a state-commissioned survey of architecturally significant places; in 1988, as the hub of a proposed commercial, retail and entertainment center; and in 1990, as the subject of a thoughtful and rather prescient piece in the New York Times by the architectural historian Christopher Gray.* But these were subplots in the story of the Powerhouse’s life, and they were not enough by themselves to save it from ruin. Because of its tricky ownership — the building is jointly held by the City of Jersey City and the Port Authority — and its years of disuse, ideas for how to redevelop the site have consistently met formidable obstacles.

In 1999, at a time when the Port Authority was considering the Powerhouse’s demolition, then-mayor Bret Schundler’s chief of staff Tom Gallagher was quoted in The New York Times saying, “It’s a blight and it’s going to become an obstacle to further development [downtown].” It was at this moment that John Gomez, founder of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy (JCLC), began his efforts to save the building by creating public awareness and lobbying the state and federal government to accord it landmark status. Thus began the latest chapter in the Powerhouse’s story: its preservation and the continued debate over how to proceed toward the site’s redevelopment.

Gomez and the JCLC succeeded in placing the Powerhouse on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, ensuring that the building will not be razed and must be preserved in a manner true to its original form. In 2002, a study by the Urban Land Institute coined the name of the Powerhouse Arts District, suggesting that the neighborhood’s development be centered on the Powerhouse. The city’s ongoing effort to foster a vibrant arts community around now-destroyed 111 First Street by way of its Work And Live District Overlay (WALDO) had not been as successful as was hoped, and the City Council’s approval in subsequent years of spot zoning for proposed high-rise residential towers drummed up a great deal of consternation within the community.

By 2003, the city was in negotiations with Preferred Real Estate Investments, a developer with preliminary plans to build offices and retail at the Powerhouse site, along with a public art gallery. Negotiations broke down late in the game, reportedly due to disagreements over who would pay for the relocation of an electrical transformer yard on the grounds. These transformers, which supply power to the PATH trains, constitute a major redevelopment roadblock that has not yet been resolved. Relocation costs have been cited anywhere between 20 and 30 million dollars, a cost the Port Authority and potential developers each maintain should be borne by the other.

Despite this obstacle, another developer came hot on Preferred’s heels. In 2006, the city designated the Cordish Companies of Baltimore as the developer of the Powerhouse site. Cordish has experience working with municipalities to repurpose abandoned powerhouses; their redevelopment of a similarly unused power plant in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was completed in 1999. But there are concerns that the neon-flashy approach taken by Cordish in Baltimore — which incorporates big-box entertainment venues such as ESPN Zone and Hard Rock Cafe — would be out of place and unwelcome in the Powerhouse Arts District. Notwithstanding these worries, and the daunting prospect of moving those pesky transformers, Cordish is optimistic about the project. The company has stated publicly that it plans to “make every effort to respect the [arts] community,” and in any case it is required to respect the constraints mandated by the National Park Service for registered historic sites. For their part, John Gomez and current JCLC president Joshua Parkhurst are pleased with the selection of Cordish.

Christopher Gray’s brief 1990 New York Times article has become something like canon among Powerhouse enthusiasts: its echoes can be heard in conversations, articles, and message board posts about the building. The piece is a reverie about the “elegant surprise” the building embodied in “what seem[ed] like a forgotten neighborhood.” For a while there, it seemed as though the Powerhouse itself had been forgotten in favor of the new arrivals to the neighborhood — slapdash high-rises full of condos, offices, and retail.

But Gray’s piece is something else, too: it’s a manual for reading the story of the Powerhouse’s long life and the late-breaking efforts to preserve it. Gray reminds us that it’s not enough to see that “the brick is cleaned, windows replaced, weeds cleaned out and a shopping mall or arts center is installed under a rubric like ‘The Power Plant.’” An effort to preserve the Powerhouse must honor “the raw, messy life cycle of the building — its design, its function, its obsolescence, its decay.” The continued life and vibrancy of the Powerhouse, and the neighborhood that surrounds it, depends as much upon our memories of its past as on our hopes for its future.

* “The Hudson Tubes Powerhouse; A Majestic, Aging Giant,” the New York Times, November 18, 1990.