By Linda Seida, Staff Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — A new book about forgotten and abandoned places in and around New Jersey features the city’s own monument to decay, the old Lambertville High School.
The school that educated the youth of the city decades ago has become an “attractive nuisance.” It’s a dangerous place where today’s youth like to explore, hunt for ghosts and, in one recent instance, even steal old copper pipes to make a buck.
Lambertville police are vigilant about keeping teens and young adults away from the privately owned site for their own safety, with seemingly constant patrols to deter intruders.
The building that suffered two fires and the indignities of trees and vines growing from its roof and through its windows is just too inviting for some to ignore. Photographer Rusty Tagliareni was drawn to the site to preserve it in photographs.
Lambertville police say Mr. Tagliareni did not have permission to visit the site or photograph there.
In his book, he acknowledges that some locations, including the high school, are clearly off-limits. He knows the sites will draw other “urban explorers.” He tells them: “This is not exploring for exploration’s sake. The thrill of avoiding detection or the rush of entering somewhere prohibited is not our motivation. Our purpose is to preserve, and share, treasures of immense worth, hidden just out of plain sight and far out of mind.”
His goal is “to create imagery with emotional depth, “ he says on his website. “To recapture the feelings of imagination and whimsy that sadly seems to fog over with the passing of time.”
His recently published book is “Forsaken: Abandoned In and Around New Jersey,” from the publishers of Weird N.J.. magazine. It features 164 pages of full-color, glossy photographs of such places as abandoned asylums, schools, mansions, military installations and jails in, of course, New Jersey, but also in nearby Pennsylvania and New York.
The North Jersey resident said his interest in abandoned sites dates back to his high-school years, when he spent a lot of time developing photographs in a dark room for a photography class in 1999. He graduated from High Point Regional High School in 2002, and Sussex County Community College in 2006.
”It was fascinating to me how an outwardly simple image upon a piece of paper could evoke such a range of emotions,” he said on the publisher’s website.
What he saw in the photos of abandoned places, he had seen nowhere else. “The way light creeps and slithers into dark corners, the abstract patterns found in the flakes of peeling paint, and the surreal imagery of nature once again reclaiming a place it had lost long ago. After spending some time with these places, I began to realize there was much more contained within these rotten walls than simply ‘a good picture.’ There were stories here, ones of lives that had come and gone, events seen nowhere else.”
These sites, including the old Lambertville High School, led him to see a connection between the past and the present, “a hushed tale spoken through rot and filth-covered floors.” He calls it “the somber feeling of something slipping slowly through your fingers, here for a brief but beautiful interlude, then gone forever to the annals of history.”
The historic high school, built in 1854, is constructed of red brick. It sits on a hill overlooking Route 179. It was remodeled in 1926 and survived two fires, the first in 1955, and the second in 1992.
Mr. Tagliareni’s photos are haunting as well as beautiful, well worth the book’s $10 cover price.
There a few minor problems, however. The white typeface on a black background will make the author’s written observations difficult or uncomfortable for some people to read. Also, the majority of photographs are devoid of people, and it seems fitting, considering the topic. A small section of photos that features alternative models at a few of the sites seems jarring in comparison.
The book can be purchased at local Borders bookstores or online at www.weirdnj.com for an extra $2 to cover shipping and handling.
