EDISON — When it comes to historic places, officials don’t like change.
So to make sure four of the township’s landmarks stay just the way they are, the Township Council voted unanimously at its Oct. 27 meeting to add them to a historic preservation zone.
Before the vote was taken, Township Attorney Louis Rainone made it clear that the designation had nothing to do with the township committing taxpayer money to the preservation of the structures and places.
The ordinances are just designations, Rainone said.
“If your house was 200 years old, we could designate it a historic site and that wouldn’t mean we’d have to maintain it,” he said to resident Louise Riscala, who thought the ordinances meant that the town would have to pay for revamps. “It just means that if, say, a certain house is in a historic zone and someone moves into it and wants to put up siding over the original shingles, they couldn’t do that.”
Residents, instead, would have to check with the township first to make sure any restoration preserved the historic integrity of the building.
The ordinances, Rainone said, have nothing to do with any township responsibility for maintenance, but give the historic landmarks one more level of protection.
Once the landmarks are designated in a historic zone by the township, they become eligible for state and federal historic preservation grants for maintenance and restoration, Open Space Chairman Walter Stochel has said.
While state and federal historic designations protect the sites from state and federal actions that could obliterate the sites, such as allowing a highway to be built through the site, Stochel explained that the local ordinances offer an added level of protection from alteration or destruction.
The four structures and/or sites now in the historic zones are: the Marconnier Church, now Edison Valley Playhouse; the Clara Barton School; the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower; and the Dunham Burial Ground.
The Marconnier Church, built in 1895, became the Edison Valley Playhouse in the 1960s.
It is an example of a 19th-century small church that “reflects the moral character that was here at the time,” Stochel said.
Built in 1921, the Clara Barton School is a prime example of a 1920s schoolhouse, according to the ordinance.
Now named The Heritage at Clara Barton, it functions as a senior residence with several apartments and rental offices.
The school is a prime example of the architecture of the time, with many terra cotta details, including a roof line unique to the era, according to the ordinance.
In addition, the school “is a highly visible reminder of the rich history of our community,” the ordinance reads.
Nine Revolutionary War veterans are buried in the Dunham Burial Ground.
“It is one of those forgotten cemeteries which dates back to the pre-Revolutionary War era,” Councilman Charles Tomaro said at the meeting.
“Jeremiah Dunham, born in Piscatawaytown circa 1753, was the son of a family that settled in this area after moving from Massachusetts,” the ordinance says. “Of the 80 plus headstones on the grounds, several belong to Revolutionary War veterans. This site has been used as a learning tool by Washington Elementary School teachers and serves as a link to the historic past of this community.”
One of the few original family burial grounds left in town, it is also an example of a time when families used to bury their members on their farms, Stochel said.
While the three are considered local landmarks, the Edison Memorial Tower is on the state and national historic registers.
The tower sits in Roosevelt Park, which is a state park.
While the township doesn’t own the tower and the museum, it leases the structures and land surrounding them back from the state, said Art Browne, president of the Edison Museum.
The lease contract is for 25 years and is up for renewal now, he added.
The tower is an example of the art deco architecture of the 1930s.
Commonly referred to as Edison’s own lighthouse, the tower is the township’s signature logo.
BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer