Roseville Tour 2002

---

"You can never go home again," wrote Thomas Wolfe.  Is that true?  Well, in my case yes, if only because my former home, 124 No. Second Street, was razed along with a few hundred others so that Joe Suburb could shave five minutes off his commute from Caldwell.  But why be bitter?  Life is change.  Route 280 is a great boon to Northern New Jersey, right?  The needs of the many, and all that?  So in April 2002, armed with philosophy and a camera, I went to Orange Street to see what I could see.

 

Before and After: This photo of Orange and Seventh streets was taken about the turn of the 20th Century, and the one on the right last week.  More on this block later.

 

I started at St. Rose of Lima, of course.  Relatively unchanged, for all that's happened around it.  Across the street, however, the Tivoli Theater was gone, along with the Food Fair, the luncheonette  and Uncle Sam's Shoes, where I bought my first pair of Beatle boots.

I walked up Bathgate Place to Seventh Avenue.  Gone was the little park dedicated to Father Francis Washington, and his statue (moved to church grounds).  Completely gone was the Roseville train station.  Beyond the tracks the old McAvoy Apartments were still there, but under a different name and in rather bad shape.

 
 

At Seventh and Roseville avenues I stopped to look at the spot where a White Circle hamburger joint stood for so many years, and to its right the Roseville switching tower.  Both gone.  My dad had friends who worked in the tower, and he would drop us off for burgers while he visited.

Back on Orange Street, looking at the site of the former Bodholdt's Diner!  I suppose it's an improvement from the last time I looked, when it was a burnt-out heap.  A parking lot.  Sheesh.

Onward to Part 2