Endangered NJ Historic Places

It is another kind of endangered...

Preservation New Jersey is a nonprofit group focused on preserving historic sites. They make an annual list of the top 10 most endangered historic places in the state. 

One example is the Joseph Hornor House located at 344 Nassau St. was built in the 1760s by the grandson of one of Princeton's Quaker founders. The two-story, brick, side-hall house originally had a one-story kitchen wing. In the early 20th century, a second story was sensitively added on top of the wing. The house is an anchor to the Local, State, and National Register Jugtown Historic District, and occupies the northeast corner of the historic crossroads of Nassau and Harrison Streets in the Jugtown section of Princeton. Nassau Street is also part of the Lincoln Highway National Register District. The corners of this historic crossroads retain two other Pre-Revolutionary buildings and an early-19th-century building. The proposed threat facing the Joseph Hornor House is its incentive design for redevelopment for the purpose of affordable housing units. The current project will include adding a four-story structure to the rear that would amass and surround the historic structure. Redevelopments in historic districts are on the rise with new Affordable Housing and tax credit initiatives. While the revitalization of neighborhoods contributes to reactivating historic places, there is a growing trend in demolition and insensitive changes to integral features of structures and streetscapes. More care and sensitivity to the impacts of historic districts are necessary through compliance with existing preservation standards and guidelines both at a local, state and federal level. Preservation New Jersey supports and encourages the development to comply with preservation standards and guidelines as it will set the precedent for other new development in the Jugtown Historic District and in other historic Princeton neighborhoods.