{"id":437,"date":"2013-07-24T07:15:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T07:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/?page_id=437"},"modified":"2013-10-15T05:26:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T05:26:27","slug":"south-amboys-e-h-werner-power-station","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/near-by-morgan\/south-amboys-e-h-werner-power-station\/","title":{"rendered":"South Amboy\u2019s E. H. Werner Power Station"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1930\u2019s Advertisement for the Newly Opened State-of-the-Art Jersey Central Power & Light Power Plant in South Amboy, NJ. Photo Courtesy of John E. Cooney via Diane Norek Harrison, Author of \u201cRemembering the Past\u201d on NJToday.net.<\/p><\/div>\n

On my 2012 trip to the Morgan and South Amboy area, I reconnected with my school friend Ken.\u00a0 After we visited the <\/span>Conference House on Staten Island<\/a>, we drove through South Amboy and noticed the old Jersey Central Power & Light Company\u2019s power plant had coverings over its seven or eight stories of windows.\u00a0 This power plant facility provides electricity to next door Morgan. This area has long been a place of interest to Ken who used to ride his bike to this area as a kid to check out the coal pier when it was there.\u00a0 A security guard at the plant indicated that they were in the process of asbestos removal before the planned demolition in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The E. H. Werner Power Plant in South Amboy, NJ as seen from the Beach in front of Staten Island\u2019s Historic Conference House in August 2012.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like so many other things about Morgan, this set me wondering about the history of this plant.\u00a0 It is a very hard building to not notice.\u00a0 You can see it from Staten Island, Perth Amboy, and from the railroad tracks in Morgan.\u00a0 Heck, I wouldn\u2019t doubt that you can see it from Coney Island all the way across Raritan Bay.\u00a0 If you are next to the railroad tracks at the end of Old Spye Road in Morgan and look under the Route 35 bridges toward South Amboy, you can\u2019t miss seeing it even though it is 2.25 miles away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to the on-line back issues of South Amboy Citizen available via the South Amboy Sadie Pope Dowdell Public Library web site and the Matawan Journal available via the Matawan Public Library web site, I was able to find out a lot of information about the history of the plant.\u00a0 I also learned something very surprising.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I looked at some photos I took of the plant in 2005 that I noticed how interesting the architecture of it really was – this lead to another visit and some closer photos in 2008.<\/p>\n

According to one of the on-line articles, this building was designed by the same architects who designed the Empire State Building!\u00a0 Rather than digesting the on-line info and repackaging it, I took the approach of highlighting some items of interest below and including most of the text from the on-line materials along with a link to them.<\/p>\n