Atlantic City, Belcoville post offices make top-10 endangered list
By REGINA SCHAFFER Staff Writer, 609-272-7211
Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The ten "most endangered" historic sites in the state include three buildings in southern New Jersey, according to Preservation New Jersey's annual list released Tuesday.This year's list includes the Atlantic City Post Office on Pacific Avenue, the Beach Theatre, located on Beach Avenue in Cape May, and the Belcoville Post Office, located on Madden Avenue in the Belcoville section of Weymouth Township. All three structures are "in imminent danger of being lost," according to the member-supported group.The Atlantic City Post Office, a New Deal project built in 1937, has Italian marble floors, brass ornaments and light fixtures, and two 1939 murals painted by Peppino Mangravite. The building is located near the site where Pinnacle Entertainment plans to build a $1.5 million megaresort. Pinnacle has announced plans to demolish the building as part of plans by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to widen the congested Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard between Atlantic and Pacific avenues.In February, Pinnacle announced a delay in its project and the potential abandonment altogether if credit markets stay weak."PNJ hopes this hiatus will be used to reopen discussion about saving this valuable resource," the group's release states.
Bill Schutz, a retired postal worker and member of American Postal Workers Union Local 3617, said the Atlantic City Post Office has a storied history. He said the two murals will be saved regardless of what happens to the building."We're trying to get it on the historical list and have them at least preserve what is inside," Schutz said. "There's a real neat history here."Cape May's Beach Theatre, built in 1950 by W.C. Hunt, has been under the management of the nonprofit Beach Theatre Foundation, a group formed to save and preserve the building, since October 2007. The group is trying to find a developer to purchase the beachfront property from its current owners."We are so grateful to be named to this list by Preservation New Jersey, and hope that this distinction will help raise awareness and aid us in our number one priority of the moment - finding a developer to purchase the property," Steve Jackson, president of the Beach Theatre Foundation Board, said Tuesday.The Belcoville Post Office in Weymouth Township is the only architectural survivor of its kind from World War I. The post office served the employees of the expansive Bethlehem Loading Company complex, a massive munitions plant that was recommended recently to be placed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places, with the hope of one day landing on the national list"There were only 14 munitions plants operating (in the East) during World War I," Suzanne Smith, of the Township of Weymouth Historical Society, said in a November interview with The Press. "Only three built villages to support the plant, and (the post office) is the only one in the country that remains intact." The "10 Most Endangered Historic Sites" program spotlights "irreplaceable historic, architectural, cultural and archeological resources in New Jersey that are in imminent danger of being lost." Preservation New Jersey produces the list each year to drew attention to the various sites and claims to have saved or preserved a number of buildings listed in the past.To e-mail Regina Schaffer at The Press:RSchaffer@pressofac.com
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