Totowa Under Attack: An Update on the Abandoned Asylum

Abandoned buildings in the tall grass

My Mom’s town is under attack… first by Blackhawk helicopters, and now by wall-shaking explosions every weekday around noon.

It started in mid-April when, no lie, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted secret nighttime war games on the grounds of an abandoned asylum less than a mile from the house where I grew up in an otherwise quiet neighborhood in Totowa.

During a visit today, Mom described nearly daily explosions since May at the same site. The blasts have shaken her house so hard they’ve knocked framed family photos from the walls.

Welcome to life in the New Jersey suburbs.

Blame a development project now under way at the former North Jersey Development Center. The state Department of Labor is overseeing the blasting, scheduled to occur through August to remove 450,000 yards of material in preparation to build a computer center for JP Morgan bank.

In all, 35 buildings on the 188-acre site are being demolished to make way for a 257,000-square-foot data center. This is part of a larger redevelopment project that will also include 590,000 square feet for an assisted living facility, a medical office, a research and development facility, and associated parking lots.

A little over two years ago, I wrote about the history of the Development Center, and the post has attracted a steady stream of visitors since.

Here’s the way the main building looked in April 2016:

And here’s the way it looks in June 2018. Like me, just a little worse for wear:

But the backhoes are poised to do their dirty work:

It's only a matter of time.