May 8, 2020

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop Uncovers a Rare Surprise at City Hall

by Michael Calafati, AIA, Chair of the AIA New Jersey Historic Resources Committee

A sliver of a silver lining in the upheaval and loss caused by the pandemic is that deferred projects have been undertaken, sometimes with beautiful results, while public buildings are largely vacant. Such is the case with the removal of non-historic vinyl flooring in Jersey City’s City Hall.  Recent tweets by Mayor Fulop reveal beautiful floors that appear to be Minton tiles.  Referring to tiles manufactured by the English firm of Minton, Hollins & Company, they were imported from the mid 19th to the early 20th centuries and were renowned for their beautiful floral and geometric patterns as well as their extreme durability.  City Hall, completed in 1896, is one of a constellation of important public buildings in the US that took advantage of such beauty and durability.  The most notable example its use is found in the US Capitol for which the Architect of the Capitol has an excellent web page at https://www.aoc.gov/art/other/minton-tiles.

UPDATE 5/15/2020: Here is a link to nj.com article with more photos

https://www.nj.com/hudson/2020/05/jersey-city-finds-hidden-gem-under-tile-floor-of-city-hall-photos.html

We used Covid-19 shutdown to do projects that would’ve been inconvenient for residents regularly (street paving, park renovations etc). One project was ripping up the 1960s vinyl floor at city hall. We thought we’d find garbage but instead we found the original from 100 yrs ago pic.twitter.com/tZdASc8JOb

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) May 3, 2020

This is the latest from our restoration to the original city hall that we started during the Covid-19 shutdown, I shared some of the earlier mid 1800s original tile we found hidden in hallways underneath the 1960s vinyl tile. Here’s the next section we found of historical tile pic.twitter.com/nWccpNYdOc

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) May 6, 2020

By Stacey Ruhle Kliesch, AIA, AIA NJ Advocacy Consultant | Posted in Architects League of Northern New Jersey, Historic Resources, Uncategorized | Tagged: #historic preservation, #HistoricPreservationMonth, #HistoricResources, #JerseyCity, #MichaelCalafatiAIA | Comments (0)