31 October 2008

Roosevelt NJ

In studio we talked about Roosevelt and how we largely missed it in our first round of studying the regional landscape. Here are a few interesting links:

Roosevelt is home to the quietly famous Ben Shahn mural.

The NY Times Real Estate section took a look for "If You're Thinking of Living In Roosevelt" (If the link doesn't work, you could search on the author's name: Jerry Cheslow). They described it unique position in history:

The only town in New Jersey on both the National and State Registers of Historic Places in its entirety, Roosevelt was originally named Jersey Homesteads. It was one of 34 municipalities started by the federal Subsistence Homesteads program, an experiment that gave workers cooperative ownership over local farms and factories. In 1945, after President Roosevelt's death and long after the government had sold off the factory and farms, the borough renamed itself Roosevelt to honor F.D.R.

These historic photos are also pretty amazing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a child, growing up in Roosevelt was idyllic - truly a safe haven. I find, now that I'm retired and don't need to be in a city, that I'm drawn to small towns, like the one I currently live in (Eureka, CA). But there is really nothing comparable to the Roosevelt experience. It's very intimate. (D. Linowitz -www.davidcolon.com)