Thrown Away at No. 28 Tyler Street, Trenton…
Thrown Away at No. 28 Tyler Street, Trenton, New Jersey
A modest working to lower middle class dwelling of the third quarter of the 19th century, this derelict wood frame house, covered in asbestos shingles, stands as a typical example of ”the formerly” in Trenton, New Jersey.
In a section of Trenton called Chambersburg, this modest Italianate house barely stands in the midst of the least desirable and discarded dwellings of Trenton's forgotten past.
Probably built after the American Civil War, somewhere in the period of the 1860s/70s, this modest three story dwelling was once someone’s home.
In fact, it was once, in its early days, the home of a one Aaron Groom. Before Aaron moved to this house in Trenton, he lived in Upper Freehold and was a common laborer, which he had been ten years before still living in his father’s house. A farmer’s son from New Hanover, Aaron wanted something more than what he had known as a youth. As a tradesman, doing some work on the side, this was possible. And by 1880, he had moved up.
By then a carpenter and part-time “car driver,” the 44 year old Aaron Groom was living in the house shown above with his wife Amelia and at least five of their children. They had made it. This modest yet comfortable dwelling symbolized that fact. His son Charles , then 17, was a laborer, and even young David, just 15, worked in a Pottery. Aaron, born in New Jersey, was of parents both natives as well. The same with his wife. All of his children were born in New Jersey too. Probably some were even born in this house. By 1900, they are no longer in Trenton, and certainly not in Tyler Street. He and his family remained in this house through 1881 and 1882 as his “driving” services were advertised here directly.
Even by 1920 the working man, aspiring to the middle class, was living in this house, probably in a community not dissimilar as when the Grooms were in residence. Isaac Anderson, a Lather in 1920, was one resident.
Because at one time, this was a home. Yet in the age of Green, it is yet another thrown away. Filled with trash, boarded up and forgotten, it like much of its local has been forgotten.
sad.
2 yrs ago, at her request, i drove my grandmother to the home that she & my grandfather had built and raised their children in…when we arrived at our destination…we were shocked when, instead of her familiar old house, we saw nothing more than a concrete slab where the house once stood.
A young boy appeared from a house next door and I asked him, ‘what happened to the house that was here?”
He stated, ever so non-chalantly, “i don’t really know. i think it burned down.” without feeling. without care. without concern.
My grandmother walked up the driveway to where her home once stood. She paced the empty yard, sobbing quietly, running her hand along the fence that her husband had built so long ago.
The fire not only claimed the inanimate object, the wood, the bricks, the windows…it engulfed in its flames, the memories of a family, the nostalgic moments that were created there and an object of irreplaceable sentimental value to my grandmother.
It saddens me how some disregard the past as if it never happened. How things that are old seem to lack importance to some people solely because they are old…how dwellings that were once full of life are now boarded up and burned down, to never again reveal all of the joy that they once contained.
Well, I think the worst part about it is that with older buildings versus what is built in our generation there was so much more quality and the fact that in America we so quickly just toss away these old buildings is a sad thing especially when you attach a human component. But we know some people who do the same thing to their lovers and even their children so we cannot be suprised at how suddenly animalistic the human can become.
Stumbled into this website by chance but I’m sure glad I clicked on that link. You genuinely answered all the queries I’ve been dying to answer for some time now. Will genuinely come back for much more of this. Thank you so much