All it Needs is Some Stuff The building is ready and waiting Photos and Story By Daniel Israel
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he Bayonne Community Museum at 229 Broadway preserves history and makes history. According to the city’s Public Information Officer Joe Ryan, the building was constructed for the Bayonne Trust Company as a
The onshore interpretative center morphed into the concept for the Bayonne Community Museum. The city acquired the bank building under Doria’s administration in 2001. After a series of mergers, Fleet Bank no longer needed it and donated it to the city for $1.
bank in 1912. The Vermont granite-clad structure with its ornate Beaux-Arts-style architecture stands as a “temple to money.”
A Battleship Museum? Establishing a Bayonne museum stemmed from efforts by Mayor Joseph Doria to have the battleship USS New Jersey dock in Bayonne. In the late ‘90s, the city was in the running to become the ship’s permanent home. If it came to Bayonne, there was a push to have an onshore interpretive center. The city did not get the battleship, which is now berthed in Camden.
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