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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Modern Trenton for the most part turns its back on the river and puts
forward its best foot on State Street. Choked with traffic in the business
center, this busy thoroughfare broadens for a short stretch before the Capitol buildings. The State's business is conducted in structures that vary from
Italian Renaissance to modern classic design. Many departments have over-flowed to quarters in nearby office buildings, and business houses have
moved in close to the Capitol.
In the congested shopping district are a few large stores, with a miscellany of smaller shops along State Street and its principal intersecting thoroughfares, Warren and Broad Streets. Rows of two- and three-story strucures are broken at intervals by taller buildings, or by a Georgian Colonial
church that makes with its small green graveyard a quiet corner in the
midst of pulsing commercial activity. With the click of the wrought-iron
gate, one can step from today into Trenton's mellow past. Names on the
old brown tombstones recall illustrious dames and burghers who once trod
the flagstones to the church door.
In the western residential area, once a farming section with fences to
protect the settlers' uneasy cattle, are comfortable homes, well shaded and
adequately spaced with lawns. Some of these fine old houses date back a
century or more. In sharp contrast is "Philadelphia Row," a block-long
stretch of two-family brick houses, built as a unit, each porch or stoop
identical, with nothing but a house number to distinguish one from an- other. The simple post-Colonial lines of some of the older brick houses,
close by the business section, retain the dignity of the early 1800's.
The manufacturing districts lie chiefly to the south and east of the business center. The streets are cluttered with railroad spurs; miles of mesh
fences, topped with barbed wire, some with a covering of ivy, enclose
buildings of brick and stone. A few are modern structures, with a liberal
display of glass against a framework of steel and concrete.
Bordering the factories is the slum section of Trenton, home of part of
the Negro population. It is a typical district of ill-preserved houses, neither
better nor worse than that of the average manufacturing city.
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