2021 – Unexpected Mini-Photo-Project
(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on October 25, 2021)
Last Friday morning, I looked out my living room window to see this odd red……….thing a couple of blocks away on Main St. Now, I’ve seen a lot of unusual things from here over the years, but this was new. What the heck IS it?
Time for a walk (and a mini-photo-project).
I approached it from a block to the west: State St. I knew something was going to happen at the red-thing location because of an article I had read about a beloved old music store called “The Record King” that’s been on Main St since 1965 having to close for “downtown redevelopment”, but I wasn’t aware that demolition had started.
From the looks of the piles in this panoramic shot, it was already well under way (NOTE: with the exception of this photo, click all panoramic shots ONCE to fully-enlarge – click this one TWICE. Hit your back button to return here.):
Heading down towards Main St, I had to hold my camera high over a fence to get this:
The gate was open, so I walked in and took a quick panoramic shot:
You can see part of the red thing that I saw from home.
Continuing on towards Main St, I took these two shots………one from above the fence (yes – that’s a bird in the air) and the other from across the street:
So the red thing is some sort of netting to protect Main St from falling objects during demolition and is held aloft by three cranes.
As I crossed Main St, I found something that was helping to keep cars off that block (I’m not referring to the police vehicle a few doors down). All that’s left of The Record King – which was located on the other side of the street and not shown here – is probably in those demolition piles I showed above, but its parking cone survived:
So I’ve got Main St all to myself to try to get what I can, but the red netting is limiting things a bit:
But the morning sun is lighting up the netting, so maybe I’ll make THAT the star of the show (the last photo is panoramic):
Demolition is ugly business, but this netting makes the joint a little classier-looking.
They kept chipping away at the wall (you can see little pieces falling). Since the netting was in place, I don’t know why they didn’t just knock the wall down, as was done on other Main St demolitions without netting:
This is what it looks like when you try to shoot through the netting:
SHOT OF THE DAY
This is a panoramic shot of the entire scene. You know how some people hook up a big bed sheet to a wall or side of a garage so they can show movies on it? To me, this shot looks like the City of Hackensack hung a MASSIVE sheet on some cranes and a movie about demolitions is being shown on it……………..and I’ve got the theater to myself:
One odd little detail: within that “screen” and just to the right of the building, right above the first SKY sign on the fence, there appears to be a standing traffic light that seems to covered by “protective”……….cardboard? Looks kinda flimsy to me.
Anyway, this is my favorite photo of the project and thanks to the sun for illuminating the netting just right.
I DID take one more panoramic shot as I was walking away after the police officer repositioned his vehicle, but it’s rather anti-climactic:
The next day, I saw that my newspaper – The Record – covered the same project the same morning I was there:
By the way, if any of you Record King fans are interested, I just came across a video that features a 2018 visit to the store by long-time New Jersey television personality, Uncle Floyd:
He was doing one of his “Uncle Floyd’s New Jersey” shows (not his old regular show), where he walks around towns and talks to people. This is over two hours long, but the Record King segment (almost 27 minutes long) starts at about the 3:50 mark…………..with a spelling lesson.
Post Script
I just found out that this 3-story building will be replaced by a 7-story residential building, whose width goes beyond the right edge of this photo:
There goes my cherished view of the World Trade Center……………
On the plus side, I now own the traffic cone I showed earlier – a nice little local music-related memento.
Not exactly a fair trade, but you take what you can get when presented with this kind of “deal”.
Thanks for memories of Record King. Only went there a couple of times growing up in Bergen County. I was more of a Korvette’s kid!