The Beacon was featured for historic preservation in "Our Vanishing Past" Monday, May 12th at 9:00 PM on NJN (Channel 23 in Jersey City). It will be re-broadcast on Saturday, May 17th, at 3:00 PM.

Restoration Tour of ?The Beacon,?
the Former Jersey City Medical Center
Saturday May 10, 2008 ― 3 pm to 4:30 pm



Cost: $10.00, $7.00 for seniors and students with current ID. Meet at the new lobby of The Beacon. Turn into the main entrance at Beacon Way. Valet parking is $5.00. Metered parking is available on Montgomery Street. Rain or Shine!

Guided by Ulana Zakalak, restoration consultant for the Beacon.

In celebration of Historic Preservation Month, Metrovest Equities and the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy invite the public to tour the magnificent restoration of the Art Deco former Jersey City Medical Center. This first ever public tour will be led by The Beacon's own restoration consultant, Ulana Zakalak, president of Zakalak Restoration Arts, LLC. Highlights will include the magnificent new lobby, the restored Broadway corridor, the Rialto Theater, and the former lobby, now the billiards room, complete with the newly conserved Allen George Newman bas-relief, From Myth to Medicine. Come see Mayor Frank Hague's office, now converted intothe Hague Poker Room, as well as restored lobbies and the Roosevelt reading room.Visit the unparalleled amenities floor which includes Club Aqua and the Grotto Lounge. The tour will also take in the unrestored Murdoch Hall, the setting for the movies Quiz Show and The Imposters .



For more information contact JCLC board member Ulana Zakalak at uzakalak@comcast.net.

Also, Jersey City Museum and Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy are teaming up for Preservation Month. More information here .

My husband and I plan to be there, should a fun and very educational tour. Thanks to Leon for guiding this tour today.

This tour is rain or shine but it looks like it will be more shine than rain. Hope to see you there for a fun afternoon!

The New Jersey City Architectural Tour
Sunday, May 4, 1?3:30 pm

Cost: $10; $7 for seniors and students with current ID.
Meet next to the Katyn monument at Exchange Place. Please wear comfortable walking shoes.

This brisk informative 21⁄2 hour walking tour covers the intriguing mix of old and new architecture where Jersey City's downtown waterfront morphs into the Paulus Hook and Van Vorst Park historic districts. We will walk where Henry Hudson walked in 1609 and claimed the area for the Dutch. We will follow this trail of history from the 1770s Paulus Hook fort to the 1830s Morris Canal to 21st century glass-skinned skyscrapers. Architectural styles will include Greek Revival, Romanesque Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, 60s Modern, Interpretative Modern, and Postmodern. We will observe award-winning adaptive reuses of historic structures that have acquired new lives with new modern functions. Many of the sites we will see are featured in the Conservancy's 2008 wall calendar which will be given free to the tour participants.

Guided by documentary photographer Leon Yost ermaleon@gmail.com

Kudos to the student group SAVE and to the children who come out each year to clean up this treasure of Jersey City! They can teach us all a lesson in safe-keeping our built and natural environment and trying to keep the sense of place that makes Jersey City so special. We are losing our landmarks at such a rapid rate: the warehouse district, St. John's Church on Summit Avenue, Sacred Heart on Martin Luther King Boulevard, and others less notable that make up the fabric of the city. Perhaps one day, when these children are adults, and in a position where they can make a difference, they will remember cleaning up Holland Street and what a special experience that was. Just maybe that memory they recall as adults will make a difference in preserving what our current leaders care not to.

Hope everyone can make the Holland Street clean-up tomorrow!

If you want to see Hudson County's most historic (and aesthetically pleasing!) street, please come. You'll also get to see up to 100 middle school students having a blast raking, pulling weeds, sweeping and gardening along the street's edges.

Free pizza and water for participants!

For directions email Becky Hoffman at:

bhoffman45@comcast.net

To see what all the Holland Street hoopla is about, check out the website of the teen preservation group, SAVE, which is the main sponsor of the clean-up:

http://savearchitecture.org/reservoir ... d-st-cleanup-spring-2007/

PRESERVATION MONTH 2008 IN JERSEY CITY Saturday May 3 through Saturday May 31 The Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy is pleased to announce our schedule for Preservation Month 2008! Events include our annual Historic Holland Street Clean-up organized by SAVE (www.savearchitecture.org) on Saturday May 3, Researching Home Histories at the Jersey City Free Public Library on Thursday evening May 22, and our 8th Annual Preservation Awards Ceremony at the Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre on Wednesday evening May 28. Tours include our New Jersey City Architectural Tour based on our 2008 calendar on Sunday May 4, Restoration Tour of ?The Beacon,? the former Jersey City Medical Center on Saturday May 10, and a double-header closing the month on Saturday May 31 consisting of the Journal Square Through Time Tour lead by SAVE and the Lafayette History Festival and Tour. For a complete schedule and details related to our Preservation Month events, go to: http://www.jclandmarks.org/PreservationMonth2008.shtml Above image: "The Beacon," formerly the historic Jersey City Medical Center. On Saturday May 10, the Landmarks Conservancy, joined by Beacon restoration director Ulana Zakalak, will lead a rare, behind-the-scenes restoration tour of the National Register landmark.