Day 25: What is your hometown known for? In other words, what makes it special?
Written for Suzanne McClendon’s September Challenge
I think the big green signs are gone now, but when I lived there, as you entered my town all visitors would be greeted by these words, ‘Youth, South Plainfield’s pride and greatest asset’, proclaiming what my town was most proud of. This 8.3-square-mile no-frills borough, was founded by blue-collar workers in the late 1870’s when the Lehigh Valley Railroad built a storage and service yard for its trains so they could haul coal that was dug in Pennsylvania to New York City. For more than a century, scores of factories hummed alongside the tracks, turning out products like universal joints that were produced at Spicer Manufacturing at the beginning of the automobile age, and condensers for the growing radio industry were developed and manufactured at the Cornell-Dublier plant in the 1930’s, and Harris Structural Steel was one of the largest World War II steel producers.
The population exploded after World War II, the influx started with the arrival of hundreds of families of servicemen who had seen the borough while they were stationed at nearby Camp Kilmer, the country’s largest military embarkation center. A decade later, South Plainfield’s industrial base had become a magnet for factory workers, who more than doubled the population in one year, from 8,000 in 1959 to 18,000 in 1960. However, over the past 15 years, nearly all of the factories have closed. Some have been redeveloped into housing or shopping centers, but dozens, including a National Gypsum plant on Spicer Avenue that has been declared a federal Superfund site, remain empty shells.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad terminal has been closed and its tracks are now part of the Conrail freight system. One factory currently slated for redevelopment is the Tingley Rubber Corporation plant, which manufactured rain gear for three quarters of a century. Most of South Plainfield’s approximately 8,000 housing units are postwar and were built in distinct phases, just after the war, in the town’s northwestern section. In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, it was all split levels. In the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, they built bi-levels, and now everything is colonials. The schools are considered to be good, and the houses are affordable and there’s very little crime, so South Plainfield has more demand than supply.
A good friend of mine Jerry Williamson, and owner of Williamson Realty in Piscataway, said that although South Plainfield’s industrial base is gone, the borough still appeals to working people. It has that small-town feel that many people want, and it is centrally located within an hour of New York City, New Jersey’s pharmaceutical industries and Rutgers University in New Brunswick. South Plainfield has only three multifamily housing complexes, which were all built within the last five years and all are in the southern section near the Edison line.
The borough has four supermarkets and four shopping centers. The largest is the Hadley Center, on the site of the former Hadley Airport, off Stelton Road. It is anchored by Kohl’s, Pathmark and a Bennigan’s restaurant. There is an abundance of fast food shops and a number of low and moderately priced restaurants, including Flanagan’s, an Irish pub and restaurant on Plainfield Avenue that dates back to the Prohibition era.
The 3,800-student South Plainfield Public School system might be considered to be a throwback to a more innocent time, where children, teachers and principals were closer than most schools are today. I have read that drug and gang activity in the schools is virtually nonexistent, despite efforts by gangs from neighboring Plainfield trying to recruit members. Police patrol the high school campus, students report suspicious cars and the parents are watching their kids to make sure they don’t get involved with gangs, yet South Plainfield students consistently underperform the state average on proficiency tests and on the SAT reasoning tests. The borough is also home to the 278-student Sacred Heart School, a Roman Catholic school.
The largest recreational area in the borough is the 121-acre county-owned Spring Lake Park, which includes a five-acre fishing lake, a gazebo, four tennis courts, three basketball courts and a playground. The most widely used recreational facilities are the Community Center and the Community Pool, opposite each other on Maple Avenue. The Community Center houses an indoor basketball court, a meeting room and a weight room and when I lived there it was called that PAL, Police Athletic League building. The pool complex includes an Olympic-sized pool, three wading pools, a picnic area, a miniature golf course and volleyball and basketball courts.
A Unique Title For Me 