An important landmark in one of Jersey City’s historic districts is for sale that holds a special place in the city’s history. The building at 375 Fairmount Avenue, constructed in 1910, was once the headquarters of the Jersey City Women’s Club and its members were an incredible force for social change. The property is listed for $2.25 million.
“The first time I walked through there and I just imagined the women who walked through these halls,” said Jonathan Reitz, the listing agent with the Reitz Group.
The organization was dissolved in 2015 and the building was donated to its current owner Saint Dominic Academy. Since taking over the building, the administrators found that the building was a considerable walking distance from the main school building and didn’t use it as often as they imagined. They also want to use the profits from the sale to seed a scholarship fund, Reitz said.
Reitz said the property is in turnkey condition and the school officials are hoping it ends up in the right hands.
“They’ve given a lot of forethought to who they want to see in that space,” he said. “They weren’t interested in a fire sale to a developer who is going to level the building or create a monstrosity on Fairmount Avenue.”
In 1911, when the new clubhouse opened, a story appeared in the Hudson Observer. Because its members wanted the organization to own the building, the new property led to the organization being formally incorporated in 1905. Before the Women’s Club moved to the location in 2011 on Fairmount Avenue, they met at a building on Crescent Avenue in Bergen Hill.
Despite the fact that Women’s Club was entirely run and organized by prominent and accomplished women, the newspaper article in 1911 still listed the officers of the organization under their husband’s names, including the club president at the time named Emma Van Winkle, referred to as Mrs. Daniel Van Winkle.
“Many of these women were involved in making people’s lives better long before the government took that on as part of its obligation,” said Charlene Burke, president of the West Side Community Alliance.
Cecilia Holland, the club’s first president, helped establish the first kindergartens in Jersey City and they were later taken over by the board of education. She also fought one of the state’s first environmental battles to save the Palisades from being quarried and destroyed for development. Mabel Douglass, whom Douglass College at Rutgers University was named after, was also a former president. The new clubhouse opened in the decade leading up to the 19th Amendment, so many of its members were fighting for women’s right to vote.
Burke, who was one of the leading voices in establishing the West Bergen-East Lincoln Park Historic District, said she would like to see the city government buy the property and use it as a community center.
“The financial situation in Jersey City is not helpful at the moment,” Burke said, but noted that Community Development Block Grant funds can be used to buy the building that are unrelated to the municipal budget. “Why let it go to a developer when it could be used as a place that benefits the seniors or be used as an after-school program? On the West Side, we have no gathering space for community groups or nonprofits.”
Burke said the property has always been owned by nonprofit entities and has never been on the city’s tax roll. “It has never paid any property taxes so the city would not lose it and the city would have a lot to gain,” she said.
