The Beacon, 20 Beacon Way: Review and Ratings

Review of 20 Beacon Way by Carter Horsley

The attractive, 6-building complex known collectively as Beacon was erected as the Jersey City Medical Center beginning in 1928 and was completed in 1941 as the third largest healthcare facility in the world.

The buildings stood “empty and sorry-looking on a rise near Journal Square that overlooks Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty,” according to a February 27, 2005 article by Antoinette Martin in The New York Times announcing that work would begin in a few months “on a $350 million renovation that will create 1,200 apartments, both rental and condos, along with a central courtyard featuring a restaurant, a grocery store, and shops.”

“The neighborhood around the complex on Montgomery Avenue near Baldwin Street has long been down at the heels,” the article continued, but “the medical center, by contrast, epitomizes the elegance of vintage public buildings.”

“These structures could never be rebuilt and nobody would try, because of the lavish amounts of space – grand entrances and 25-foot-ceilings, wide hallways with marble walls, theater space, and solariums,” George Filopoulos declared in the article.

It began to be restored and converted to a condominium and rental residential uses with 1,155 units in 2005 as part of the largest rehabilitation project in the country. 

The first phase of the project was completed in 2008 by Metrovest Equities, which is based in New York, and consisted of two buildings, the Rialto and the Capitol whose rehabilitation cost was about $132 million, the largest Historic Preservation Tax Credit in the nation.  Ismael Leyva was the architect for the conversion.

The 14-acre site contained 10 buildings ranging in height from 15 to 21 stories and they were designed by John T. Rowland Jr. and Christian H. Ziegeler.

The complex included the general hospital, the Pollack Chest Diseases Hospital/Murdoch Hall, and the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital.  The latter was proposed by Mayor Frank Hague in 1921 and was named for his mother. He served as mayor from 1917 to 1947. It was the first structure of the complex and was completed in 1931 and later included the Eleanor Roosevelt Nursery.  It closed in 199 and was leaded for office space until 1995.

This building was completed in 1931 and converted in 2016.

An April 15, 2009 article by Terry Golway in The New York Times, quoted Thomas Fleming, whose father Thomas J. Fleming Jr. was a Democratic leader in the city’s old Sixth War during Hague’s era as stating that the medical complex “was three times bigger than the city needed, but Hague was thinking of trying to create a greater Jersey city out of Hudson Country’s smaller cities.

Bottom Line

A historic, large, Art Deco-style hospital complex dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on a 14-acre site has been transformed into a rental and condominium apartment complex of more than 1,200 units with many amenities close to Journal Square in Jersey City.

Description

The Marin article in 2005 declared that the “Art Deco ornamentation remains nonpareil – exterior terra cotta panels encrusted with fancy flora and fowl, gilt chevron-and-diamond shapes over doorways, exquisite geometric design along beamed ceilings, art-glass windowpanes, elaborate light fixtures and brass railings – and even a collection of Deco-style furniture left in the grand entrance hall that remains in such excellent shape that it has served as the set for several period movies, including ‘Quiz Show’ and ‘The Royal Tenenbaums.’”

A bas-relief frieze in the billiards room entitled “From Myth to Medicine” has images ranging from cavemen to Pandora opening her box, from the grim reapers to the foo dog, from the Native American medicine man to the hospital surgeon that was created by Allen George Newman who created the Henry Hudson monument at 72^nd Street and Riverside Drive.

This large complex of stepped, beige towers has a very large plaza with lawns and light-orange-and-beige checkerboard paving.

Amenities

20 Beacon Way has a roof terrace, a screening room, a spa/therapy room, a restaurant, a game room, a courtyard, parking, a fitness center, a lounge and a children’s playroom.

Other amenities at the complex include zipcars, a bocce court, an indoor swimming pool, a gate community, daily food trucks, vending machines, 24/7 concierges, smart-key controlled access, a convenience store, valet parking, dog parks, CitiBike station, complimentary shuttle service to Exchange Place and fire pits.

Apartments

Apartment B5 is a 1,468-square-foot, two-bedroom duplex unit in the Mercury Building with a 17-foot-square living/dining room with an open kitchen and a large terrace on the upper floor and two bedrooms and a larger terrace on the lower floor.

Apartment H-C1 is a 1,196-square-foot three-bedroom unit in the Hague building with an entry hall that leads to a 16-foot-wide living room with a pass-through kitchen.

Apartment B4 is a 1,250-square-foot, two-bedroom unit in the Paramount.

Apartment B2 is a 1,193-square-foot, two-bedroom unit in the Orpheum with an entry foyer and a hall that leads diagonally to a 20-foot-long living room with an open, windowed kitchen.

Apartment C-B5 is a 1,006-square-foot, two-bedroom unit in the Criterion building with an 18-foot-square living room with an open kitchen and a 40-foot-wide terrace.

Apartment TB-1 is a 648-square-foot, two-bedroom unit in the Tower building with a 16-foot-wide living room with an open kitchen.

History

According to its Wikipedia entry, the hospital on this site “began as the ‘Charity Hospital’ by the Board of Aldermen of Jersey City who bought land at Baldwin Avenue and Montgomery Street in 1883 for a new hospital.”

“The local was chosen to remove the hospital from the industrial development at Paulus Hook.  This building is now the Medical Center building.  It was renamed the Jersey City Hospital I 1985 and had expanded to 200 beds.  In 1909, the original hospital building was reserved for men and a second wing was added for women.  When Frank Hague became mayor of Jersey City in 1917, he planned to expand the hospital.  He had the original building renovated, and by the late 1920s started construction on a new 23-story structure for surgery.  The new facility opened in 1931….During the Great Depression, new buildings were added as a Works Progress Administration project secured by Mayor Frank Hague….The original main hospital building was demolished to make way for two new hi-rise structures.  The formal dedication of the Medical Center Complex, including the new B. S. Pollack Hospital building, was on October 2, 1936, with Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicating the building.  During the 1950s, JCMC was the home of the medical school of Seton Hall Universit6y, which later became the New Jersey Medical School, now located in Newark.  Oversized and understaffed, in 1988 the Medical Center declared bankruptcy and became a private, non-profit organization.  In1994, the State of New Jersey designated the Medical Center as a regional trauma center, and in the late 1990s it was approved as a core teaching affiliate of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  The hospital and offices moved to a new complex in 2004. Prior to that, one building of the complex, 591 Montgomery Street had been converted for senior assisted-living residence.”

In 2012, the next phase of the project, known as the Mercury Building, opened with 126 rental units and the next year the Orpheum opened as a 22-story, 158-unit rental apartment building.   In 2014, the 20-story Paramount building followed by The Tower and, in 2015 the Criterion and in 2016 the Hague.