FRENCHTOWN COMMONS – Last summer I took a stroll around the grounds of these garden apartments off Trenton Avenue and the place looks way, way better than they did the last time I visited 43 years ago.
This development got off to a rough start.
Originally called Frenchtown Villa, it would consist of 64 apartments in six buildings on 6.5 acres. Construction ceased in December of 1975 when developer Anthony Costanzo ran into legal and financial difficulty. (In 1977 he was given a three-year suspended sentence for income-tax evasion.) The project stalled at 75 percent completion, giving vandals almost two years to break about 120 windows and damage about 50 doors, some of which appeared to have been blasted open with shotguns. Yes, there were squatters.
During a lull in all that smashing and blasting, my friend Peg Pfenninger and I snuck into one of the buildings to look around. There wasn't much to see. We didn't break anything, but enjoyed the visit nevertheless. It was enough knowing that we had no business being there.
Hudson City Savings Bank, which had repossessed the property, eventually decided to finish the apartments. The first legitimate residents arrived in 1978, and soon the place was named Frenchtown Commons. The original name had too many negative connotations.
Its history has not been without incident, but we'll save that for my book. Like I said, the apartment complex seems to have climbed upward from its troubled past.
Adapted from "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
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