Oradell celebrates its history and spruces up a vacant gas station with new murals

The Oradell community came together Saturday to celebrate a years-long effort to beautify a property that’s been vacant for ages by adding murals depicting special landmarks around town.

The four murals at the vacant gas station on the corner of Kinderkamack Road and Cooper Avenue were displayed during an unveiling ceremony. They depict postcards featuring Oradell landmarks, including Bergen County Players, the Atwood-Blauvelt Mansion, Hackensack Waterworks and the Oradell Library.

Tom Kelly, one of the organizers for the project and president of the Oradell Beautification Committee, said the site has been vacant for about 25 years and this mural project has been years in the making. He was grateful that the owner of the property, who needs to do environmental remediation on the site, agreed to allow them to place murals on wooden planks that are attached in front of the gas station doors.

"The four murals have iconic structures in the borough that make the borough a special place to live and a place we all know and love," said Kelly. "We'll be able to enjoy it for years to come."

Sam Tripsas, a former member of the Oradell Beautification Committee, said the idea to add murals to the vacant property had been in his head since 2008. About five years ago Tripsas connected with Kelly, who was a council member at the time, about the idea and began to get the ball rolling by getting permission from the landlord.

“It’s a long time coming,” said Tripsas. “I’m really happy everyone showed up.”

Painted theater backdrops for two decades

The murals were designed and painted in part by Lauren Zenreich, who has painted scenes for the Bergen County Players for 23 years. It took about half a year to design the murals and begin drawing the designs onto wooden planks.

“I was thinking about my 33 years in Oradell and decided how about postcards of things that I love in Oradell that make us special and make us want to live here,” Zenreich said of the design process.

Zenreich was also able to get the community involved by allowing people to come to the senior center in town to help paint different parts of the mural.

During the unveiling, community members involved with the landmarks shared the history of the sites and their desire to preserve them.

Trying to save Atwood-Blauvelt mansion

JoAnn Young, a preservationist at the forefront of the movement to save the Atwood-Blauvelt Mansion, spoke about century-old, shingle-style, 25-room estate which sits atop a long grassy hill on Kinderkamack Road at Soldier Hill Road. CareOne owns the property and it has sat vacant for years.

“The mansion sits there decaying every day and it’s heartbreaking to me,” said Young. “It still looks like a castle and it might be salvageable.”

Preserving Hackensack Waterworks

Phil Salerno, a member of the board of trustees for the Waterworks Conservancy, discussed the history and importance of preserving the Hackensack Waterworks, which is located on the 14-acre Van Buskirk Island and is now owned by the county. It once pumped more than 60 million gallons of clean water daily in the early 1960s and was in operation for more than 100 years.

The Waterworks plant expanded eight times since its opening in 1882 before it was shut down by Suez, formerly known as United Water and Hackensack Water Co., in 1990.

While the county has created a kayak center on the property and fixing the Waterworks building itself would be expensive, Salerno is hopeful the county's work to get grant funding to keep up the building will be successful.

“I’ve always looked at the Blauvelt and Waterworks as the gateways to Oradell, as opportunities to bring the community in and a destination for people to enjoy,” said Salerno, “whether it be a walking path or to see and understand the history of the building.”

Bergen County Players survived the pandemic

Bergen County Players, a performing arts theater in the borough that has its 90th season this year that was also depicted on the murals, is still in operation and survived the COVID pandemic, despite having no income with the venue closed, said David Luke, president of the theater.

The theater started a run of its new musical "It Shoulda Been You" Saturday, and performances continue until June 4.

"Once we came back, we've been a little more musical heavy in the last year deliberately since people like to laugh and hear music," said Luke. "The themes have been lighter and more towards entertainment in general."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Oradell beautifies longtime vacant gas station with murals