Driving around central New Jersey earlier this month, I visited High Bridge, a small town in northern Hunterdon County. It has an NJ Transit rail station that gets you to New York City, and despite being home to only about 3,500 people, the borough has a densely built and very classically urban Main Street (I’ll be writing a separate illustrated post about it and some of the other towns I explored).

While walking Main Street, I passed this liquor store, which I haven’t seen in ages but which I remembered from when I was a kid. My dad stopped in here a few times, and the interior of the store has stuck with me all these years. Here it is.

That’s right—it’s a two-story store! It almost looks like a library. Here’s the view out the set of windows on the right.

James Howard Kunstler once wrote that one of the strange and distinctive things about suburbia is that it lacks a skyline. There’s something about this view, or about the way the backs and sides of properties meet on street grids, that engages the mind. We like textures and details, and towns like this are rich with that kind of thing.

Now, obviously this did not begin life as a liquor store. What do you think it was built as? The ceiling design in the first picture, and the building’s height, are probably clues. Hint: it was not a church or civic building; it was a type of commercial building.

Any guesses?

It happens that the old sign, probably restored, still adorns the front of the building, so this picture taken the front entrance answers the question.

And here’s the whole building from across the street.

So many small towns had majestic architecture like this, that may have been private and commercial but which enlivened the public realm. It’s always so cool, and kind of wistful, to come across stuff like this. I know we wouldn’t build in exactly this style today, and there are lots of reasons for the changes in architecture and land use since then. But did you know in many towns and cities, later zoning codes do not permit more of the types of buildings that already exist in those zones? That’s how completely we abandoned this way of doing things that most Americans actually seem to like.

But I’ll leave you with that very cool and well-preserved building, which is enjoying quite a fine second life!

Related Reading:

Suburban Archaeology

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #9

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