HANDS recently renovated the 100-year-old former Orange Chronicle building
to house its new offices as well as an upscale restaurant and other businesses.
Follow the progress in these photographs as this badly deteriorated office
building near the Orange train station became the handsome new headquarters of HANDS.
This mysterious private Street in the Valley that sits behind homes on Tremont Avenue was once "company housing" for Berg hat factory employees. Thanks to HANDS it has a new life.
Once the home of West Orange Brass Company, these buildings have new life in the ValleyArts District.
Legislation Signed
From Pat Morrissy, Executive Director of HANDS: Yesterday [January 8, 2004] I was in the Governor's office when he signed the Abandoned Properties Rehabilitation Act. What a great feeling after more than two years of drafting, lobbying, testifying, negotiating, compromising, arm twisting, cursing, despairing and now celebrating. Diane Sterner and Allan Mallach of the Housing and Community Development Network and I were asked to join the Bill's sponsors and the Mayors of Trenton and Irvington as the Governor signed it.
Now we need to put the Bill to work. Orange will be the first laboratory for demonstrating its effectiveness.
Can't wait!
More HANDS
News:
HANDS is National Runner Up
HANDS was named
National Runner Up by NeighborWorks America in the 2008 Innovations in
Homeownership contest for our strategy to rescue 46 badly
deteriorated properties left behind by a big real estate scam tied to
easy mortgage money in urban Essex County.
HANDS Executive Director, Patrick Morrissy, receives a citation from
United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg in his Newark office,
celebrating the organizationÂ’s 20th anniversary as a neighborhood
revitalization organization. The citation acknowledges the nonprofitÂ’s
years of crucial work in redeveloping targeted abandoned properties to
stabilize neighborhoods in Orange and East Orange, expanding
homeownership opportunities, cleaning up industrial brownfields and
engaging citizens in planning for the future of their neighborhoods and
city. HANDS has been a charter affiliate member of NeighborWorks
America since 1999.
Shown L – R:
HANDS Board of Directors Chair, Anita Rainford, an East Orange
resident; United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg; HANDS Executive
Director, Patrick Morrissy; NeighborWorks America Director of National
Initiatives and Applied Research, Nelson Merced
F. Berg Hat Factory Construction to Start
After nearly
four years of environmental investigation and clean-up, the NJ Dept. of
Environmental Protection has given HANDS the go ahead to convert the F. Berg hat factory
to residential use.
