An Upstart Maritime Museum is Launched in Camden, New Jersey by Michael H. Lang
T
his is a story of the recent development of a new maritime museum in a gritty riverfront neighborhood in South Camden, New Jersey. It is a story with colorful oldschool, working-class, dockland characters out of a film noir script written by Damon Runyon. Its cast includes a charismatic Irish priest with a gentle brogue, a gruff old port director, and energetic community activists, and the plot has these disparate folks coming together to transform an abandoned historic church into a museum, while having to contend with occasional gunfire, police sirens, panhandlers, trolling prostitutes, and ever-present drug dealing. W hile it takes place in a neighborhood most people try to avoid, it is a story that has the briny smell of the Delaware riverfront and the sea beyond.
Beginnings This story begins in the offices of Joseph Balzano, the tough long-time CEO of the South Jersey Port Corporation, located on the Delaware River on the site of the former New York Shipbui lding Company in Camden, New Jersey. In 2003,Joe Balzano organized a meeting of local community residents to save the historic Church of Our Saviour, located in the Waterfront South section of the city. Joe suggested they save it by creating a maritime museum in the
church to honor the central role that the port and the shipyards played in Camden's h istory. Joe's office was filled with enough maritime memorabilia to fill a museum, so it seemed an appropriate place for this new beginning. One Man's Dream Joe Balzano was born near the Camden waterfront, which in his youth was defined by its railyards, warehouses, manufacturing plants, and ferry terminals. Despite Camden's deterioration, the city and its port found a passionate booster in Joe, and he was determined not to give up on it. He was a short man with a stevedore's roughhewn charisma and throaty growl and was a force to be reckoned with in Camden and in the state capital in Trenton. He had already proved instrumental in Camden's victory in the long battle between Bayonne and Camden over which city would berth America's most decorated battleship, USS New jersey, as a museum ship. Joe was emblematic of the old Port of Camden, where family ties were paramount and where those at the top had worked their way up from the bottom. Joe worked his way up from go-fer to fork lift operator and became proficient on all the other machinery used in a breakbulk-type port. He rose through the ranks to become the CEO of South Jersey Port Corporation, a position
he held for over two decades. Under Joe's leadership, the port expanded dramatically, earning him an international reputation as one of the best port operators in the world. In recent years, the decision to maintain a port in Camden became a controversial issue. Centrally located on Camden's waterfront, the port was seen by some powerful local leaders as a deterrent to the unfolding gentrification of the waterfront adjacent to the port with its concert center, minorleague ballpark, marina, aq uarium, and upscale housing. Joe fought passionately to keep the port and its blue-collar jobs in Camden. His work did not go unnoticed, and, after his death in October 2011 , the port was renamed in his honor. Camden? Naturally... From the its initial launch out of Joe's Camden office, the city's new maritime museum continues to grow and develop near the banks of the Delaware River. Opponents voiced their opinion that an old industrial city like Camden is a terrible place for a new museum-it is not exactly a tourist hot spot. In fact, Camden is one of America's most depressed cities, a hotbed of drug-related gang wars, poor schools, and intergenerational poverty that repeatedly is cited as both the poorest and the most dangerous city in the country. And yet, the Camden Shipyard and Maritime Museum is finishing its seventh year of operations, providing inner-city children with a safe place to learn to swim, study marine ecology, and build canoes, kayaks, and sailboats-all while learning about the rich history of their city's maritime past. Like Philadelphia across the river, Camden was once a thriving industrial powerhouse. In the early twentieth century, it emerged as a major railroad and shipbuilding town, which was also home to many other industries that took advantage of its transportation links to Philadelphia and points north, south, and west. Camden grew quickly in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and reached a population ofl24,000 by the 1950s. Major corporations grew up alo ng the waterfront; Joe Ballzano (center) pulled in the community to ge?t the museum underway, initiall,y out ofhis c:rowded office in the Port of Camden.
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SE,A HISTORY 144, AUTUMN 2013