The Powerhouse Museum: A Community Cultural Hub and Museum of Tomorrow, For Today
There’s an old building in the center of the Powerhouse Arts District in downtown Jersey City that has been forgotten. It’s a large brick structure, now dwarfed by 50 story towers on multiple sides. The building is being held together by the same type of straps that secure a racecar driver in their vehicle. What used to be tremendous industrial windows, are now sheets of plywood colored in Swedish flag colors — bright blue and yellow. With all its imperfections and problems, it’s still a thing of beauty and tremendous historical value. The building is the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse, built between 1906 and 1908. The energy created by the Powerhouse was used to power the subway line linking NJ to NYC — what we know as the PATH train today. It now sits vacant, with a PATH power station butted up against its west end.
There have been many attempts by developers to tear down the Powerhouse building to build another monstrosity of apartments. Some developers have even pitched the idea of turning it into an entertainment destination, mimicking what was done in Baltimore with an ESPN Zone. Something to remember about this building is that it sits in the heart of the Powerhouse ARTS District.
The Powerhouse building is the last remaining piece of history that can still be saved in the Powerhouse Arts District (PAD). It is John Oakman’s vision of a Romanesque Revival building come to life, and the building now needs to experience its own revival. There have already been multiple historical buildings that have been torn down in the PAD that could have been saved — 111 First Street, the Juan Ribbon Machine Shop and 323–355 Warren Street (the sister building to the J. Leo Cooke Warehouse at 140 Bay Street) to name a few. Luckily, not all of the history in the neighborhood was erased. 150 Bay Street, 140 Bay Street the Modera Lofts and the currently under renovation and construction A&P Building are beautiful examples of real estate with rich history and strong bones that have been or are being brought back to life.
The Powerhouse building has the potential to be THE identifying building of Jersey City. When looking at the Jersey City skyline, there is no identifier. Some may say that the Colgate Clock is that identifier. A great structure it is, and we are happy that it was saved from the top of the old Colgate factory, but identifying it is not. Nor does it have the ability to draw people together. The Powerhouse building is different with its rich history in transportation, it’s central location and it’s potential to become something iconic. It sits five minutes walk to both the Grove Street PATH station and the Exchange Place PATH station, and it’s across the street from the Light Rail. It’s just ten minutes door-to-door to the West Village. It’s easily accessible for hundreds of thousands of people.
As a visionary for the City of Jersey City (remember my concept for the Liberty Bridge — a walking bridge connecting Jersey City to downtown Manhattan), I look for ways to add value and purpose to our community, and to create for the greater good. And as a resident of the Powerhouse Arts District, and a former member of the neighborhood association PADNA, I’ve had my eye on the Powerhouse building since I first moved here.
I love the art that surrounds our neighborhood — the artists, the art studios, the art galleries. But the neighborhood is missing one key component for an art district… an art museum. I’m not referring to a traditional art museum though. I’m talking about a community-first art museum that will stand the test of time, societal change and technological change. The vision I have for the Powerhouse building is to revive it as the Powerhouse Museum (Poho for short). A museum that houses traditional art as we know it today (paintings, drawings, sculptures, poems, music, etc), and the art that we will come to know tomorrow (Web3-aligned with NFTs, and immersive virtual reality & metaverse experiences). It will be a place that locals will visit not once a decade, but once a month. It will have a cocktail bar for friends to gather amongst works of art, an event space for weddings and galas, a world-renowned restaurant to enjoy after a day in the Museum, a children’s art workshop space that will be free for all kids looking to expand their artistic abilities, and a boutique hotel perched atop the Museum for those that want to create a weekend adventure around the art infused experience. Poho will become a destination for locals and visitors. It will also be the identifying building that Jersey City deserves.
If it sounds like an expensive project, it’s because it is. But I can assure you, it’s less costly than building a bridge over the Hudson! I always said that the financing is not the hardest part of community focused projects like this. The bureaucracy is always the challenge. Right now, there is a loose contract that recognizes a specific developer (Cordish) as the developer of the Powerhouse building. It’s not in stone though, and the building is protected under Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy. There’s definitely hope for Poho Museum to become a reality. Here’s my plan on how to pay for this project:
- NFT Drop Fundraiser
NFTs are non-fungible tokens that can come in the form of digital art. The NFT craze is real ($20+ billion market size in 2021), and there are many NFT projects that exist... but most of them have little to no purpose. This project’s purpose will be a fundraiser for the arts. We will launch an NFT drop to raise funds for the initial costs of converting the Powerhouse building into a Museum (architectural plans, feasibility study, structural engineering analysis, etc). We will be working directly with local artists to submit their own artwork to be converted into NFTs, which we will then sell in a blind sale. Donors and collectors will be able to buy the NFTs in that blind sale (also known as minting), not knowing which artwork they’ll be receiving until there’s a reveal. A portion of the sales will go to the artists that created the artwork, a potion will cover expenses incurred in the NFT project, and the remainder will go to the Museum expenses. The purchasers of the NFT artwork can keep or sell the NFTs in the secondary market (Opensea). One of the beautiful features of NFTs is that we can program the NFT to always give a portion of future sales back to the original artist. For example, if someone buys an NFT for $1000 in the secondary market, and 10% always goes back to the artist, the artist will get a $100 commission on that sale. This goes on in perpetuity, for as many times as the NFT is sold. We can also bake into the NFT a portion of the sale that can go back to the Museum, as a way to have recurring revenue for the Museum. - Sponsorship
An area that is often overlooked in community projects is sponsorship. Sports teams have figured it out by putting corporate logos on their stadiums in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no reason why a museum or park or another community project can’t do the same — especially one that will come with amazing exposure for the sponsor. Known as Poho today, perhaps the museum will be called the Citi Powerhouse Museum in the future. In the end, it doesn’t matter what it’s called. It matters what it can do for the neighborhood and for the arts community. - Revenue Streams
In addition to the NFT revenue driver, the additional revenue drivers will be (but not limited to) the restaurant, cocktail bar, hotel, event space, museum membership and traditional museum sponsorships.
What kind of timeline are we talking about? Well, PATH has planned to vacate the property in 2026. This means that we have four years to prepare the project, and get it ready for breaking ground in 2026. It’ll be here before we know it and there is quite a bit of work to do until then.
The Powerhouse Art Museum has incredible potential to become a globally recognized cultural asset for the art community, Jersey City, NJ and the Greater NYC area. Our goal is to make this a reality. If you have interest in supporting this project with helping out in any way, please reach out to Kevin Shane. Here are some ways you can reach him. Here are some helpful links about Poho Museum as well:
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Twitter
Here’s our Linktree
