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Closter Historic Preservation Saving Roads In History Books

CLOSTER – Local historians are nominating Blanch Avenue and other roads for historic designation in the borough throughout the coming months to preserve some of the borough's history. 

The borough organization is working to preserve Blanch Avenue and other roadways in the history books by nominating them for historic designation.

The borough organization is working to preserve Blanch Avenue and other roadways in the history books by nominating them for historic designation.

Photo Credit: Closter Histoic Preservation Society

The Closter Historic Society is collecting data and research from community members and will present their suggestions to council sometime in 2016.

Some of the sites — including stone houses and farms — date back to the mid-1700s.

"This is something that we are working on," Closter Historical Society and Commission Member Bobbie Bouton-Goldberg said.

To qualify for historic designation, a site must meet at least one of five criteria: 

-Association with events that have significantly contributed to the borough by reflecting the cultural, political, economic or social history of the nation, state or community 

-A connection to a historic person or people

-A site that significantly affected the development of the nation, state or community

-A site that embodies distinctive characteristics of a type or period

-A site of historic significance to the borough.

Blanch Avenue, one of the first on the list, was named after Revolutionary War Capt. Thomas Blanch.

The commission speculates that the road, which was originally a colonial-era farm lane, may have been established as early as 1745. 

The captain was one of the most prominent men in the borough, but the home was also a residence of John Ferdon, and later Edward R. Asmus before it was sold to the Lupardi family in 1946, the family that has run the nearly 70-year old Lupardi Nursery.

Blanch Avenue was also home to Buzzoni Farm, an air field, one of the first American-owned bronze powder factories, and was an excavation site for a mastodon skeleton, the historical society reported.

The organization is working on a several other blocks in the area that have historic value, but there is no set date for completion of the project. 

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