UNION, NJ — What seemed at first to many county residents to be an elaborate but unpleasant April Fools Day joke has turned out to be harsh reality. News of the as-yet-unscheduled demolition of Union’s “World’s Tallest Water Sphere” has kicked open a floodgate of wide-ranging emotions to those who feel that the longstanding township landmark deserves a kinder fate than destruction.
During a late-March Union Board of Adjustment presentation, plans were announced for the impending removal of the 212-foot-tall structure that has towered over Kawameeh Swamp since 1964. An attorney for CX Towers telecommunications company said they were recently informed by the water sphere’s owner, New Jersey American Water, that it would be decommissioned and demolished at a later date. CX Towers will remove equipment from the aging monolith and install a new monopole that will support antennas for T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. It is projected that no loss or disruption of service for those providers’ customers will be experienced during the transition.
It is important to note that the water sphere has always been privately owned and NJAW has had tentative plans to dismantle the dormant and obsolete monolith since 2019. It is equally important to acknowledge that current township leaders and policymakers are under no obligation to or responsible for “rescuing” the landmark.
Having said that, thousands of current and former Union township and county residents feel quite differently, having a strong personal attachment to the silent sentinel that has kept around-the-clock watch over Union for generations. Situated on 23 acres of mostly marshlands that somehow simultaneously borders the Garden State Parkway, Route 22 and Morris Avenue, the water sphere has greeted millions of motorists from around the world for more than 61 years and is a striking visual focal point for weary travelers who are just trying to get home.
The initial general consensus of public reaction to the breaking news was one of sadness, with hundreds taking to social media platforms and Union-themed sites to vent their disappointment, frustration and, in many cases, outright anger regarding the potential loss of yet another proud part of Union’s past. Here’s a random cross-section of what many current and former county residents have had to say about the impending demolition:
Iris Alexis Alvarez: Finally something that I would protest about… Save the tower!
Mike Camb: Absolutely ridiculous! That water sphere is iconic and should be considered a historical landmark. I hope enough people in our town get together and convince our town to try and save this tower from being removed from Union’s history.
Steve Siracusa: My uncle worked on making the water sphere. He was a welder and I will never forget uncle Jim telling us how he welded this.
Frank Verducci: I hope they can at least preserve the top part; maybe move it to a local park for viewing.
Hugo Mills: The younger generation does not seem to have any sentimental view of things that others cherish!
Joan Agosta Constanza: No! No! No!!
Sheila Biank: This makes me so sad.
Debby Coben Knobelman: It probably is structurally unsound and far too expensive to fix at this point.
Darin Venable: Is there anything that we can sign to stop this from happening?
Michael Muscavage: We climbed up inside of it many years ago!
Denise Romeo: Save the tower!
Jason LePee: What a bummer! It always made me very proud to be from Union.
Patricia Murphy Bregen: This is too sad. It’s the end of an icon and feels like the end of an era!
Mariks Hall: Nothing stays the same, I would not like to go back to my childhood hometown to find that everything has changed and feeling like all my memories are all gone.
Darin Venable: We gotta go back to the future and save the tower, Doc!
Harlee Hantman Powanda: Isn’t there any way to stop the demolition? Maybe start a petition?
Mike Paserchia: I grew up in Union back in the 1970s and 1980s. We used to party under that tower and fish off the catwalks for turtles back there. Those were such great times, but this is the last of old Union.
Eileen Matthews Allison: Save the Tower!
Midge Tosun Polloni: The water sphere was how we knew, when we were little, that we were almost home. This is so sad!
Greg Roser: I am all for preserving history, but the water sphere is not exactly a thing of beauty, folks.
Sharon Barker: Is there any way it can be declared a landmark?
Marc Apter: Tearing it down is one thing, but “replacing it” with a large middle finger monopole is just plain insulting!
Gayle Levee Hall: Save the big Union blueball! We need to make and sell T-shirts!!
Helena Roberts Shaver: It’s a part of local history… Leave it alone!
Vivienne Cesaro: Save the tower!
Stephen Oleksy: My uncle helped build that thing and he was a proud Union carpenter!
Karen Dougan Camb: This is awful! Union just isn’t the same anymore and it’s a shame.
At press time, realistic projections by all parties involved point to the water sphere’s demolition process taking several years to actually be implemented and then carried out. To the more sentimental and optimistic among the populace, this large time lag provides any hope of “saving” the tower with a nice, long headstart to mobilize a viable game plan. Is there a probable chance that some sort of grass roots coalition uniting state, county and township power brokers, local historical societies, curious media outlets and fundraising efforts can produce a solution that benefits all parties? Crazier things have happened in the Garden State and much stranger things have been saved for posterity, so any future attempts should not be so easily derided or dismissed.
Ultimately, all the hand-wringing, wishful thinking and warm memories in the world will have little or no effect on creating real change. Matters such as these always seem to come down to two societal forces in unison: Lots of money and positive action. Until then and in the meantime, look to the skies and simply appreciate “The World’s Tallest Water Sphere” while we still can.
Photo by David VanDeventer