What is this place? An old farm in West Windsor, New Jersey? A prime site for retail or mixed-use development? A not-so-prime site for development? An albatross around the neck of one of the most affluent towns in the state? An environmental juggernaut: too big of a problem to be addressed by the business sector, too small of a problem for the feds to care? Is it a perfect example of the American agrochemical industry in the 20th century? A site with great gothic attraction?
All of the above, of course.
And in the most basic terms, it is a 650-acre parcel of land in West Windsor, at the junction of Rt 1 and Quakerbridge Rd. It was used for much of the last century as a research campus for the American Cyanamid company, where crop treatments and livestock medications were developed and tested. As such, it housed an impressive number of attractions for fans of gothic abandonments:
- A state-of-the-art “swine enclosure”
- A site for detonation of volatile chemicals
- two landfills, one rather more toxic than the other
- A multi-million dollar greenhouse complex built in the 90s, just a few years before the site was abandoned
And that’s just scratching the surface. For the past few years I’ve been desultorily researching the site, and it’s my hope and plan to share some of what I’ve gleaned here.
