How anyone could claim Mulberry Street has no historical significance is beyond me. Perhaps if you wish to equate the fall of the Industrial Revolution that had its birth in the mid 1800's till its decline near the end of the 20th Century, then indeed Mulberry Street has no historical significance.
If you take pride in a saying upon a bridge that proudly proclaims, "Trenton Makes the World Takes". Then perhaps changing your view of Mulberry Street's significance should be re-examined. The above map illustrates Mulberry Street in 1890. From it one can clearly see that even at that time rubber mills and pottery industries were beginning to develop along the Assunpink Creek.
The grid work where residential housing had all ready taken place was there as early as 1774. Grist Mills were giving way to pottery and china industries. Along with rubber mills that would later fuel Industrial expansion.
A historical fact that can not be denied is that Mulberry Street along with Brunswick and Princeton Pikes provided the framework for future Industrial as well as residential expansion.
For what is Industry without workers? Upon whose sweat and toil was once a source of pride in this State. As Mulberry Street faces its final evolution its ironic perhaps Industry itself with its expansion was a contributing factor in our communities demise.
Perhaps what owner/occupants are experiencing today are remnants of a warning given long ago by President Eienshower upon leaving his office. Not only of the Military Industrial Complex but perhaps of the Industrial Complex as well.
With words like economically infeasible, and not cost effective caused a country that constructed the Panama Canal to be defeated by the lowly Assunpink Creek!
Yet those words of justification mask the impact upon human life. For us those words strip our dignity, who happen to find ourselves confronted by a bureaucracy whose bottom line is cost effectiveness rather than presevring quality of life, the very fabric of America.
