I ate at Charlie Brown’s while it was there for 25 years, and I never felt a connection with Elizabeth Cady Stanton while eating there.
So said Mayor Peter Rustin of Tenafly, NJ, whom I knew quite well during the 21 years that I lived in this town. Pete’s statement applies to me too: I had no clue about the historic significance of this meat-and-potatoes place, site of many Rosenbaum family dinners.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
Now, almost too late, we’ve learned that this building was “the polling location where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony attempted to cast votes during the suffrage movement of the late 19th century,” as reported by Deena Yellin of the North Jersey Record:
Constructed in 1870 as the Valley Hotel, the cream colored building housed a polling site where Stanton and Anthony attempted to vote in 1880, when women were not allowed to do. The pair were turned away by poll workers, but their political statement reverberated well beyond Tenafly and made history.
Who knew? I had always been well aware of the house where Stanton had lived from 1868-87. But I had never known, during my time in Tenafly, about Charlie Brown’s illustrious past. Now, according to Yellin’s report, what should have been preserved as a feminist touchstone “will likely be demolished to make way for a daycare center that was approved by the planning board” last week.
Is there still time to save it for a more historically resonant purpose, at a time when our country entertains the plausible prospect of electing its first woman President?
I called Borough Hall today about the status of the property and was told that Tenafly had not yet seen a deed transferring ownership.
As of last Friday, when I roamed my former hometown, there was still an “Available” sign in front of the polling place where Stanton and Anthony made their gutsy stand:
I called that number this morning and left a message, but have not yet received a reply. The prospective new owners reportedly will install a plaque on the property, referring to its historic significance. That belated compensation for the borough’s and former property owner’s omission will not begin to compensate for destroying the physical evidence of Tenafly’s place in the struggle for women’s rights.
With the recent release of the Carey Mulligan/Meryl Streep “Suffragette” movie, the campaign for women’s political equality is back in the public consciousness. Our foremothers deserve better than the obliteration of what should be (but isn’t) a designated historic landmark.
Are there any CultureGrrl readers who are feminist activists with the ability to take on this issue? You’d have to succeed where two vocal opponents of the building’s destruction—veteran State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (better known for standing up to Chris Christie) and Stanton’s great-great granddaughter, Coline Jenkins, have tried and failed.
(One more vestige of sexual discrimination: My blog’s spellcheck countenances “forefathers,” but not “foremothers”!)