Rich Romano Photography

Rich Romano Photography Historian & photographer capturing unique views of New Jersey and the surrounding region. Message me for prints & canvases.

Author of books featured on Amazon and sold at Barnes & Noble, Just Jersey Goods, Batsto Village Museum Shop, and more.

Farms View RoadstandWayne, NJ
06/06/2026

Farms View Roadstand
Wayne, NJ

Sad to learn about the massive fire this week at the old Hudson River Psychiatric Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY. Opened i...
06/05/2026

Sad to learn about the massive fire this week at the old Hudson River Psychiatric Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Opened in 1871, this Gothic-style Kirkbride institution stood for well over a century before closing in the early 2000s.

I was able to capture some aerial footage of the site this winter.

Always watching…
06/04/2026

Always watching…

Teal Door, Brownstone Hudson Street, Hoboken, NJ
06/04/2026

Teal Door, Brownstone
Hudson Street, Hoboken, NJ

Built between 1892 and 1906, the New Croton Dam in Croton-On-Hudson, New York was a monumental engineering project that ...
06/04/2026

Built between 1892 and 1906, the New Croton Dam in Croton-On-Hudson, New York was a monumental engineering project that dramatically expanded New York City’s water supply.

Standing nearly 300 feet above its foundation and creating a reservoir capable of holding 19 billion gallons, it was among the largest masonry dams in the world when completed.

Today, water from the Croton watershed continues to travel more than 20 miles to supply New York City with about 10% of its daily drinking water via the New Croton Aqueduct.

Music Pier’s open-air promenade in Ocean City, New Jersey. Built in 1928 as part of the boardwalk reconstruction followi...
06/03/2026

Music Pier’s open-air promenade in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Built in 1928 as part of the boardwalk reconstruction following the devastating 1927 fire, the Ocean City Music Pier opened in 1929 as a venue for concerts, performances, and community events. Extending over the beach at Moorlyn Terrace, it remains one of the Jersey Shore’s most recognizable landmarks and continues to serve as Ocean City’s cultural centerpiece.

06/02/2026

Built between 1903 and 1907 for railroad heir George Crocker on the former 1,100-acre Darlington estate in Mahwah, NJ, the Crocker-McMillin Mansion is one of New Jersey’s finest surviving Gilded Age estates. Its 75 rooms took up more than 45,000 square feet. After Crocker’s death in 1909, the property was purchased by banker Emerson McMillin, and from 1926 to 1984 it served as the Immaculate Conception Seminary before much of the surrounding land was developed into the Rio Vista community.

The house was restored in 2008 by Illija Pavlovic of Christies’s International, and is currently vacant, and on the market for a cool $19 million.

Snake Hill, officially renamed Laurel Hill in 1926, is a 200-million-year-old volcanic rock formation rising from the Me...
06/02/2026

Snake Hill, officially renamed Laurel Hill in 1926, is a 200-million-year-old volcanic rock formation rising from the Meadowlands in Secaucus, New Jersey. Beginning in 1855, it housed Hudson County’s poorhouse, penitentiary, hospital, tuberculosis sanatorium, and notorious lunatic asylum, while thousands of prisoners, patients, and indigent residents were buried in a large potter’s field at its base.

The hill was also an active quarry, where inmate labor helped extract trap rock used throughout the New York metropolitan area. Decades of blasting removed roughly half of the original formation, and thousands of graves were relocated during NJ Turnpike construction in the 1950s. The institutions closed in 1962, and most buildings were demolished over the following two decades, leaving behind one of New Jersey’s most haunting historic landscapes.

I enhanced this 1910-era photo found on roadspoke.co to convey the sprawling complex in its heyday.

Built between 1903 and 1907 for railroad heir George Crocker on the former 1,100-acre Darlington estate in Mahwah, NJ, t...
05/31/2026

Built between 1903 and 1907 for railroad heir George Crocker on the former 1,100-acre Darlington estate in Mahwah, NJ, the Crocker-McMillin Mansion is one of New Jersey’s finest surviving Gilded Age estates. Its 75 rooms took up more than 45,000 square feet. After Crocker’s death in 1909, the property was purchased by banker Emerson McMillin, and from 1926 to 1984 it served as the Immaculate Conception Seminary before much of the surrounding land was developed into the Rio Vista community.

Following decades of vacancy, it was purchased in 2008 by Illija Pavlovic (of Christie’s International) who made major improvements and restorations to the original woodwork and all 475 windows. Pavlovic sold it to Chinese businessman and political exile Guo Wengui for $26 million in 2021, who filled it with ultra-luxury contemporary furnishings and modern art, creating a striking contrast with the original Jacobean and late gothic woodwork.

After Guo’s 2023 arrest on federal fraud charges, the property was seized and remains part of ongoing bankruptcy and asset-recovery proceedings, standing today on just 12.5 acres of its original 1,100-acre estate. It’s currently listed on Zillow for $19 million.

The boat & the mirror…
05/31/2026

The boat & the mirror…

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Wayne, NJ

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