Back in October, 1971 after Tropical Storm Doria flooded the Bridgewater area, I snapped this photo, taken with a Polaroid 60-second camera, of Cyanamid to capture the storm's damage in my area. Back then the Cyanamid train station, it can be seen to the left of the bridge, was a simple corrugated structure. Off to that bridge's right was the employee parking lot for the Cyanamid's hourly employees. The salaried employees parking lot was off to the left in that photo. A concrete shelter adjacent to the traffic circle was for employees and served as a bus stop for employees who used public transportation for their daily commute. That water tower seen off to the left in the background advertised Sherwin-Williams paint company location. Their logo of paint spilling out of a can to cover the globe had their slogan "Cover The Globe" and was a prominent landmark in the area.
It is now June 9, 2013 and the Cyanamid plant site is now vacant land in addition to being a faded memory. The Cyanamid corrugated train shelter for passengers is long gone, replaced with a modern facility and regular stop for NJT's Raritan Valley Line trains. That hourly employee parking lot is now the home field TD Bank Ballpark for the Somerset Patriots baseball team. When this image was snapped, the Patriots were losing to the Sugarland Skeeters by a score of 3 to 1 in the third inning. The Patriots would eventually lose this game by a score of 6 to 3. Those solar panels seen in the former salaried lot are part of the 3,465 panels that provide an alternate power source that supplements eighty-eight percent of the electrical consumption at this ballpark. That salaried parking lot is now referred to as the White parking lot and serves both NJT commuters and baseball stadium for parking. Finally the Sherwin Williams tower now has "STS" and stands for Somerset Tire Service, the company which now occupies the former site of the Sherwin-Williams facility.
