Potters was an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and now is neighborhood located within Edison Township in Middlesex County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. In the northern part of the township, Potters was once known as Potters Crossing, and may have been an African-American community as early as the 1800s. Centered around Inman Avenue and Grove Avenue, it is believed that seven upper-middle-class families moved to the village from

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

in 1917. The community grew in the 1920s, with families from the South. By the 1940s, it had more than 1,500 residents and included three churches and a volunteer fire department. As early as 1955, Edison was pushing for a federal housing project to eliminate the slum areas of Potters. The community was dispersed during an

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

projects in the 1960s and 1970s. It was largely and replaced by the James D. Elder Park and two low-income housing development projects: Greenwood Townhouses and Colonial Square Townhouses. The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church was relocated in 1978.

References

Neighborhoods in Edison, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in Middlesex County, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in New Jersey African-American history of New Jersey {{MiddlesexCountyNJ-geo-stub

See also

References