ORANGE - Orange Council President Edward Marable, Jr. and city Planning Director Valerie Jackson will discuss the demolition of the Dr. Walter G. Alexander Homes Complex next week at a community meeting.
The Orange Housing Authority will host the public session at 6 p.m. at Oakwood Avenue Elementary School.
Jackson will unveil details on how the affordable housing high rise building will be demolished and what will replace it.
During the March 2 to 3 city council meeting, Jackson said she was looking to integrate housing, open space and possibly a playground with the elementary school and several other adjacent active or vacant houses and lots.
The plan may parallel or reflect the Orange Commons townhouses that replaced the Father Acursio Rasi Homes. Both the Rasi and Alexander homes were built simultaneously in the early 1950s to address poor housing conditions among contemporary Italian and African-American residents.
The Alexander homes were named to honor Dr. Walter Gilbert Alexander, an Orange physician who became the first African American elected to the NewJersey General Assembly in 1920.
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