Council Authorizes Grant Application For Surveyor General’s Office Rehab

(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Sept. 29, 2010)

PERTH AMBOY — The City Council voted last week to authorize submission of a
$110,635 grant application to the N.J. Historic Preservation Trust for rehabilitation and conversion of the Surveyor General’s Office, adjacent to City Hall, High Street, into an archaeological museum, and to authorize execution of contract documents if the city is awarded a grant. The Resolution was moved as a late-starter by Councilman Kenneth Gonzalez,seconded by Councilman William Petrick and adopted 4-0. The Resolution was moved by Petrick, seconded by Gonzalez and adopted 4-0. Council President
Kenneth Balut was absent. At the request of Mayor Wilda Diaz, Historic Preservation Commission
Chairman William Pavlovsky has prepared “A Proposal for Conversion to an
Historic & Archaeological Museum of the City of Perth Amboy,” which will form the
basis of the grant application. Pavlovsky, a former City Historian, discussed his proposal briefly at the
Commission’s August meeting. The Surveyor General’s Office was turned-over to the city in 1998 after the
East Jersey Board of Proprietors dissolved itself following 313 years of corporate existence.
Pavlovsky is proposing that two collections of Perth Amboy artifacts, totalling well-over 10,000 pieces, be exhibited within the two-room building, which would make it only the second public artifact gallery in the U.S.