Newton Depot Painted
Well! Well! If our long standing appeal
for a new railroad station hasn't been granted at last. That is, it
has been partially granted. The old, familiar lines of its early New
Jersey Renaissance architecture have not been altered, but there has
been a radical change in the color scheme. For more than forty years
the cheerful, red brick countenance of our "deepo" welcomed the arriving
traveler and sped the departing guest.
Now a force of painters have transformed
its appearance by applying a covering of dull drab or gray. We know
not why the railroad people decided on this change. Perhaps they had
a lot of paint of this shade on hand and didn't know what else to
do with it or maybe they desired to match the feed house on the other
side of the tracks. Possibly they wanted it to harmonize with the
new concrete highway that will terminate at this structure and to
which the Lackawanna Co. so generously contributed.
It may be said in parenthesis that you
hear an occasional muttered grumble to the effect that a corporation
which can afford to splash paint around so lavishly might dig up a
few dollars to build a shed between the station and the water tank
for the protection of passengers in stormy weather. But what is utility
compared with art.
Anyway the change has been made and
we all feel in duty bound to call it an improvement whether we think
so or not. At least we can console ourselves with the fact that we
are better provided with a "dee-po" than Andover, Branchville, Monroe
or Franklin.