I often wonder just how much incredibly important historic material has been thrown into the re-cycle bin by those who do not understand the importance of historic preservation. I recall years ago when the Trenton Police were moving out of the Second Precinct building on South Broad Street. Untold historic treasures were flying out of the upper story windows and into a recycling receptacle below. Undoubtedly there were documents and photos in that project that should not be available to the public for obvious reasons. On the other hand, there was probably very valuable historic material dropping into that huge recycle bucket 3 stories below. The extract above is a glaring example of history being destroyed. Were it not for then Trenton Library Director Robert Coumbe, those tax photos would have been recycled and lost to posterity. Above is a photo from the Trenton tax office collection of various Trenton locations. The originals all had hand written identification information scrawled across the bottom of each photo which I have removed. Unfortunately, many of these tax photos were taken hastily with little attention being paid to focusing the camera on the subject.
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